KHCD-2011-016 (STEREO) - Wolf: Morgenhymnus; Van Nuffel: In convertendo Dominus, Op. 32; Brahms: Nänie, Op. 82; Mozart: Ave verum corpus, K. 618; Bruckner: Five Unaccompanied Motets; Beethoven: Die Erhe Gottes aus der Natur, Op. 48 No. 4 - New Philharmonia Chorus and  New Philharmonia Orchestra/Wilhelm Pitz - The Philharmonia Chorus, was founded in 1957 by Walter Legge as a choral counterpart to the Philharmonia Orchestra which he had founded twelve years earlier. The Chorus’s first concert, a performance on 12th November 1957 of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, completed a cycle of Beethoven symphonies in London’s Royal Festival Hall with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer and was recorded shortly afterwards with the same performers. To create his chorus, Legge turned to Wilhelm Pitz, then chorus master of the Bayreuth Festival. Between first rehearsal in February 1957 and first concert there was a long period of preparation during which Pitz rehearsed the Chorus in not only the scheduled Beethoven but also in choral passages from Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. From that preparatory work emerged a chorus unique for its blend of British choral tradition and German musical training and discipline and for a dramatic quality found more typically in opera than in a symphony chorus. The full yet homogeneous and professionally disciplined sound immediately attracted critical notice. (From the Wikipedia entry on the New Philharmonia Chorus). This disc, transferred from a clean blue-label Angel LP, features the New Philharmonia Chorus in Classical, Romantic and Late Romantic works. (Bruckner's Locus iste is the MP3 sample - click the thumbnail.)