ClassicsOnline Home » BLAKE, H.: Passion of Mary (The) / 4 Songs of the Nativity (London Voices, Royal Philharmonic, Blake) > Review List



BLAKE, H.: Passion of Mary (The) / 4 Songs of the Nativity (London Voices, Royal Philharmonic, Blake)

Composer(s):Blake, Howard
Artist(s)
Period(s) Contemporary
Genre Classical Music
Category Choral - Sacred
Catalogue 8.572453
Label Naxos
Quality   320kbps
Album Price
 
CD
USD 9.99
 

 
MP3
USD 6.99
 

 


Howard Blake is a popular and prolific composer whose output includes film scores (not least the extraordinarily successful The Snowman), choral, orchestral and instrumental works, ballets and opera. This disc presents the world première recordings of Four Songs of the Nativity, commissioned by The Book Club for The Bach Choir and London Brass, and Blake’s second dramatic oratorio, The Passion of Mary, commissioned by The Summer Music Society of Dorset in association with South West Arts. ‘The Passion of Mary draws together the Stabat Mater, the Magnificat, the Salve Regina and other Marian and Nativity texts with the wisdom of a Berlioz. The outcome is a splendid, highly accessible choral work.’

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Review By John Quinn,MusicWeb International,January 2013

…in the shape of The Passion of Mary, we have a fine addition to the English choral repertoire. The music is accessible…and, as such ought to have audience appeal.

Blake’s idea is an original one, which is something else that appeals to me…we have here…a work that tells the story of the life and death of Christ from the standpoint of his mother, Mary. I don’t know of any other piece of music that does this and I think it’s a highly imaginative concept…Blake carries out his concept extremely successfully: the design of the work is strong, as is the music to which he carries out the design.

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Review By Bob Briggs,MusicWeb International,December 2010

The story of the Passion told from Mary’s point of view in ecstatic music of great beauty and originality. Blake is one of this country’s unsung musical heroes. On the strength of this, he won’t be for much longer.



Review By Philip Greenfield,American Record Guide,November 2010

Some of our British colleagues are extolling this Passion of Mary by Howard Blake (b 1938) as a seismic choral event and are using some pretty high flown language to do it. Sigh. It is an interesting and rewarding attempt to visualize the life of Jesus through the eyes of his mother, set for soloists, choir, and an orchestra heavy on strings and brass. The cantata fastforwards through scripture in four sections: nativity through childhood, temptation through the crucifixion, a ‘Stabat Mater’, and a ringing ‘Salve Regina’ to crown the Marian theme in triumph.

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Review By ,Gapplegate Music Review,May 2010

I first came upon the music of Howard Blake via the soundtrack to the memorable animated film The Snowman. In particular the main theme as sung by boy treble with orchestra really captivated. It was a little like a cross between The Moody Blues’s Days of Future Passed and middle-period Keith Jarrett. Hearing it still gives me goose bumps.

So when I saw this new Naxos release of Blake in a more “serious” concert choral zone, I jumped on the chance to hear and review it.

Blake seems like a natural when it comes to vocal-orchestral expression. Everything he writes in these two works (The Passions of Mary; Four Songs of the Nativity) seems to lay out in a kind of idiomatic near-perfection.

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Review By Bob Briggs,MusicWeb International,May 2010








 

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