Catalogue # CHSA5105

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Although he writes in all genres, René Clausen is today one of\nAmerica’s most popular choral composers, and for more than twenty\nyears he has been the conductor of the internationally acclaimed\nConcordia Choir of Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. On\nthis release, choral works by Clausen are performed by the Kansas\nCity Chorale, another choir of great international renown, whose\nrecording, with the Phoenix Chorale, of Grechaninov’s Passion Week\nscooped a Grammy® award in 2008, in the category Best Classical\nRecording, Engineering.

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‘Set me as a Seal’ is arguably the composer’s best-known work,\nand has long been popular at weddings, funerals, and in the concert\nrepertoire. Clausen has described the work as ‘various kinds of\ndiscussions between God and humans, both from the human aspect and\nfrom the God aspect, so a lot of variations… of love, of\ndisappointment, of anxiety, of doubt’. The composer was moved to\nlearn that the work was chosen for the memorial service held after\nValuJet 592 crashed in the Everglades in 1996.

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All that hath life and breath is one of Clausen’s earliest\nworks, and a favourite of choirs across the world. The piece was\none of only three choral works performed in the 2008 Presidential\nOffice Year-End Concert of Compassion held by the Republic of China\n(Taiwan), with the theme ‘Music brings warmth – Songs spread\nfeeling’.

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The Mass for Double Choir was commissioned by the Kansas City\nChorale. The composer, who had never written a mass before, looked\non it as an ‘interesting challenge’. In the work emotions ebb and\nflow kaleidoscopically, taking the listener from the strength of\nthe unison writing at the opening, to the sorrowful falling lines\nof the Crucifixion of Christ and the bubbling, dancing figures for\nthe Resurrection. Expressions of praise spill forward atop one\nanother in the Sanctus, a choir of angels too exuberant to be\ncontained. In contrast, Prayer sets Mother Teresa’s gentle words\nwith long arching phrases and gentle dissonances.

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Clausen, R:
\nAll that hath life and breath
\nO magnum mysterium
\nThe Tyger
\nThe Lamb
\nMass for Double Choir
\nMagnificat
\nPrayer
\nO vos omnes
\nSet me as a Seal

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Kansas City Chorale, Charles Bruffy
\nSACD

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