Stile Antico - Reviews of Song of Songs

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Awards

Gramophone Award for Early Music 2009
Choc de Classica, May 2009
Gramophone Editor's Choice, August 2009
Classics Today 10/10, 28.4.09
Classic FM Magazine Editor's Choice, July 2009

Reviews

Sumptuously delivered by the peerless Stile Antico... (Andy Gill, The Independent, 29.5.09)

Song of Songs is the most erotically charged book in the Bible... The superb singers of Stile Antico are up to the challenge of presenting all the required moods from pious restraint... to melting abandon... The sound on this recording is excellent and so is the tuning... a magnificent display of the very best kind of polyphonic music. ***** (Anthony Prior, BBC Music Magazine, May 2009)

In suave, finely tuned performances by the young British ensemble Stile Antico, the music is at once stately and inviting, devotional and, well, sexy. The balance between those poles varies with the composer, from the intricate but impeccably chaste settings of Palestrina to the brighter and earthier music of Gombert and Lassus. At the far end (the high end, for some of us) is the voluptuous, extravagantly beautiful work of Spaniard Tómas Luis de Victoria, which is everything that love music can and should be. (Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 1.5.09)

I've never heard people present this repertoire with such a high level of commitment... exquisite ensemble and intelligent programming choices. (Hugo Munday, Amazon.com Editorial, 1.7.09)

We should be grateful that the 12 (or so) singers that make up the remarkable young British vocal ensemble Stile Antico are the polished and stylish vehicle for transmitting this beauty and truth to our ears, and they do this consistently throughout a program that will intrigue and entice all Renaissance choral music fans... Victoria's huge (10-plus-minute) Vadam et circuibo [has been] recorded many times by others but never better than here. You get a good feeling listening to this recording: good energy, good sound, good music, good sense of style and of the music's underlying emotional and spiritual context. What more is there to say, except "Happy listening!" 10/10 (David Vernier, Classics Today, 28.4.09)

This ensemble, its members still in their 20s and just a dozen beautifully blended voices singing a cappella, has emerged as one of the best and freshest early music choirs around... Palestrina's flowing lines... blur the boundaries of sacred and profane to sumptuous effect. (Fiona Maddocks, The Observer, 3.5.08)

Stile Antico has created a niche in the world of Renaissance-era specialists with its flawless, low-vibrato blends and an emotional and intellectual engagement that makes a considerable, if subtle, difference in the personality of the performances. In the group's first disc to venture outside English polyphony, the exterior luster remains, but now fueled by a sense of the music's inner purpose... The program is also intelligently paced among polyphonic songs, chants and music of contrasting nationality and style. Also lovely is the way the group attenuates any given final chord a few nanoseconds, just to let you enjoy the sound longer. (David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer, 3.5.08)

Somehow I missed this young British vocal ensemble's first two releases. This third is so impressive that my omission will be remedied very quickly. (Andrew O'Connor, International Record Review, 10.6.09)

Were one to listen only to the virtually-ideal opening of the impressive motet "Ego flos Campi" by Jacob Clemens non Papa at the beginning of the programme, any friend of vocal polyphony would immediately recognise the interpretative rank of this group. With this new recording the ensemble underscores their quickly-established, impressive status. (Klassik.com, 24.6.09)

Stile Antico’s reading... is magnificently intelligent, enlivening every page with a jubilation appropriate to the theme. When we add to these qualities a truly rare coherence of sound, and a togetherness perhaps explained by the lack of a musical director, it will confirm that Stile Antico is one of today’s finest mixed-voice ensembles. (Sophie Roughol, Classica CHOC, 5.5.09)

The members of the democratically directed twelve-voice a cappella group Stile Antico dig into their vocal lines as if they are physically pressing against one another, so tight is their ensemble, so gracefully conjoined their vocal timbres... The blanket of sound creates an effect that is, not to put too fine a point on it, orgasmic. (Joanne Sydney Lessner, Opera News, 13.11.09)

The ensemble, made up of fantastic individual voices, works without a direction, sounds at once unbelievably perfect and homogenous and at the same time maintains a wonderfully expressive, sensual sound and style, which suits these Song of Songs motets ideally... peace and beauty, sensuality and magic in equal measure. A feast in sound! (Oswald Beaujohn, Bayerischer Rudfunk, 19.5.09)

This music is at once devotional and luxuriantly sensual.... The dozen singers of Stile Antico soar in beautifully contoured and shaded performances. Harmonia Mundi's engineering honors the purity of the group's sonority; ensemble blend is perfect, yet it's possible to pick out individual voices. (Andrew Quint, Absolute Sound)

A beautifully conceived album of the highest quality of recording and performance (and notes too) that would also serve as a spectacular introduction to Renaissance choral art for all audiences. Don't miss this one at any cost! (Steven Ritter, Audiophile Audition, 2.6.09)