You are here: Home / Playlists / Orpheus Records Returns!

Orpheus Records Returns!

Program: #22-52   Air Date: Dec 26, 2022

To listen to this show, you must first LOG IN. If you have already logged in, but you are still seeing this message, please SUBSCRIBE or UPGRADE your subscriber level today.

The famous sub-label under the Musical Heritage Society has been revived at year’s end with some lost rarities. Before the season ends, we share “In Dulci Jubilo: German Christmas Music of the Renaissance” with Elly Ameling and soloists including Walter Gerwig, lute.

The return of the Orpheus label on Musical Concepts is a story of the revival of America's largest and yet least-known classical music record label. The Orpheus label was long a part of the Musical Heritage Society, a record club and record label started in New York City in the early 1960s by Dr. Michael Naida.

Naida, who made recordings for Westminster in the 1950s, had a vision of a "society" where members would receive recordings in the mail, and be kept aware of developments and new recordings via "The MHS Review”, which became one of the earliest "record clubs".

Dr. Naida sold MHS - the club and the record label - in the late 1970s. The new owners, the Nissim family, with a strong background in direct mail marketing, grew MHS to over 500,000 members in the late 1980s and 1990s.

The MHS record club was sold in 2011, but the record label remained in the hands of the owners. Only a few hundred jazz and classical recordings on the MusicMasters label remained available in digital form, for downloading and streaming. Very few of the early MHS catalog appeared in digital form, or on CDs or LPs.

In 2021, Musical Heritage Society completed the first true detailed research into the MHS catalog of recordings since the label and record club was purchased. They discovered that Musical Heritage Society owned over 2,000 recordings, either purchased by the Society or made by the Society's engineers and producers since the mid 1960s - far exceeding their estimates.

Musical Heritage Society approached Musical Concepts with the idea of reviving the Orpheus label - where historic and well-regarded MHS recordings could be restored and available to classical music lovers, with vastly improved sound (even from the LP era) and restored liner notes.

Long-lost recordings from Ruth Slencnzyska, Huguette Dreyfus, the Austrian Tonkunstler Orchestra are scheduled for release, as well as many performances of New York City's early music groups. including the New York Consort of Viols.

Also scheduled for release on Orpheus are a series of recordings created by early music pioneer Denis Stevens. An indefatigable force for the neglected music of the Renaissance and English baroque - particularly of Claudio Monteverdi and Henry Purcell - Stevens was responsible for the discovery of many Monteverdi and Purcell works, and their initial performances. One title scheduled to be released on Orpheus is believed to be the first recorded performance ever of Monteverdi's Il Combattimento. Also scheduled are several recordings from his group The Ambrosian Singers, which feature Neville Marriner, as well as other leading lights of the English classical music scene. And his reworking of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera - which led to its revival as a work that could be performed worldwide is also scheduled for early 2023.

By the late 1960s, the Musical Heritage Society record label had positioned itself as the USA’s “go-to” independent label label for music of the Renaissance and Baroque. In addition to licensing recordings from European labels, MHS undertook its own recordings, resulting in some of the most acclaimed releases employing original instruments and “historically informed” interpretation.

Among those gems is a recording of German music for the Christmas season from the Renaissance era, including many works by Michael Praetorius and many of his forgotten contemporaries. The focus of the recording is polyphonic vocal music, and MHS assembled four brilliant vocalists – Elly Ameling, Bernhard Michaelis , Hans-Ulrich Mielsch and Barry McDaniel – accompanied by five renowned period instrumentalists: recorder virtuoso Hans-Martin Linde (doubling on crumhorn), gamba players Ilse Brix-Meinert, Ulrich Koch, and Johannes Koch, and lutenist Walter Gerwig.

The recording has been remastered from archival sources and includes the original liner notes.

I. German Christmas Music of the High Renaissance

Works of Praetorius, Gesius, Eccard, Walter, Reussner, Gumpelzhaimer, Schlick, Elly Ameling, soprano; Hans-Martin Linde, baritone; Walter Gerwig, lute; others. Musical Heritage OR 320 (LP, nla). AAA. TT: 43:48

From Stereophile Magazine (1988):

It's an unconscionable tease, I know, to write rave reviews of out-of-print recordings, but I do so here in hopes that the Musical Heritage Society will re-release this superb collection of German Christmas music from the late 15th through early 17th centuries. Michael Praetorius, the most familiar name here, also wrote the most familiar tunes: "In dulci jubilo," whose melody we still sing as "Good Christian men, rejoice," and "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen" ("There is a rose, e'er blooming"). But every setting is a delight: Johann Walter, Martin Luther's friend and collaborator, in "Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ," shows the same gift for simple, inevitable, foursquare chorales as in his more famous "Ein feste Burg," and Arnolt Schlick's "Maria zart" closes the album with almost unbearable poignancy. (There's also a solo lute setting of Adam Gumpelzhaimer's "Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her," tenderly rendered by Walter Gerwig, that comes at just the right moment in this primarily vocal collection.) The five voices blend impeccably, and on "Maria zart" Elly Ameling gives a selfless, soulful performance of such spirituality and purity that all of her other recordings pale before it. The sound is rich, cozily warm, befitting the season, the lute solo a remarkable blend of intimacy and natural reverberance.

This has been my favorite Christmas album for many years, but it wasn't until recently, when asked to name my favorite single recording of any kind, that I realized that I listen to this record more than any other of the thousands I own. What more can I say, except to badger you into badgering MHS into re-releasing this magnificent music as a Christmas present to us all.---Richard Lehnert

Michael Praetorius

  1. In dulci jubilo (6:08)

Bartholomäus Gesius

  1. Christum wir sollen loben schon (7:19)
  2. Ein Kind geborn zu Bethlehem (3:35)

Michael Praetorius

  1. Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (3:47)

Johannes Eccard

  1. Ubers Gebirg Maria ghet (6:04)

Johann Walter

  1. Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ (3:19)

Andreas Reussner (the Elder)

  1. Uns ist ein Kindlein heut geborn (2:53)

Adam Gumpelzhaimer

  1. Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her (3:25)

Arnolt Schlick

  1. Maria zart (4:35)

II. A New Joy: Orthodox Christmas (Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir/Paul Hillier). Harmonia Mundi CD HMU 9067410.

From Classics Today: The title of one of the works on this excellent Christmas program is “Oh, What a Wonder!”–and that also could aptly describe the disc as a whole. As they have done many times on previous recordings, Paul Hillier and his Estonian choir bring us intelligently chosen repertoire that’s both old and new–that is, music that’s been unjustly forgotten, lost, or ignored, or in this case, squashed by the iron fist of anti-religious totalitarianism. A few of the selections are known to Western choral singers: Leontovych’s ever-popular “Carol of the Bells”, here listed as A Song of Good Cheer and more aptly known by its Ukrainian title, Shchedryk (happily–for once–a performance sung to a true “allegretto”!); Tchaikovsky’s The Legend; and Arvo Pärt’s refreshingly lively take on the Ave Maria text (Bogoroditse Devo).

After an enchanting opening track featuring the bells of Tallinn’s St. Alexander Cathedral, we also are treated to Nicolas Kedrov’s Our Father (Otche nash), one of the most beautiful and moving settings of this revered text in all of music. It’s been recorded many times (Harmonia Mundi, with Slavyanka Men’s Chorus; Le Chant du monde, with Valery Rybin Male Choir), but usually with men’s voices; here this simply but richly scored hymn blossoms even more fully, and right from the beginning our hearts, minds, and ears are set for what will be an enjoyable and enlightening hour.

There are some first-recordings, including Georgiy Izvekov’s “festive canon for the Nativity of Christ”. Izvekov, a Russian priest who was executed in 1937 for “anti-Soviet activities”, offers a chant-based set of eight short hymn-like “odes” (plus a refrain) notable for their beautiful melodies and affecting, brilliant harmonies. The most-represented composer (five selections) is Alexander Kastalsky, who in the late-1800s/early-1900s was a major figure in the revival and continued development of Russian sacred music, until his and others’ efforts were crushed by the Revolution. His Russian carol Shepherds of Bethlehem is a delightfully atmospheric evocation of the scene as the shepherds return home after viewing the Christ child “in a manger on the straw”. (You can hear more of this fine composer on Volume 5 of Le Chant du Monde’s Russian Religious Singing Through the Ages series, issued in the 1990s.)

And finally, I must mention just one more of many highlights: Vasyl Barvinskyi’s Ukrainian carol Oh, What a Wonder!, with its gorgeous, soaring solo soprano above sumptuous, flowing choral harmonies. There’s so much to savor here, much of it new to Western ears, all of it worthwhile and ideally recorded, thanks to Hillier and his always-outstanding Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. There’s another piece on the disc, a Ukrainian carol that gives its name to the title of the CD: A New Joy. The choice couldn’t be more appropriate.

Composers

Works

  1. Bell-ringing At St. Alexander Cathedral (Tallinn) (0:33)
  2. Our Father (3:01)
  3. Rejoice, O Virgin (1:27)
  4. Verses Before The Six Psalms No. 2 (1:48)
  5. Shepherds Of Betlehem (1:31)
  6. Oh, What A Wonder! (2:27)
  7. Today The Virgin Gives Birth (1:54)
  8. Verses Before The Six Psalms No. 1 (2:28)
  9. The Angels Exclaimed (1:37)
  10. A New Joy (1:31)
  11. Bells Rang Early In Jerusalem (2:08)
  12. When Augustus Ruled Alone Upon Earth (3:04)
  13. A Song Of Good Cheer (1:44)
  14. Throughout The World (1:31)
  15. The Legend (2:46)
  16. Christ Is Born (17:17)
  17. Bells • Ode 1 (2:59)
  18. Ode 3 (1:34)
  19. Ode 4 (2:03)
  20. Ode 5 (1:41)
  21. Ode 6 (2:00)
  22. Ode 7 (2:02)
  23. Ode 8 (2:09)
  24. Refrain Before Ode 9 (1:08)
  25. Ode 9 (1:40)
  26. God Is With Us (5:16)
  27. Blessed Is The Man (Kievan Chant) (3:15)

Composer Info

Michael Praetorius, Bartholomäus Gesius, Johannes Eccard, Johann Walter, Andreas Reussner (the Elder), Adam Gumpelzhaimer, Arnolt Schlick, Vasyl Barvinskyi (1888–1963), Georgiy Izvekov (1874–1937), Alexandr Dmitriyevich Kastalsky (1856-1926), Nikolai Kedrov (1871-1940), Mykola Dmytrovich Leontovich (1877-1921), Arvo Pärt (b.1935), Kyrylo Stetsenko (1882–1922), Piotr IlyichTchaikovsky (1840–93), Yakiv Yatsynevych (1869-1945)

CD Info

Harmonia Mundi CD HMU 9067410,