There is something about the forthright, honest-to-goodness singing of the Danish National Radio Choir and soloists that especially suits Kodaly's deeply edifying Missa brevis. Originally a solo Organ Mass (1942), Kodaly re-fashioned the piece for chorus and organ in 1944, orchestrating it a couple of years later. Ian Stephens's sympathetic booklet-note relates how the first performance of this particular version took place in a cloakroom at the opera house where the composer and his wife had taken shelter (the rest of the building had actually been bombed), using a harmonium rather than an organ. Musically, Kodaly's Missa reflects the grimness of the period, though 'shafts of light' shine through as early as 0'54'' into the Kyrie second movement (the first is a dramatic solo-organ 'Introitus').
The Gloria is profoundly brave music, and the Credo full of rapturous half-lights (try 'Et incarnatus est', from 1'37''). I still retain a fondness for Stephen Cleobury's exquisite King's College account (coupled with some rare Janaeek), but Stefan Parkman directs a vibrant and fresh-voiced account of the score, superbly recorded.
Evening was Kodaly's first published choral work and has more than a whiff of late romanticism about it. Delius initially comes to mind, but the style is very much the composer's own - strong and aromatic, with some wonderfully effective modulations. Material for the Matra Pictures emanates from a mountainous district of Hungary and brings us into closer proximity with the style of Bartok, while Jesus and the traders is a dramatic retelling of how the 'house of prayer' became 'a den of thieves'. Again the incisiveness and tonal beauty of the Danes' singing is a joy in itself, though Kodaly's contrapuntal ingenuity is the primary attraction. Recommended.'