Although Max Reger’s instrumental music is fairly well represented on disc, his choral works are rare and welcome treats. Here the Alsfelder Vokalensemble Bremen proves its particular affinity for his Eight Sacred Songs for mixed chorus, presenting well-focused tone and sensitively shaped phrasing–and offers an especially affecting rendition of Agnus Dei. Along the same lines, Josef Rheinberger’s lovely Abendlied is warmly sung, a perfect evocation of its simple, meditative text. The six Wolf pieces (not surprisingly) prove a bit more of a challenge for the choir’s sopranos, who occasionally sound strained and just ever-so-slightly under pitch. Mostly, however, these performances exhibit superior ensemble-work and offer a welcome opportunity to hear these lush-textured, harmonically thorny, scarcely-performed works, set to poems of Joseph von Eichendorff.
Brahms’ seven Marienlieder originally appeared in settings for women’s chorus, but the composer later rescored them for mixed voices–the version we have here. In every bar these early songs show the composer’s love of folklike melody and playful textual imagery. They’re relatively simple works, but to perform them well requires a buoyant rhythmic style, overall lightness of tone, and flexibility in phrasing and dynamics–all of which demand a responsive and sensitive ensemble. And the Bremen singers are nothing if not responsive and sensitive: they really seem to enjoy each song, filling them with subtle expressive touches and reveling in their bright, ringing final chords. The three Op. 109 pieces show a far more complex, dense-textured, sophisticated Brahms–and if you want to hear, in one piece, what makes this composer such a formidable and beloved choral master, just listen to the last of the set, Wo ist ein so herrlich Volk.
The program, recorded in a church and taken from several sessions spread out over nearly a decade (1991-99), is certainly well chosen, and the performances are technically solid and musically first rate; but the sound is just too resonant and a little too distant to preserve the ensemble coherence and detail we’d prefer for music of this character and density (up to eight parts in the Brahms Op. 109). Thankfully, this is the sort of thing that your ear adjusts to after several minutes, and the disc’s musical rewards are sufficient to make this a worthy addition to any choral collection.
