Jürg Frey: Voices

£17.00

Release Date: 2025

Label: Neu Records

EXAUDI makes the first recording of Swiss composer Jürg Frey’s intimate and shimmering vocal music.

Description

EXAUDI makes the first recording of Swiss composer Jürg Frey’s vocal music in collaboration with Catalan label Neu Records.  Frey writes incredibly beautiful and intimate music that soothes the mind and soul. His sound varies from sparse, single-voiced passages to soaring and rich harmonic language that shines and glistens – a listening experience both meditative and gently euphoric.

1-4: Out of Chorales (2017-18)

5: Polyphonie der Wörter (1998)

6: Shadow and Echo and Jade (2014-16)

7: Landscape of Echoes (2019)

8: Blue Bird’s Tune (2021-22)

9: Because I could not stop for Death (2021-22)

Jurg Frey (b.1953)

Delivery & returns

Delivery costs: £2 UK, £5 EU & £7 worldwide. Items are usually dispatched within 48 hours.
Full refunds are available up to 28 days after receipt, payable on return of the items.
Contact manager@exaudi.org.uk to set up return delivery.

Reviews

Reviews

“The ensemble’s precision, gauzy beauty, and harmonic mastery have rarely sounded so otherworldly, and this new collection suggests the combination of Frey and Exaudi is a perfect marriage. (…) An incredible achievement.” – Peter Margasak; The Best Contemporary Classical Music

“A new CD from EXAUDI is a guaranteed treat for all the senses: the sound quality is always impeccable, the CD presentation a tactile pleasure. (…) an intriguing mixture of the sophisticated and the almost naïve, a surface simplicity revealing submerged depths, a place where fragility and steely inner purpose meet. It is music that is extreme in its singlemindedness, the long spans over which gradually evolving musical material is presented is essential to its effect.” Bernhard Hughes; The Arts Desk

“This madrigalism adds to the air of confident inscrutability while also giving the sense of a musical language being tailored closely to, and refined through a deepening relationship with, a specific group of devoted performers. EXAUDI are fully equal to the tasks Frey has set them; their performances and, now, recordings have established a performance tradition for this music (not least in the matter of dynamics, curiously underspecified in many of the scores that can be downloaded from the album page on Neu Records’ website), and the album is a valuable record of what one presumes will be a continuing collaboration.” – John Fallas; Gramophone Magazine

“It could only be the work of Jürg Frey, the Swiss composer with that perfect knack for imprinting sound on silence like footprints impacting on pristine snow. A definitive new Jürg Frey album is just out from the UK vocal ensemble EXAUDI.”  Kate Molleson; BBC Radio 3 – New Music Show

“This is music of great, mysterious beauty sung with absolute clarity, conviction and technical control that will leave the listener haunted and elated long after the singing has finished.”  Huw Morgan – Organists Review

“Seit 2016 hat der heute 71-jährige Aarauer mit dem herausragenden Vokal­ensemble Exaudi unter James Weeks diese weich atmende Musik an der Grenze zur Stille entwickelt. Wer sich ihr überlässt, hört die Welt anders.”  Cecile Olshausen; Kulturtipp

“La música de Frey se muestra en toda su desnuda radicalidad” Pablo J Vayon; Diario de Sevilla

“On the Neu imprint, which I cited briefly in a recent column about labels producing consistently covet-worthy releases, comes Voices, a breathtaking collection of vocal works by Jürg Frey performed by the U.K. vocal ensemble EXAUDI. Exalted in every sense, this one’s essential listening.” Steven Smith; Night after Night

“For over twenty years now, the Exaudi vocal ensemble has combined exemplary technique with esoteric repertoire and adventurous interpretative chops.”

“The voices of Exaudi excel at these works which depend upon self-discipline and Frey builds a work of emotive and spiritual power by restraining subjectivity, finding enduring depths in the impersonal, in the manner of other art from outside the romantic tradition.” – Ben Harper; Boring Like a Drill

“Exaudi to jeden z najlepszych zespołów wokalnych, jakie kiedykolwiek słyszałem. A utwory Freya należą do najbardziej wymagających. Niewiele, nawet bardzo dobrych chórów, sięgając po ten repertuar, wyszłoby obronną ręką. Prostota kompozycji Freya najeżona jest mnogością pułapek, z których największą wydaje się być ekstraordynaryjna umiejętność wykonawców poruszania się między dźwiękiem a ciszą. Wymaga to najwyższych umiejętności technicznych zarówno poszczególnych śpiewaków jak i całego zespołu.” – Robert Majewski; W Kulturalny Sposob

“Jeśli jednak muzyka Arvo Pärtem jest zaklętą w quasichorałowych melodiach oraz rozłożonych trójdźwiękach Ewangelią, to czym mogą być rozciągnięte w czasie, lodowate, lekko skrzące się harmonie wokalne Szwajcara? Ja słyszę – banalną, gdy zostaje wypowiedziana, ale nie, gdy się jej doświadcza – dojmującą pustkę, która zieje ostateczną tajemnicą.”  Michał Mendyk; Ruch Muzyczny

“Tanmateix, abraçar tots aquests riscos (d’una bellesa corprenedora) tal com ens convida a fer Frey en aquestes obres singulars és endinsar-se en una nova manera de veure i d’escoltar, com si el món s’oferís de nou, revelat per unes veus callades, immanents i profundament corporals.”   Marçal Borotau; Sonograma

“Todas las obras vocales de Frey exigen una entrega total de sus intérpretes, que han de concentrarse minuciosamente en el sonido. Estas piezas habitan la frontera entre el sonido y el silencio, en ese límite, la voz se muestra muy vulnerable y abierta, pero justamente en ese riesgo radica su fuerza. Frey nos invita a experimentar el mundo con una nueva sensibilidad, revelando en esas voces sutiles una resonancia profundamente humana, una presencia encarnada en el aquí y ahora de nuestra existencia.”  *****Joan Gómez Alemany; Ritmo Magazine

“Los ocho vocalistas de Exaudi, a las órdenes de James Weeks, traducen esta música que quiere ser discreta y que ha de cantarse desde la mayor lisura posible, evitando lo melifluo. A fe que lo logran;” – Ismael G. Cabral; Scherzo Magazine

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