John Rutter conducts the Bach Choir and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in what is surely the finest new recoding of Christmas carols this year. Rutter is a composer, conductor and arranger and he brings all of that to these high holiday gems. Most of the carols are very well known, though in the arrangements of Rutter they sound completely fresh. There are some new carols here - Rutter's own 'Riu Riu Chiu' (the sounds a nightingale makes) and 'The Colours of Christmas' - and some new approaches to old ones. The main factor that makes this such a perfect selection of holiday music is the free intermixing of religious carols with contemporary Christmas songs.

Founded in 1958 as the Bach and Madrigal Society, the Choir originally focused on Renaissance and baroque period music, but today is equally dedicated to the creation and performance of new music. They are conducted by Charles Bruffy, one of the most highly respected choral conductors in the US. The CD features 23 songs, beginning with 7 cuts from Matthew Harris' 'Shakespeare Songs,' and 5 'Songs of Ariel from Shakespeare's 'The Tempest.' Steven Sametz' lovely 'When He Shall Die,' Jaakko Mantyjarvi's 'Four Shakespeare Songs,' Nils Lindberg's minor-key 'Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day,' Dominick Argento's 'Sonnet No. LXIV,' Alan Murray's 'O mistress mine,' and the CD finishes strong with Ralph Vaughan Williams' 'Three Shakespeare Songs.' The Choir beautifully takes us into the drama, moodiness, pathos, romance and celebration of these songs, most of which are new to our ears. A worthy project, and a winning CD for Bruffy and his talented Phoenix Bach Choir! Extensive, colorful liner notes.

Finnish composer Jaakko Mantyjarvi (b. 1963) writes some of today's more innovative choral music. It's not only creatively interesting but it also maintains the qualities of tonal/harmonic accessibility and text-centered immediacy that allows it to register with a broad spectrum of listeners. His collections of Shakespeare Songs, More Shakespeare Songs, and No More Shakespeare Songs show a composer at once in love with his subject and fully in tune with his audience - and one clearly in possession of a sense of humor! On this recording we hear a profoundly serious work, in memory of the victims of a terrible Baltic Sea tragedy in September, 1994, in which the luxury ferry Estonia sank in a storm, killing 852 passengers. Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae incorporates elements of Psalm 107 ('They that go down to the sea in ships...') with news accounts of the disaster (taken from a Latin-language Finnish radio broadcast), employing dramatic, rich-textured choral utterances (including the whispered prayers of the opening and closing bars) along with chant-inspired passages and an occasional folk-song-like melody, all of which culminates in an extended passage of beautiful and often surprising harmonies, ideally defining the text at the end of the Psalm: 'He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still...' This is a moving and memorable work, one that these choirs perform with care and confidence under Charles Bruffy's artful direction. Frank Martin's Mass for double choir has been recorded many times--and mostly very well--and this is another fine rendition of a work that seems to register its 'classic' credentials more impressively every time you hear it. Rene Clausen's In pace, cut from the same vibrant-colored harmonic cloth as the Ticheli, is another work that deserves repertoire status, and again, Bruffy's singers perfectly capture its nuances of texture and dynamics and give full measure to the big sonorities. The complementary acoustics of Camelback Bible Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona, expertly recorded for this hybrid SACD, complete a program that should have strong appeal to all choral music fans.

The Phoenix Bach Choir four years ago premiered Milagros de Navidad, a Christmas cycle for choir as a way of marking the holiday season in a Southwestern accent. In this recording, the choir has made Milagros the lead item in a superbly produced and packaged yuletide CD from an emerging Arizona label, Soundset. Jon Washburn conducts the ensemble of Frank Koonce, guitar; Mark Sunkett, percussion; and the choir with select soloists. In this sonically clean and vibrant recording, Milagros is a compendium of yuletide songs lovingly sung in Spanish and English, with running commentary from guitarist Koonce. Robert Tree Cody, on Native American Flute (the instrument of choice this season, it seems), is also heard here, in Washburn's own Noel Sing We, a kind of American Indian-haunted holiday landscape.

The Grechaninov 'Passion Week' is a setting of thirteen pieces with texts in Church Slavonic meant to be sung individually over the period of Passion Week, the days leading up to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. The Russian Orthodox Church has a tradition of morning and evening services during Passion Week when the passion week's events are recalled almost in 'real time.' The music itself is generally slow, meditative, largely monophonic and almost trance-like. One notices that the usual number of singers in these two choirs has been supplemented by several additional basses, no surprise considering the long legato lines required of that section. Their low C's and even B's resound like the tolling of great bells throughout the work. One could almost surmise, if one didn't know, that this was the singing of a Russian choir, so noted for their deep basses, except that the blending and rounding of the choral tone is so very much more subtle than is generally heard from Russian choruses. The work is entirely a cappella and there are occasional soprano, tenor and baritone solos which consist mostly of chants sung against the main body of massed sound.

'The massed forces of the Phoenix Bach Choir and Kansas City Chorale 'make a formidable choral machine' (BBC Music Magazine) and the choirs under the baton of Charles Bruffy here present a collection of unaccompanied sacred choral works by Josef Rheinberger. The disc includes the only available recordings of his Oster-Hymne for double chorus and Four Six-part Motets, op.133. The Oster-Hymne is a setting of two ancient Easter texts, particularly the famous sequence Victimae paschali laudes. During his lifetime, Rheinberger was lauded as a talented performer, prolific composer and masterful teacher. He observed that his primary consideration in music 'is that it shall be beautiful; music that does not sound beautiful has no attraction for me'.