The Complete Choral Cycles

Reviews

Portland's Finest on CD
The Oregonian     December 30th, 1994
   Don't let the remoteness of the recorded sound put you off. This is some of the finest contemporary choral music around, sung by a superb choir.
   The three cycles here run the range from passionate to prayerful and center on the themes of winter (dying/rejuvenation), fire (love/passion) and roses. The cycles are called "Mid-Winter Songs," on texts by the English poet Robert Graves (1895-1985); Madrigali "Fire Songs" on Italian Renaissance Poems; and "Les Chansons des Roses" on poems by Rainer Maria Rilke.
   Lauridsen, an Oregon-born composer, chairs the composition department at the University of Southern California and has that rare ability to write contemporary choral music that you want to hear again.
   The texture is lush, the rhythms varied, but it's the music's emotional content that makes you catch your breath. Listen to the drama of the first song, "Lament for Pasipha‘," then cut to a song such as "Contre Qui, Rose," a mesmerizing nocturne built on a series of melodic suspensions that ache to resolve.
   Conductor Bruce Browne shapes the vocal blend, the attacks and cutoffs, the word-painting and the tonal colors, like a master. Inspiration takes care of the rest.
   Pianist Carol Rich goes beyond choral accompanist to become another "voice" in the texture.

Morten Lauridsen:  The Complete Choral Cycles
Choral Journal     August, 1997
   For those of us who have dipped our toes into the water of Lauridsen's setting of O Magnum Mysterium (recorded by Paul Salamunovich and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Christmas,RCM 19605, and published by Peer-Southern, 01-098779-121) and are inspired to jump in the deep end, this CD will push you off the high board with its "perfect 10" of execution and artistry. This twenty-five-voice ensemble was recorded in McReady Hall at Pacific University, Forest Grove, Oregon. While the room does not stand in the way of the ensemble's excellent forward sound, I suspect it might be unforgiving to any missteps. Happily, there are none.
   Lauridsen originally scored the five Mid-Winter Songs on poems by Robert Graves for chorus and piano (here sensitively played by Carol Rich) and later orchestrated the set. Lauridsen's harmonies are tonally straightforward (often a common chord dressed up with one nonchord tone). The arch form of the collection complements the textual paradoxes of light and darkness, sleeping and waking, and dying and rebirth.
   In the Madrigali: Six "Fire-Songs" on Renaissance Italian Poems, the music, while challenging, is not threatening. All six madrigal texts share the imagery of ardor-fueled flames. Lauridsen uses a variety of devices such as bitonality, whispering, and portamento to capture the effect of the madrigalian poetry.
   Choral Cross-Ties commissioned and premiered Les Chansons des Roses in 1993, with highlight performances at Carnegie Hall and the Third World Choral Symposium in Vancouver. Once again, Lauridsen reveals an acute ear for setting languages. He shares this multilingual affinity with the cycle's poet Rilke. "Contre qui, rose" and "La rose complete" will remind listeners harmonically of Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium. The skillful transition into the one accompanied piece, "Dirait-on," is a testament to the skill and artistry of Choral Cross-Ties. Viewed separately, this last piece may well be the most accessible of the set as Lauridsen likens it to a "'chanson populaire' or folksong" in the score's preface. It is hard to imagine a more compelling endorsement for these pieces than that which Browne and his singers provide in this recording.

mortenlauridsen.com