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| Evocation of the Spirit | 
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| Creators: Samuel Barber, Henryk Gorecki, Frank Martin, Arvo Part, Arnold Schoenberg, Robert Shaw Festival Singers, Arietha Lockhart, Donna Carter
Label: Telarc
Category: Music
List Price: $17.98
Buy New: $2.08
You Save: $15.90 (88%)
Buy New/Used from $2.08
Avg. Customer Rating:  (13 reviews)
Sales Rank: 20567
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 80406
UPC: 089408040627
EAN: 0089408040627
ASIN: B000003D19
Release Date: March 28, 1995
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Gorecki: Totus Tuus | | • | Magnificat | | • | I. Kyrie | | • | II. Gloria | | • | III. Credo | | • | IV. Sanctus | | • | V. Agnus Dei | | • | Agnus Dei | | • | Friede Auf Erden |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 5 stars subtracting 3 stars November 25, 2003
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have to agree with Randolph Wagner. This CD gets 5 stars for the choral pieces minus 3 stars for the recording quality. It sounds like the recording was transferred from an 8-track tape. This CD should have been sent back and remastered. If you have other Shaw CD's, you can hear for yourself the difference. This is NOT a quality recording. Why did they let this slip out the door?
 Spiritual! April 26, 2002
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
This is a magnificent recording. Even though, a capella CD's can sometimes be hard to stomach, I find myself listening to this disc again and again. This recording will literally lift your spirits. Gorecki's Totus Tuus is epitome of sublime, easing effortlessly across the span of 11 minutes. Part's Magnificat is a little darker in tone, but if you are patient it will blossom repeatedly. Martin's Mass is somewhere between ethereal and madrigal. Barber's Agnus Dei, based on his Adagio for Strings, is uncannily eerie, yet powerfully cathartic at the same time. Finally, Schoenberg's Peace on Earth is emotionally buoyant, absolutely gorgeous, and sadly, just as relevant now as it was when it was written almost a century ago. The aural depth captured by Telarc will engulf you in sound. Shaw conducts each of these modern masterpieces with aplomb and the Festival Singers sing their lungs out. An exciting album, it is definitely worth being a part of anyone's collection.
 Warning: NOT a keeper! November 21, 2001
11 out of 24 found this review helpful
Having had the privilege of singing with Shaw on many occasions, I know and honor him as a passionate choral technician and teacher who could always bring out better than the best in an amateur group. Nearly all the choral directors I've ever sung under pull "Shawisms" from their bag of tricks to improve pitch and accuracy. However, in today's era where we can choose from a plethora of professional groups (Montiverdi Singers, Tallis Scholars, Dale Warland Singers, etc.), sadly, Shaw's recordings usually don't compete.Particularly in his final years when he would hold his Summer Festivals in Southern France (attracting a huge flock of choral directors), the recorded product (released on a series of Telarc recordings) has been consistently mushy and lugubrious - this one in particular! The usually fine Telarc engineers should be ashamed (as well as their marketers who where obviously trying to ride the Shaw band wagon as far as they could)! The Barber Agnus Dei (for which I've yet to find a satisfying recording) sounds like the singers are submerged in molasses! The tempo is unbelievably slow and there is a total lack of clarity in the inner parts. I recently was driving through Colorado during the NPR fund-raising week and heard a pair of well-meaning NPR announcers slavering over this recording - I thought I was going to puke! Much better recordings exist of the Gorecki, Paert and Martin. With due deference to the master, I wouldn't touch this recording with a ten-foot pole. If you simply must purchase Shaw recordings, stick with the larger choral repertoire - you're guaranteed to get good choral singing and excellent soloists (but usually coupled with a less-than-electric performance).
The Barber is cathartic beyond measure. September 15, 2001
20 out of 24 found this review helpful
I write this review three days after the tragic September 11 events in New York and Washington, three days which left me numbed, during which I searched and searched for music having cathartic value - "music of healing" - largely in vain. For most of that time, the value of listening to music seemed to have eluded me. (Given the circumstances, this must have happened to others as well, even others for whom music is a large part of their lives, as it is for me.)
This was not a state of affairs destined to go on open-ended. I knew that a major part of breaking this "blockage" would somehow involve the recorded work of Robert Shaw, whose recorded performances have in the past led me out of such "wildernesses." And so it was that his recording of the Bach B-Minor Mass (reviewed elsewhere at Amazon.com by me) provided the "lion's share" of healing-through-music. One need only listen to Shaw's performance of the closing "Dona nobis pacem" of this Mass to be instantly uplifted.
But his performance of Barber's Agnus Dei, a choral arrangement by Barber of his Adagio for Strings (which in turn is a string orchestra arrangement of the second movement of his String Quartet, Op. 11), provided me with a healing of an entirely different nature: A searing work guaranteed to cauterize and thereby provide emotional catharsis and release.
One cannot fathom what was going through a very youthful Sam Barber's mind when he wrote this Op. 11 second movement. But we should be thankful that Arturo Toscanini, in 1936, encouraged Barber to arrange it for string orchestra, and that much later (in 1967) Barber chose to arrange it yet again for chorus. And that Maestro Shaw saw fit to include it on this Evocation of the Spirit choral compilation.
I don't mean to sell the rest of this album short in any way whatsoever. I found, after listening to the Barber, that I could then go on and listen once again to the rest of the album. ALL of these choral masterpieces can be said to be "music of healing." While the Gorecki and Paert works are probably the best known, there are hidden pleasures as well in the Frank Martin Mass and in Arnold Schoenberg's seldom-heard, but totally accessible, Friede auf Erden ("Peace on Earth").
But it was the Barber that I needed to hear today. Tuck this album away for that rainy day; it will lift your spirits as it did mine. And, hopefully, your circumstances - your need - will not be of a magnitude that mine (and of course millions of others) had been in these recent days.
Bob Zeidler
Best Shaw Recording Ever June 20, 2001
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
This CD was an introduction of 20th century music for me. There is not a SINGLE TRACK on this CD that is not exceptional. The Martin Mass is wonderful and the Barber is Orgasmic! GET THIS CD!
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