James MacMillan - Symphony No. 5; The Sun Danced (Harry Christophers)

Information

Composer: James MacMillan

1. The Sun Danced
2. Symphony No. 5, 'Le grand Inconnu': I. Ruah
3. Symphony No. 5, 'Le grand Inconnu': II. Zao
4. Symphony No. 5, 'Le grand Inconnu': III. Igne vel igne

Mary Bevan, soprano (1)

The Sixteen & Genesis Sixteen

Britten Sinfonia

Harry Christophers, conductor

Date: 2020

Label: Coro

https://thesixteenshop.com/products/james-macmillan-symphony-no-5-le-grand-inconnu-the-sun-danced

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Review

Recorded live (free of audience sound) at the Barbican in London last October, after its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival, James MacMillan’s latest symphony, the choral Symphony No. 5, is here paired with his 2016 work, The Sun Danced. Named Le Grand Inconnu after a French phrase for the Holy Spirit, the Symphony ranges from the literal and earthy – the sound of breath exhaled from the body opens the first movement – to intensely orchestrated expressions of religiosity.

Split into three movements exploring facets of the Holy Spirit, the work is divided chorally at times into up to 20 parts, sung immaculately, with both meditative ecstasy and intense power, by The Sixteen and their emerging counterparts, Genesis Sixteen. The first movement ‘Ruah’ (Hebrew for breath or wind), opens with expansive, intimate breathing and closes in a huge brass climax, before ‘Zao’’s fluid, meditative harps and flutes pick up the thread, the movement of water. ‘Igne del Igne’ finishes the work in fire. The Sixteen are the consummate echo chamber for this intense mix of praise, awe and wonderment.

Preceding it is MacMillan’s The Sun Danced. Commissioned by the Shrine of Fatima in Portugal to celebrate the Centennial of the Miracle of the Sun on 13 October 1917, this choral work is by turns quiet, ecstatic, and filled with divine urgency. Soprano Mary Bevan is the impassioned soloist, narrative and declamatory, the whole filled with MacMillan’s mastery of the pull between the numinous and a very visceral experience of the divine. This is the orchestration of belief, immaculately played by the Britten Sinfonia and The Sixteen under Harry Christophers.

-- Sarah Urwin Jones, BBC Music Magazine

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2020/Apr/MacMillan_sy5_COR16179.htm

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2020/Jun/MacMillan_sy5_COR16179.htm

https://www.classicalsource.com/cd/macmillan-symphony-no-5-le-grand-inconnu/

https://www.ft.com/content/03cff078-74ef-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca

https://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/reviews/james-macmillan-symphony-no-5-the-sun-danced-harry-christophers/

https://www.allmusic.com/album/james-macmillan-symphony-no-5-le-gran-inconnu-the-sun-danced-mw0003361083

https://www.amazon.com/James-MacMillan-Symphony-Inconnu-Danced/dp/B084ZV6N1B

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James MacMillan (born 16 July 1959) is a Scottish classical composer and conductor. He studied composition at the University of Edinburgh with Rita McAllister and Kenneth Leighton, and at Durham University with John Casken. MacMillan came to the attention of the classical establishment with the BBC Scottish SO's premiere of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie at the Proms in 1990. Further successes have included his second opera The Sacrifice and the St John Passion. MacMillan's music is infused with the spiritual and the political. His Roman Catholic faith has inspired many of his sacred works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_MacMillan

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Harry Christophers (born 26 December 1953 in Goudhurst, Kent) is an English conductor. Christophers founded the vocal ensemble The Sixteen in 1979. He has directed The Sixteen and its orchestra throughout Europe, America and the Far East, becoming recognised for his work in Renaissance, Baroque and 20th-century music. With The Sixteen he has conducted recordings for CORO (The Sixteen's own label) and other labels including Hyperion Records, UCJ and Virgin Classics. Since 2009, Christophers has been the Artistic Director of the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Christophers

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