Motets

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In Medieval music, motets are quite different: often written in two or more languages, usually with wildly divergent secular and sacred texts.

Composers:

• Ave Verum Corpus: Motets & Anthems
  from Collegium.

• 6 Motets Bwv 225-230
  from Arts Music.

• Allegri: Miserere; Palestrina / Willcocks, Kings College Choir
  from Polygram Records.
  There are many different versions/recordings of the Allegri available depending on the manuscript source and the embellishment/performance practise employed. The English version recorded here with the high leaps is certainly the most famous however. I have often wondered why Allegri wrote little...

• Magnificat
  from Atlantic.
  This is one of my first two DVD-audio discs. Some tracks are recorded from the audience perspective, with the choir across the front and cathedral ambience all around, and those are beautiful, but I gotta say I love the, "choir-around the room" recordings a little more. Track 3 in particular has the...

• Maurice Duruflé: Requiem/Quatre Motets
  from Hyperion.
  I have to say. I'm 22 years old and I've owned this cd for about 2 in a half years. This is still by far the most special and the most touching CD I have ever owned and listened to. A few nights ago, I listened to it and by the time it was at the end of the Agnus Dei, I was just in tears. Its a very...

• Josquin Desprez: Motets & Chansons
  from Virgin Records.
  I found this to be a wonderful recording from the Hilliard Ensemble. Everything was perfect except for some spanish pronounciation.

• The Greatest Choral Music of Palestrina: Prince of Music
  from Delos Records.
  Folks, I'm a long-time fan of the Ascension Choir, but Palestrina has always been at the top of my list of "Most Overrated Composers of All Time" (along with the 20th-Century's greatest ..., Igor Stravinsky) - until I broke down & bought Dennis Keene's exquisitely prepared "Prince of Music" CD....

• ach: Motets BWV 225-231, Cantatas
  from Elektra/Asylum.
  If you love J.S. Bach, if you love choir music, this double CD is an essential purchase. Get a taste, try "Komm, Jesu, Komm". It's built in several parts; each takes you to a higher level, and after the sequence ("du bist der rechte Weg...") which gets me high each time I hear it, the motet ends...

• Desprez-Palestrina Motets/Masses
  from Ent. Media Partners.

• Gregorian Christmas-Chants And Motets
  from Delta.
  Beautiful musical rendition of Christmas music. Soothing and lilting, it'll help you get centered or reconnected or whatever it is you need for stress relief. A fantastic CD at a great price!

• Holst, Vaughan Williams: Choral Music
  from Chandos.

• Images of Christ
  from Collegium.
  This collection of music from the last thousand years is masterful from start to finish. From well-known mainstays of choral repertoire such as Lotti's "Crucifixus" and Casals' "O Vos Omnes" to the more seldom heard pieces, such as Rachmaninov's setting of the Beatitudes, the listener is treated to...

• Moyen Age; A Medieval Journey
  from Harmonia Mundi Franc.
  I have quite a number of CDs with Medieval Age polyphony, byzantine chant and renaissance music, but this collection goes beyond what could usually be expected from such boxsets. I'd highly recommend it to all.

• Poulenc: CHORAL MUSIC
  from Asv Living Era.

• Faure, Durufle and Messiaen
  from Conifer.
  I have worked with the choir and every CD I have listened to has left me breathless and this CD is no exception. The blend and tone of the voices are second to none. I believe Faure would be impressed with the performance.

• Maurice Duruflé: Sacred Choral and Organ Works Volume 1
  from Naxos.

• Bruckner Motets
  from Hyperion.
  This is an amazing CD. I listen to it in the dark with the phone ringer off so that I don't miss a moment of it. The Corydon Singers are perfect in pitch, blend, and expression. The final track, Christus factus est pro nobis, is especially moving. It makes you weep in despair and rejoice in triumph....

• Palestrina: Missa Pro Defunctis/Motets
  from Elektra/Asylum.
  What a beautiful and ethereal quality CD. It is great as background music when reading or as a meditation source. Excellent.

• Durufle, Faure and Poulenc
  from Polygram Records.
  Both Duruflé and Fauré wrote their Requiems for choir and organ first. The orchestrations were afterthoughts bending to the excesses of public appeal and publishers demands. Both works can be wonderful with orchestra and on this CD you will find, as usual with St. Martin in the Fields, a beautiful...