Howard Goodall's Big Bangs

Composers: Goodall
Released: 2000
Label: Metronome
Code: MET 1043

Description

Howard Goodall’s Big Bangs, the album, is part of a modern phenomenon: a multimedia project centred around a television series and encompassing a book of the same title. In isolation, the album might appear strangely random, yet it affords the opportunity to hear in full pieces which could only be presented briefly on TV. Unusually for an anthology, nine of the 19 tracks were specially recorded, including Goodall’s own title music, his arrangements of the “Agincourt Song” and an English translation from Schubert’s Die Winterreise. The purpose is to explore five turning-points in the history of classical music. These range from the sacred choral song of Allegri’s, “Miserere Mei, Deus”, to the changes introduced by recording technology in the great tenor Enrico Caruso’s million-selling “Vesti la Giubba” from Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci. We see the birth of opera in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, the arrival of even-temperament in Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, and the perfection of the piano from Schubert to Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag”. This very diversity is the strength of the Classical tradition. The album adds a welcome dimension to an excellent series, itself a rewarding companion to Sir Simon Rattle’s Leaving Home. –Gary S Dalkin

Tracklisting

1. Big Bangs Titles Music – Howard Goodall
2. Miserere Mei, Deus – Gregorio Allegri
3. Deus in adjutorium rom 1610 Vespers – Claudio Monteverdi
4. Overture to Orfeo – Claudio Monteverdi
5. Euridice e Orfeo & Ahi, caso acerbo – Claudio Monteverdi
6. lo la musica son and string ritornello – Claudio Monteverdi
7. Orfeo in Hades, Possente spirito – Claudio Monteverdi
8. The Marriage of Figaro Finale Act IV “Pace, pace” – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
9. Veni Sancte Spiritus – John Dunstaple
10. Agicourt Song – arr. Howard Goodall
11. The Well-Tempered Clavier Prelude no. 1 – Johann Sebastian Bach
12. The Well-Tempered Clavier Fugue no. 1 – Johann Sebastian Bach
13. Gute Nacht from Die Winterreise – Franz Schubert
14. Gute Nacht from Die Winterreise – Franz Schubert
15. Maple Leaf Rag – Scott Joplin
16. Vesti la guibba from I Pagliacci – Ruggero Leoncavallo
17. Sanctus from African Sanctus – David Fanshawe
18. Sanctus from Missa Aedis Christi – Howard Goodall
19. In Abendrot – From “The Four Last Songs” – Richard Strauss