It has been a long time since I've been stopped in my tracks with a work by a mainstream composer that is a complete surprise, but a few weeks ago, on Blue Lake Public Radio, which crosses Lake Michigan from Muskegan and Grand Rapids on its way to my car radio, I heard something I would have felt compelled to call the station about, if I had not caught the announcement, because of its sheer beauty. It turned out to be Brahms Four Songs for Women's Chorus, 2 horns and Harp, Op. 17, performed by the Kansas City Chorale (on Nimbus NI5524). It may have been hearing this that precipitated my reading of the Brahms biography I just reviewed here. Steve Schwartz has a review of another version of this piece, by the Arnold Schoenberg Choir on Teldec, on his Classical Net site. I have not heard it, so I cannot compare the two--perhaps he will--but this is the third recording by the Kansas City Chorale I've heard and every one is splendid, to my ears. (The others are Nativitas and Fern Hill.) They are a professional choir. Choral music is not usually one of my chief musical interests, perhaps because so much of it is church music, but with the exception of Two Motets, these works are very much earthly songs (Doug Purl take note, if you are still tuned.) In addition to the songs with horns and harp, and the motets (Op. 29) the disc includes Three Songs, Op. 42, Four Quartets, Op. 92, Five Songs, Op. 104, two numbers from Op. 112 and one of the Neuesliebeslieder Walzer. For me this is a lot of singing to take in at one sitting, but the works can, of course be heard separately. I wouldn't fault any of them, but the one I heard first is still the one I will return to most. The horns are legato, the way I like 'em, the dynamics quiet, and the pace leisurely. The tone tends to be elegiac, as do the texts, by Herder, Eichendorff, Shakespeare and Friedrich Ruperti, in reverse order. If the songs were not so secular I would be inclined to call them heavenly. Jim Tobin