Amanda McBroom: A Timeless Thing
FineDisc FD 001
Format: CD

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Amanda McBroom is remembered as the author of "The Rose," a song made famous by Bette Midler in the film of the same title, although it was better sung in McBroom’s own recording. She has continued to write good songs and to be a viable performer, making two excellent albums at the end of the last century: A Waiting Heart and Portraits, remastered tracks from both of which are featured on A Timeless Thing. A little over half the songs are by McBroom herself; the other composers represented range from Hoagy Carmichael ("Baltimore Oriole") to John Bucchino ("Grateful"). McBroom’s songs about love and living can be quite simple and disarming, as in the heartbreaking yet life-affirming "From Where I Stand," about the breakup of a love affair: "I was standing in your shadow / Now I’m standing in your way." These two simple lines speak volumes. McBroom’s wonderful voice is superbly controlled, warm, and earthy, and the remastered sound reproduces it perfectly. If you haven’t heard this gifted singer-songwriter, this audiophile CD is a good place to start....Rad Bennett

Mozart: Vesperae solennes de confessore, K.339; Missa solemnis, K.337; Regina coeli, K.276
Cornelia Samuels, soprano; Ursula Eittinger, alto; Benoit Haller, tenor; Markus Flaig, bass; Cologne Chamber Choir, Collegium Cartusianum; Peter Neumann, conductor.
MDG 932 1436
Format: Hybrid Multichannel SACD

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There are least a half dozen recordings of Mozart’s Requiem out on SACD or DVD-Audio. But the composer wrote a lot of other choral music. A tip of the hat, then, to MDG, if only for having recorded superb compositions not previously available in high-resolution sound. The congrats do not end there, however; this is a superb SACD. The performances are energetic, polished, lyrical, and dramatic. The chorus enunciates with such clarity that it is easy to understand the text. And the recorded sound is big. These sessions were recorded close up in Trinitatiskirche, which is apparently very resonant. There’s a lot of sound bouncing off the side and rear walls, but it seems natural for the location. The singers and instruments are perfectly balanced and the sound is very clear. Thanks to crisp articulation from the performers and an expert engineering job by Werner Dabringhaus, it’s possible to hear underpinning brass and timpani interjections without having them obliterate or muddy the sound of the chorus. I liked this recording enough that I would be up for an ongoing series of Mozart’s choral works from the same forces....Rad Bennett

Brahms: Academic Festival Overture, Alto Rhapsody, Variations on a Theme by Haydn
Yvonne Naef, alto; Male Chorus of the Netherlands Radio Choir; Netherlands Radio Symphony; Hans Vonk, conductor.
Pentatone 5186 045
Format: Hybrid Multichannel SACD

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Pentatone is fully committed to SACD, but makes all of its releases hybrid so they can also be played on regular CD and DVD players. These recordings, made in 2003, were part of a projected Brahms cycle led by Hans Vonk. But with the conductor’s death, in 2004, this SACD has instead become a memorial to Vonk, and a grand one it is. These are Brahms performances second to none. Vonk finds exactly the right tempo and pulse for each work, and his orchestra plays with gorgeous tone. Alto Yvonne Naef’s rich, dusky voice is just right for the Alto Rhapsody, and the male choir matches her in spirit and style. The recording is big, bold, and close up, the kind of job many of us used to love from Decca/London’s Kenneth E. Wilkinson, who also died in 2004. One has to wonder if session producer Job Maarse might not be a fan of his English predecessor....Rad Bennett

Great Big Sea: The Hard and the Easy
Zoe 01143-1080-2
Format: CD/DVD

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Great Big Sea plays and writes music strongly based in the folk songs of its native Newfoundland. Because those songs have a marked Celtic lineage, it would be easy to call the group Canada’s answer to the Pogues, but that would be both unfair and inaccurate. Though Great Big Sea shares with the British band a mastery of folk-music traditions, they have their own sound, and The Hard and the Easy is definitive evidence of a mastery of their own. Great Big Sea usually mixes original songs with traditional material, but this time around they play tunes that have floated around Newfoundland for a century or more. Some of these are tragic, some comic, some shameless in their sentimentality, but all are sung with tremendous energy and played with passion, affection, and remarkable craftsmanship and precision. The sound is spectacular -- the sort of liveliness and three-dimensionality that justify having good sound gear. A bonus DVD contains a very entertaining documentary about the making of the album. Despite Great Big Sea’s respect for these tunes, The Hard and the Easy never sounds like a museum piece or folk pedantry. It is joyous music, joyously played....Joseph Taylor

David Elias: Crossing
Son-Ma SSP 1661
Format: Hybrid Multichannel SACD

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Several tunes on Crossing might stay in your head for days after you’ve heard them a few times, but you might find yourself humming rather than singing -- most of David Elias’s lyrics are abstract or cryptic, hard to get a handle on -- self-expression supersedes communication. Yet the performing is down to earth, and of the long list of musicians, few plugged in. This is mostly acoustic music, led by Elias’s crisp guitar picking and clear, unpretentious singing. Along with releases by Talking Heads and Dire Straits, Crossing is one of five nominees for the 2005 Surround Music Award. An earlier Elias album, David Elias & Xing, whose 11 tracks include five of Crossing’s tunes, was not recorded in surround but does feature the same upright bass player and obviously strives for Crossing’s clean acoustic sound....David Cantor