Out now: CEFC’s new album of Elgar's The Kingdom
Crouch End Festival Chorus’s long-awaited new recording of Elgar’s choral masterpiece The Kingdom is now on sale on Signum Records.
The choir is joined by soloists Francesca Chiejina (soprano), Dame Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano), Benjamin Hulett (tenor) and Ashley Riches (bass), and the London Mozart Players. The conductor is CEFC’s Music Director David Temple MBE.
Early reviews have heaped praise on the new recording. Writing for The Arts Desk, critic Bernard Hughes said, “(this) very fine large-scale piece, given a most persuasive and sympathetic recording … Temple gets them (CEFC) to sing with passion and guts, but never at the expense of a very fine sound and the kind of flawless intonation that is hard to achieve with an ensemble of this size … For David Temple, evangelist for the piece, it is mission accomplished.”
In Spain, sonograma.org commented, “With a wonderful interpretation, the expressive voices of the Crouch End Festival Chorus help us to reach a clear and clean awareness of this transcendental world.”
Stephen Whitehead writing for Cross Rhythms says “ this splendid recording of 'The Kingdom' arrives and opens up a whole new world. Here David Temple has brought together a top choir in the Crouch End Festival Chorus, a proficient orchestra in the London Mozart Players, and four first class soloists: Francesca Chiejina (soprano) as the Blessed Virgin, Dame Sarah Connolly (contralto) as Mary Magdalene, Benjamin Hulett (tenor) as St John, and Ashley Riches (bass) as St Peter.”
Elgar composed The Kingdom in 1906 after The Dream of Gerontius and The Apostles but the work has never had the same success or recognition as its predecessors. This recording gives it a new lease of life, vividly conveying Elgar’s dramatic depiction of the lives of Christ’s apostles and the community of the early church. The superb performances and the composer’s thrilling and lyrical writing are captured to perfection in the recently restored Victorian Theatre at Alexandra Palace, North London.
David Temple says: “I truly believe The Kingdom to be Elgar’s greatest choral work. It is a gem from the first note to the last. I am so taken with it and my desire to share this as widely as possible has inspired the present recording.”
