Stile Antico - Live Reviews

Selected reviews of Stile Antico's live performances

Superior music-making ruled in the lunchtime Prom at Cadogan Hall. The divine British vocal group Stile Antico sailed without hiccup (or conductor) through Renaissance settings of texts from the biblical Song of Songs. Breasts, pomegranates, apples, honey: the sensuous vocabulary vibrated with that mellifluous vocal bliss only possible with long rehearsals, close listening and constant eye contact. The repertoire, from Nicolas Gombert to Michael Praetorius, shifted between lip-smacking and the devout, but Stile Antico's pitch, unanimity and beauty never wavered. (The Times)

From the outset, the Monastery of San Jerónimo was plunged into a stunned silence, from which emanated only the crystalline and ethereal voices of Stile Antico, lifting the audience to an atmosphere of sublime spirituality, forgetting for a moment the corporeal nature of their existence. (Granada Hoy)

Working without a conductor, the singers kept a keen eye on one another, giving their pitch-perfect sound a finely honed precision in the rippling sequences of Clemens non Papa's "Ego flos campi" and the ricocheting counterpoint of Sebastian de Vivanco's "Veni, dilecte mi." Rich harmonies in selections by Nicolas Gombert and Jean Lheritier had a luminous glow. The passion was palpable in Francisco Guerrero's "Trahe me post te," a Marian devotional that more than verged on eroticism. You could almost smell the perfume wafting through a ravishing account of Victoria's "Vidi speciosam," which closed the program. (New York Times)

Stile Antico are a group of Oxbridge graduates who started singing for fun, but then discovered they were serious about it: they are now showing how thrilling a cappella music by the Renaissance masters can be, and this concert was typically flawless. Their sound was wonderfully clean and vibrant, and their democratic decision not to have a conductor - to operate, in effect, as chamber musicians - was triumphantly vindicated: no conductor could have calibrated this ensemble performance more finely. In short, this was a cappella heaven. (The Independent at the BBC Proms)

From the very first dead-in-tune opening chords, it was clear that an important new early music vocal ensemble had arrived. During the standing ovation I overhead two notable choral musicians say the equivalent of "Move over, Tallis Scholars! (American Record Guide)

We are already fortunate in having many of the world's famous and long-established choral groups, but the young newcomers, Stile Antico, are arguably the finest this country has produced. Seemingly everything they perform is elevated to a new level of perfection, the balance between voices, intonation, clarity of articulation and tonal beauty are all impeccably achieved. (Yorkshire Post)

Stile Antico has no conductor or leader; they communicate with each other only through eye contact. And with every member of the choir highly concentrated and committed, it works perfectly. Each has a convincing solo voice, but together they are outstanding, interpreting music which has almost been forgotten in a thoroughly modern way. The audience in the packed Rellingen church responded to this thrilling performance with jubilant applause. (Uetersener Nachrichten)

The highlight of the concert was John Sheppard's Media vita, a vast work, which was beautifully paced by the group. This was a wonderfully homogenous sound: the ensemble sings through the phrases in suhc a way that gives direction while never appearing rushed. (Early Music Today)

There are worlds of expression to be found in this beautifully crafted church music. Stile Antico's approach to those inherent characteristics was to shine the light of emotive interpretation on them. What emerged was a performance of tapestry-like beauty. Moreover, the individual personalities of each composer and his approach to the texts were not only magnified, but also made sensually evocative. All the singers in the ensemble seemed to revel in these lush musical gestures. They sang to each other with as much joy and sensitivity as they did to the audience. As for the audience itself, the sighs and gasps that followed nearly every piece showed that all the listeners were viscerally taken by the performance, as well as the richness of the music itself. (Boston Musical Intelligencer)

The real kick-off for Kings Place's Swingle-sponsored a cappella festival was the brilliant young Stile Antico ensemble. "Stile antico" - as opposed to "stile moderno"- originally denoted "old style" church music written in the early seventeenth century, but this group are investing it with new and vibrant meaning. The sound was muscular, balanced, and completely vibrato-free, the musicianship impeccable... (The Independent)

In the little church of St Norah at Smar Jbeil, built in the Crusader era, with walls lit in blue and white chalk, twelve young English men and women... carried the audience to a place outside time. Stile Antico's sacred vocal music is intense, dramatic, fervent: simply sublime. It translates the passion of these young singers. This group offered to a audience lightly chilled by the cold, music which warmed the heart. (Colette Khalaf, L'orient le jour)

The 13 unaccompanied singers, standing in a shallow arc with vocal groups intermixed, produce a superb consort sound... And they manage all this without a conductor - indeed, in my view, the lack of a conductor is one of the reasons for their undoubted musical success. (Early Music Review)

Their encore - Byrd's Miserere Mihi - was evidence of their fondness for freedom of interpretation and recognition of the superb blend in the upper voices and clarity of diction. Stile Antico sing with conviction, their discipline is exemplary and they deliver a unique warmth of tone. (Warwick Today)

The group's impeccably blended sound, the lightness and transparency of its ensemble work, and its warmly expressive approach to this repertoire were all notable from the outset. The 13 singers perform without a conductor but nonetheless manage to shape their lines with exceeding suppleness and grace. (Boston Globe)

Stile Antico moves effortlessly into the first rank... a serious group who know whereof they sing and are confident enough to perform without a conductor. Watching them, I was struck by their intense shared concentration. Dedicated musicianship by the singers and judicious word-painting by the composers made every item telling, whether the slow melancholy of the Babylonian exile, the joy of the Assumption, the lingering contemplation of the pulchritude of the Bride of Christ or the prayerful invocation of the Agnus Dei. Alphas all round. (Oxford Times)