This week we turn the clock back 13 years. In 1996, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir released the CD "An American Heritage of Spirituals" under conductor Albert McNeil. And to make sure there were going about things the right way, they brought on board the great arranger, composer and conductor Moses Hogan. Hogan died seven years later, but his legacy remains as a champion of the spiritual and its performance.
This is a treasury from the great spiritual arrangers H. T. Burleigh, William L. Dawson, and Jester Hairston, and several others. Classics like "I Want Jesus" stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Albert McNeil's own compositions including "All My Trials."
The massive Tabernacle choir delivers a powerful performance of these incredibly personal pieces, and it still rings true all these years later. Whether you're an old fan of the choir or the genre, you're going to be rewarded with this purchase.
Our quick pick this week is the latest CD from Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. A complete performance of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 is matched up with Estonian composer, Veljo Tormis's Overture No. 2, a composition that Shostakovich told Tormis would work well as a movement of a symphony… one that remains unwritten so far.