Clytus Gottwald (born 1925) made a reputation for himself as a composer at the forefront of the postwar European avant-garde, but these arrangements show his considerable skill in writing idiomatically for chorus, while at the same time stretching them beyond standard conventions.
Gottwald typically divides the ensemble into 16 parts, allowing for an unusually rich and saturated choral sound. He also pushes the limits of the range of the voice; some of the parts are stratospherically high. These arrangements aren't merely transcriptions; in adapting piano and orchestral parts for voices, he has had to re-imagine the music and create a choral equivalent of the original that nonetheless differs from it substantially in its effect. It would be possible to hear of most any of these pieces as being originally conceived for chorus. Some of the most effective are his arrangements of Impressionists
Debussy and
Caplet. The former's Des pas sur la neige, adapted from a Prélude for piano, is particularly dazzling in a choral incarnation. The two
Wagner Wesendonck songs are also outstanding; "Im Treibhaus" is a real tour de force. But then, virtually everything included here --
Mahler,
Ravel,
Wolf,
Caplet,
Puccini, and early
Berg and
Webern -- is fully persuasive in
Gottwald's masterful arrangements. The British
Rodolfus Choir, conducted by
Ralph Allwood, made up entirely of singers under the age of 25, is also masterful in the clarity of its tone, its pure intonation, and a creamy blend that doesn't overwhelm individuality and independence of the parts. A few strained notes in the punishingly high register of a few of the arrangements are easily forgiven.