Uranienborg Vokalensemble: Fred over jorden Blu-ray Movie
HomeUranienborg Vokalensemble: Fred over jorden Blu-ray Movie 
Blu-ray + SACD2L | 2024 | 60 min | Not rated | Nov 22, 2024
Movie rating
Movie has not been rated yetBlu-ray rating
| Users |  | 0.0 |
| Reviewer |  | 5.0 |
| Overall | | 5.0 |
Overview
Uranienborg Vokalensemble: Fred over jorden (2024)
Advent and Christmas are for many people a time for light and hope and warmth. Yet the world around us is cold and turbulent. Wars are being fought. People are fleeing from their homes. Children are dying. Thousands of people lack food and medicine. Our prayers are for peace. We sing "Beautiful is our Earth! Glorious is God's heaven!" as a protest song for peace and justice, the world being unjust.During Advent many of us are fond of the familiar and much-loved Christmas carols as we remember them from our childhood, and as they have been sung for generations. There are carols in these traditional arrangements on this album, but there are others in completely new arrangements, made specially for Uranienborg Vokalensemble and for this recording.Christmas can be a festival that intensifies our feelings - what is good seems even better, and what hurts feels even more painful. Perhaps we have lost someone close to us: can we then sing "Oh, Christmas, so cheerful"? We know that there are people who look forward to Christmas but at the same time dread it, and we believe that Kjetil Bjerkestrand's arrangement brings out this element of equivocation and irony. The birth of Jesus - this is the message of Christmas! - a birth that changed the world for ever. May your Christmas be peaceful!
| Music | 100% |
Specifications
Video
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Audio
Music: Dolby Atmos
Music: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Music: Auro-3D
Music: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (192kHz, 24-bit)
Music: LPCM 2.0 (192kHz, 24-bit)
Subtitles
None
Discs
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 SACD)
Playback
Region A (B, C untested)
Review
Rating summary
| Movie | | 5.0 |
| Video | | 0.0 |
| Audio | | 5.0 |
| Extras | | 0.0 |
| Overall | | 5.0 |
Uranienborg Vokalensemble: Fred over jorden Blu-ray Movie Review
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 4, 2024If "peace on Earth, good will toward men" doesn't strike you as a hopelessly out of date sentiment, you may find yourself warming to the feeling behind this lovely recording of a mixed voice choir which the liner notes for this album state is one of Norway's leading groups. They offer a really engaging program on this recording which is a bit more modern in overall approach than the understandably more "ancient" sound of 2L's other quasi-Christmas music offering, Trio Mediæval: Yule. That said, there's nothing to be overly "concerned" about for those wary of so-called "modern music", and there will be tunes here that should certainly be at least somewhat recognizable. If some lesser known songs like Kling no klokka can at least hint at moments of Sprechgesang, the general sensibility here is definitely tonal and quite often very lush in its layering of voices, and almost always "accessibly" melodic.
The album's track list is:
1 Transeamus
2 Rydd vei for Herrens komme
3 Nå vandrer fra hver en verdenskrok
4 Kling no klokka
5 Deilig er den himmel blå
6 Velsigna du dag over fjordan (Nordnorsk julesalme)
7 Jeg synger julekvad
8 Det hev ei rose sprunge / Hallelujah from the heart of God
9 Joleklokker
10 Deilig er jorden
11 O jul med din glede
12 Voggesong
13 Lacrimosa
14 Eit barn er født i Betlehem
15 I en natt
16 Jul, jul, strålande jul
Uranienborg Vokalensemble: Fred over jorden Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality
This is another 2L audio Blu-ray with a more or less static main menu, as shown in the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review. Commendably toggling between audio codecs can be achieved by pressing the appropriately colored buttons on your remote, but the menu does offer some additional information (see screenshots 2 and 3 for examples).
Uranienborg Vokalensemble: Fred over jorden Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality
Uranienborg Vokalensemble: Fred over jorden offers the same fantastic array of audio codecs that have been a 2L specialty, including Dolby Atmos, Auro 3-D, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0. The larger mass of voices on this recording probably offer a somewhat "showier" surround presence than the somewhat smaller ensemble on Yule, but like that 2L recording, voices tend to envelop the listener from all sides in the surround offerings. 2L's chief cook and bottle washer (and recording engineer) Morten Lindberg always seems to take great care in positioning his microphones to accurately capture both the directionality of where singers or instrumentalists are in the room, but the actual room ambience itself, and that's once again the case here. While solo moments can certainly be discretely channelized, there's the sonic equivalent of being cuddled up in a cozy blanket throughout this recording. Fidelity is flawless and handles everything from some low organ and/or synth tones to some stratospheric soprano moments.
Uranienborg Vokalensemble: Fred over jorden Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras
While there is no on disc bonus content other than mShuttle availability, 2L also includes an SACD and a really nicely appointed insert booklet with complete texts and more information on the songs.
Uranienborg Vokalensemble: Fred over jorden Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation
Uranienborg Vokalensemble offers a really beautifully heterogeneous assortment of songs on this album, and 2L has recorded them with its typical technical excellence. Highly recommended.