DVORAK: THE COMPLETE SACRED CHORAL MUSIC (7 CDS)

Unrivalled in the catalogue, this box brings together all the works in a genre for which Dvořák has been undervalued. The composer was himself a lifelong Catholic, a man of uncomplicated faith and not prey to spiritual torments in the manner of his contemporary Bruckner.Dvořák wrote religious music throughout his career, though his first substantial contribution was the Stabat mater of 1876-7. This large-scale setting burns with a restrained pathos likely intensified during the period of composition by the deaths of his children. One of the most personal of all his major works, the Stabat mater sets the tone for the equally large-scale St Ludmila oratorio of 1886 and the Requiem of 1890: not for Dvořák the hellfire and damnation so vividly evoked by Berlioz and Verdi in their settings of the text: sorrow andconsolation are the Requiem’s key-signatures, just as devout belief infuses the Czech legend of St Ludmila.The Mass in D was originally composed in 1887 with organ accompaniment, b