| December 2006As the years go by
and more CDs, SACDs, and DVD-As have been added to the holiday shelf, it has become harder
to come up with anything fresh and new for the season. This disc covers a genre that has
not been over represented, Orthodox Church music for unaccompanied choir from the 19th
century, with a few 20th-century throwbacks included for good measure. Since many of the
melodies are taken from folk music, they often sound familiar even when they actually are
not. There are only two carols here that can be considered well known: the Ukrainian New
Year’s carol, "A Song of Good Cheer," most often called "The Bell
Carol" in the US; and Tchaikovsky’s "The Legend." The melody for the
latter served the Romantic-period Russian composer Antony Arensky as a main theme for his
charming Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky.
The performances are polished and full of energy. When
singing quiet passages, the chorus members create a remarkable sense of expectancy. Pitch
is no problem for the 27 chorus members. Their tone is rich and the basses have that dark
sound one only finds in choruses of Eastern Europe and Russia, the basso profundo.
The recorded sound is warm and glowing, close but not too close. The stereo CD and SACD
tracks are excellent, but the SACD multichannel mix adds welcome presence and space to the
sound without actually altering it. The disc opens and closes with bell ringing from St.
Alexander Cathedral, which sounds especially beautiful in spacious 5.1-channel sound.
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A New Joy - Orthodox Christmas
