Early American Choral Music, Vol. 1
November 14th, 2009 by admin
Amazon.com
William Billings (1746-1800) was one of the first important composers born in America. A leather tanner by trade who taught himself composition, Billings left behind some lovely, unique music that contains early indications of American musical independence. It often doesn’t sound like European models. Today, Billings’s music survives mostly in Southern shape-note singing, with its exciting raw tone and rhythmic vitality. But as Paul Hillier’s selection demonstrates, Billings… More >>
Early American Choral Music, Vol. 1
Tags:American,Choral,Early,Music,Vol.
Tags: 
An enjoyable choir cd, relaxing, and at the same time you feel like you’re listening to a piece of American history. I often use this to help me drift into sleep.
Rating: 5 / 5
After several years of singing in a church choir, I got exposed to many, many different styles of choral music. We sang modern versions of some of these songs, which were really nice. This, however, was a spectacular opportunity to hear the same music more closely to the original composition. If you enjoy choral music, this should be at least interesting to you. The performances are all a capella, lending more of a “not modern mass consumption” feel. Of course, I love a capella, so I might be a bit biased there.
Much of it is powerful. All of it is well done. The text is easily understandable – it isn’t sung for some ‘artistic complexity’, like opera (where it sounds nice, but can’t really understand what they’re singing). If you are interested because of its source material (traditional Christian), you will find it pleasant, if for no other reason than to hear a different version of music you’re probably familiar with: e.g. The Lord is Risen Indeed; the Rose of Sharon.
Haven’t heard v.2, so can’t compare it.
Definately worth the price (well, the price I’m looking at today).
Rating: 4 / 5
I ended up ordering this CD, as well as Vol. 2, and “Make A Joyful Noise: American Psalmody.” I thought the quality was excellent on all three, but I wanted to say that if you’re not sure how well you like this kind of music, I would recommend the American Psalmody CD instead of the two CD set. I found myself enjoying the music very much at first, but quickly losing interest as it all began to sound alike to me.
Rating: 5 / 5
Since buying this a week or so ago, it has rarely left my CD player, and is equally pleasurable at the start or end of the day. The performances are energetic and moving, and make me long for my former days with a cathedral choir, when #16 was one of our favorites. With each hearing, I find more to delight me. (While I agree that the diction is good enough that lyrics on the liner notes aren’t strictly necessary, they would have been a nice addition.)
Rating: 3 / 5
I am fairly new to this series, but I now own 3 cds in this series: Anna Mag. Bach Book, Festive barouque christmas and now this one. I have been looking for a cd with this kind of music, and now my search is done. I enjoy this cd very much, but the only down side is that this cd is too short.
Rating: 5 / 5