The endless hot summer drags on, and the promise of Advent and Christmas, recalled by the mid-August arrival of this new recording from Stile Antico, is quite compelling. And so is the music, headlined by the magnificent, monumental, and incomplete Missa Puer natus est of Thomas Tallis. The Mass has been recorded before, most notably by The Tallis Scholars and The Sixteen, but apparently a new performing edition was prepared for this current disc by Sally Dunkley (who, with David Wulstan also was responsible for the Tallis Scholars version from 2001). Without copies of the scores in hand--or some very close comparative listening--it's difficult to discern what differences there may be, if any; however, any performance requires some reconstruction of voice parts, so it's possible, even likely, that Stile Antico's Tallis Mass is not identical part-for-part to the others.

Whatever the case regarding the details of the scores, there's no question as to interpretive differences. While The Tallis Scholars and similarly The Sixteen are more measured, more restrained in their use of dynamic changes, Stile Antico is not averse to a little more contrast from one section to another, or to a bit of reveling in a climactic point or concluding cadence--not a bad thing in music whose bolder, more audacious moments are too often underplayed. These aspects of the group's style can be easily appreciated in the Gloria--the shift to a more gentle, prayerful tone at the words "qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis...suscipe deprecationem nostram", and the truly glorious, electrifying explosion of harmonies at the end of the movement.

The Mass certainly is a compositional marvel--although its seven-part voicing ensures relatively dense textures, Tallis manages to weave the melodic fibers with incredible smoothness and grace for very long stretches while maintaining a vibrant harmonic rhythm, such that you sense an easy if powerful flow from beginning to end, which benefits from Stile Antico's strong voices and consistently tight ensemble.

Although the Tallis understandably gets top billing, for me Robert White's Magnificat is the highlight of the program--a masterpiece among a host of other contenders, including the selections by Byrd and of course John Sheppard's dauntingly impressive Verbum caro. My only complaint here is that, depending on the particular voicing, but especially in the Tallis, the recording positions the lowest bass voice just slightly too close, creating an imbalance that can be distracting. I remember 25 years ago when I first heard The Tallis Scholars and thought how lucky we early music fans were to have this group and its recordings and performances to look forward to; with continuing respect for Peter Phillips and his groundbreaking ensemble, I find those same thoughts returning with every new Stile Antico recording. Highly recommended. (David Vernier)

Stile Antico are a group of Oxbridge graduates who started singing for fun, but then discovered they were serious about it: as Grammy-garlanded superstars, 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.

After the smoothly-sustained melodic lines of Clemens came some angular Palestrina, then a richly sonorous setting by Nicolas Gombert. Lassus’s ‘Veni, dilecte mi’ – setting a part of the text which was sexual in the extreme – was followed by Victoria’s magnificent ‘I will arise and go about the city, I will seek him whom my soul loves...’ Exquisite fragments of plainchant punctuated the longer pieces; the finale was a jubilant piece by Praetorius in which the choir subdivided into three smaller units. In short, this was a cappella heaven; on Saturday it will be broadcast on Radio 3. (Michael Church)

One of the more mysterious composers of the 16th century, in recent years the music of John Sheppard has been rather unfairly overlooked, particularly when compared to the rich pickings available for Tallis and Byrd. This disc adds to a slowly growing corpus of recordings of his work and offers a fascinating overview of his compositions, from vast, large-scale settings from the Office to shorter English anthems that have thus far received scant attention.

The larger, Latin works are truly extraordinary and of a scale that looks back to the Eton Choirbook. Stile Antico bases its disc on three of these: the uplifting responsory Gaude, gaude, gaude Maria virgo, a Te Deum, and - forming a substantial centrepiece for the disc – the antiphon Media vita. The latter is Sheppard’s masterpiece, an exquisitely carved work that Stile Antico performs with considerable poise and gravitas. With subtly-honed dynamic control, the mixed-voice group manages to convey an over-arching sense of uniformity to the piece – no mean feat for such a long, sectional work. Stile’s weighty tempi do nothing to shorten it; at 25’32”, the work is a full four minutes longer than the Tallis Scholars’ recording on Gimell and over six minutes longer than that of the Gabrieli Consort (DG).

It works, though. This isn’t a performance to turn up to full volume and impress the neighbours with; Stile’s account of Media vita is the most introverted to date – a lower pitch than some recordings adds lugubrious warmth in place of refreshing brightness, with intimacy replacing outward drama. Bearing this in mind, I would have occasionally liked a little more unreserved joyfulness in Gaude, gaude, gaude Maria virgo, for instance, though there were some lovely moments of clarity in the later sections that provide a breath of fresh air to the more substantial six-part counterpoint.

The English settings show Sheppard in a more restrained form, though rather less so than many of the English settings of Tallis and Byrd – you can almost hear him straining to escape from the boundaries of commonplace homophony at every opportunity. Particularly beautiful (and also beautifully sung) is The Lord’s Prayer, in five parts, which should surely be performed more often than it is today. The three remaining anthems do not give Stile the chance to display its overarching sense of structure to such an impressive extent as in the Latin works; one of them, Haste thee, O God, is recorded here for the first time.

In the larger pieces, Stile Antico’s sense of structure and direction is impressive in the extreme; this is a carefully thought-out, serious and intimate recording. The acoustics, of All Hallow’s Church, Gospel Oak, London, are superb, and the ensemble uses different microphone positions for effective contrasts in several of the works. (Jonathan Wikeley)

We are already fortunate in having many of the world's famous and long-established choral groups, but the young newcomers, Stile Antico, is arguably the finest this country has produced. It was in York five years ago that I predicted the prizewinners in the Early Music International Network competition would one day achieve greatness, and they have even surpassed that. 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. Without a conductor, they have to listen and work with one another to a much higher degree than their illustrious contemporaries, while the sopranos float those high passages devoid of that penetrating quality we often hear. Monteverdi's gorgeous Missa in illo tempore was the major work in this opening concert in the Beverley Early Music Festival, a fine score that should stand next to the composer's celebrated Vespers of 1610, but it has sadly been neglected. Its four sections were here interspersed with the more extroverted motets of Palestrina, including a resplendent performance of the virtuosic, Assumpta est Maria, and four haunting Plainchants. (David Denton)

Like his contemporaries, Sheppard had to accommodate himself to changes in the liturgy, as the Tudor monarchs shifted from Roman Catholicism to Anglicanism and back. Not much is known about his life, except that he left his position at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1548 to beome a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. This recording by the 14-strong Stile Antico offers three extensive Latin pieces leavened by shorted English anthems composed during the reign of Edward VI.

It opens with the responsary Gaude, gaude, gaude Maria. The outer sections are for six voices, the lowest but one being a cantus firmus. These frame simpler "gymel" passages, where the sopranos and altos, each divided in two, are combined with the bass. Then there is plainchant, some of it consisting of a melisma on the last syllable of the preceding polyphony. It is a most attactive piece, with clashes of harmony duly relished by the choir.

Even more elaborate is the 25-minute antiphon that gives the disc its title. Here the Nunc dimittis is chanted, its simplicity an affecting contrast to the intensity of the counterpoint. Stile Antico take the beginning quietly, as befits the words - "In the midst of life we are in death" - and work up to a powerful conclusion. The Te deum is an alternatim setting, probably composed earlier than the other two works.

Of the English anthems, "I give you a new commandment" is constructed like, for example, Tallis' "If ye love me", where the second part is completed. Whether the music be simple or complex, Stile Antico have the measure of it. Excellent! (Richard Lawrence)

Six marriages, two wives beheaded, a break with the Pope, a voracious nature... Henry VIII was a man of every excess. And yet during that time, as if to compensate for the excesses of this Bluebeard, English music produced works that called for penance and meditation. From the first half of the English 16th century, we know above all the three Ts, Taverner, Tye and Tallis, who composed for Anglicans and Catholics alike with the same fervour and intensity. Here, then, is John Sheppard, who died in 1558, less well-known because his works have survived only as fragments and in manuscript form, but equally exciting, especially when interpreted as sublimely as by the ensemble Stile Antico. The lines follow each other, intersect, intertwine, and finally unite with infinite grace; the swirling of the hymns give birth to a sense of eternity, and the harmonies seem to touch the absolute. To listen to the purity and beauty of the voices of this young English choir, no-one could believe that man could be evil – not even if he were called Henry VIII. (Gérard Pangon)

Less celebrated than his contemporary Tallis, Sheppard nevertheless had the same life as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. His oeuvre combines both the Latin and English music which Stile Antico offers us, with commendable concern for contrast.

As usual, this young English group is distinguished by a keen sense of organisation in their programme – as much dramatic (contrasting contemplative and festive music) as instructive. The immense anthem for Lent Media Vita is placed at the centre of a structure which opens and closes with a Latin composition in which plainchant is alternated with polyphony. Sheppard’s polyphony is grand, full of ornament and long-breathed. However, his English anthems “reflect the Protestant desire for textual clarity”, as Matthew O’Donovan, one of the members of the ensemble, rightly states...

The ensemble distinguishes naturally between the decorative profusion in the Latin prayers and the vigorous clarity of the anthems... But Stile Antico, with their qualities of blend, true intonation and precision, also know how to vary the expression according to the text, from Marian devotion to grave meditation on the end of life (Media Vita), from firm assurance in the Resurrection (Christ rising again) to troubled prayer (Haste thee, O God). (Philippe Venturini)

We know little about the life of John Sheppard (towards 1515-1558). He was nonetheless one of the most prolific English composers of his era, most notably in the domain of church music, of which “his production reflected the religious upheavals of his time, and contained both works in Latin for Catholic rite and English religious music written during the years of the formation of the Protestant cult under Edward VI and Elisabeth,” writes Wendy Thompson. The present recording well illustrates these two tracks. Let it be said from the start: this SACD is a splendour of multifaceted pleasures. First, it is a pleasure because of the works heard. It is also a pleasure because of its interpreters. But above all, it is a pleasure to once again hear the fourth recording of the most remarkable group of the last few years. For, the rigorous involvement of Stile Antico is absolutely unique, as is the perfection of intonation one can hear on each page. They crown it all by fusing tones in exemplary serenity and breathing life into what they play with rare lucidity. In short, there is no doubt about it: this SACD is a pleasure you will want to taste more than once. (Jean-Jacques Millo, trans. Lawrence Schulman)

Warning: masterpiece! A big thank-you, first, to Harmonia Mundi USA, who haven’t abandoned the SACD. This process... offers a sublime setting for the polyphony of John Sheppard. I’ve rarely heard a multichannel SACD as well-judged and tasteful in its placing of voices within a reverberant space. On the level of sound alone, this recording will be, for those with the right equipment, a marvellous journey. On the subject of taste and class, the other great surprise is the quality of this English ensemble, Stile Antico, which has none of the quirks of English groups; the tenors don’t sound tight, the sopranos don’t place their top notes as if on a level.

Following the example of the best Flemish groups (one thinks of Paul van Nevel), Stile Antico cultivates flexibility, individualisation within an overall fusion. This difficult skill isn’t easy to come by, and Harmonia Mundi has been very astute in securing the services of this top-flight ensemble.

Amongst the van Nevellian qualities of Stile Antico, is a natural fluidity well illustrated by their interpretations of The Lord’s Prayer or I give you a new Commandment. The harmonic tension at the opening of Media Vita is admirable, without any voice piercing the canvas. The structure of this 25-minute tour de force is sustained in superlative manner, like an endlessly-long breath.

I far prefer the blended sound of Stile Antico and their more plangent tone to the less full texture and more immediate sound of the Tallis Scholars. A final word: the polyphony of John Sheppard easily matches that of Thomas Tallis. The disc is therefore just as important for its musical substance. (Christophe Huss)

The English schism from the Catholic Church forced change on Sheppard (as on all his contemporaries), because the religious leaders of the new Protestant establishment demanded greater intelligibility of sung texts through less elaborate polyphony. With the possible exception of his setting of The Lord's Prayer, Sheppard's English anthems were probably produced under Edward VI between 1547 and 1553... Stile Antico’s unforced pacing, sensitive phrasing and wonderfully clear textures underline the serene mood and harmonic richness of these modest works.

The disc opens with a lengthy Latin work epitomizing Sheppard’s style: the responsory Gaude, gaude, gaude Maria virgo for Vespers on the feast of the Purification of the Virgin (Candlemas). It radiates joy through its tightly woven counterpoint, shimmering harmonies and daring modulations, with so-called ‘gymel’ passages where the two florid upper voices divide into four and combine variously with other and the lower voices. Stile Antico’s enthusiastic delivery of this technically difficult piece is all the more impressive for its assurance and polish.

The disc’s centrepiece and Stile Antico’s real test is Media vita, an extended (more than 25 minutes) and highly elaborate six-voice settings of the poignant antiphon ‘In the midst of life we are in death’ for the office of Compline on third and fourth Sundays of Lent, which also incorporates the Nunc Dimittis (‘Lord, now lettest though thy servant depart in peace’). It is one of Sheppard’s masterpieces, a profoundly expressive work that immerses the listener in its richly textured counterpoint full of long-breathed phrases, dominated by soaring trebles over the shifting harmonies of the idiosyncratically flowing lower voices and unexpected dissonances...

This is only the second recording of this extraordinary work, preceded by The Tallis Scholars’ impressive account way back in 1989... Stile Antico’s approach to the work is very different from the Tallis Scholars’, from their slightly slower tempo that heightens the work’s mournful solemnity to their fervent expression, full of personal human anguish amidst the elaborate artifice of Sheppard’s writing. Like the Tallis Scholars, they maintain perfect ensemble and unanimity of tone, but while the older choir favoured a perfectly smooth blend of the voices and a somewhat coolly crystalline tone, Stile Antico do not try to hide the differences between their 14 voices... Having women rather than countertenors also gives Stile Antico a warmer sound. Overall, the more distantly recorded and monumental Tallis Scholars, for all their sophisticated shaping of line and their trebles’ flawless purity and seemingly effortless delivery, sound slightly soulless next to Stile Antico, whose particular qualities also benefit from the technological advances in audio engineering since 1989.

On a conventional CD player, Stile Antico’s recorded sound is detailed yet natural within the not too resonant acoustic of All Hallows Church, Gospel Oak in London. Playing the high definition layer of the disc on a dedicated SACD player reveals the new medium’s particular suitability for choral music: the voices have even greater immediacy, with a vivid sense of the space around them.

Throughout their programme, Stile Antico perform with impressive technical proficiency and expressiveness... (Christopher Price)

The British vocal ensemble Stile Antico revives the subtle art of the composer John Sheppard, and so puts right a centuries-long injustice.

Until now, the only collection devoted to Sheppard was the work of the legendary Tallis Scholars. An irony, when one considers that Sheppard’s music has long been eclipsed by the work of Thomas Tallis himself!

This injustice – also due to the fact that his music exists only in handwritten sources, whereas his competitor’s reaches us chiefly in printed form – is now redressed by this beautiful programme, the fourth disc by the vocal ensemble Stile Antico.

This group, formed of young British singers, has since 2005 quickly achieved renown, and has been distinguished by many awards for a remarkable technique and a perfection of intonation typical of the English choral school, alongside a presence and warmth of timbre and texture which equals today’s finest Franco-Flemish ensembles. To add to that tantalizing portrait, these young singers work without director, each bringing their personality and ideas to the ensemble. The result is an unmatched clarity and transparency, in which no voice is trivial or neglected.

Nevertheless, the success of this project lies not only with the vocal and musical qualities of this group. Its intelligence is also found in the choice of programme. It is true that it is difficult to “sell” Renaissance music to a large public, since at first this repertoire can seem unvaried. However, Stile Antico’s programme is full of diversity, be it at the level of genre (responsory, anthem, hymn), language (Latin alternating with English), or texture (homophony, respond), constantly renewing our attention and enabling us better to appreciate all the subtleties of Sheppard’s art: vocal opulence, harmonic surprise of every kind, original melodic lines.

We imagine the astonishment and, doubtless, the admiration, of the courts of Queen Mary or Henry VIII, and can share in it today.

A beautiful renaissance for a composer – which is worth the trouble! (Jeremie Noyer)

The young British ensemble Stile Antico seems to be following a prodigiously promising career course reminiscent of several other highly successful specialist groups such as The Tallis Scholars and Anonymous 4. With just four recordings so far, the 14-voice (more or less) choir has achieved impressive critical and international audience recognition, and this new disc of works by John Sheppard (c.1515-c.1559) undoubtedly will add more praise to the conductorless group's resumé and likely another award or two.

Although the catalog holds several excellent recordings of Sheppard's music, most all of it is from his justifiably distinguished Latin oeuvre, and one of the felicities of this program is the inclusion of several English-texted anthems not found elsewhere. And at first listen it's clear that these works from the mid-1550s, especially the gently flowing, unostentatious five-voice polyphony of The Lord's Prayer and the full-bodied resonance and harmonic strength of Christ rising again (for four men's parts), deserve their place alongside Sheppard's more commonly-performed Latin works, such as In pace, Verbum caro, and Libera nos. The English anthem I give you a new commandment immediately recalls Tallis' beloved If ye love me, but Sheppard's piece stands apart for its richer textures, more vivid colors (including cross relations), and more extensive use of imitative counterpoint.

The (really) big work here is the antiphon Media vita - at 25 and a half minutes, one of the 16th-century's truly monumental sacred masterpieces. Vocally it requires some serious endurance - there are very few pauses - as well as superior breath control throughout long phrases and the expected attention to balances and textural/dynamic variations.

The Tallis Scholars' performance from 20 years ago (the only other first-rate recorded version) remains as vibrant and compelling as ever, its recording perspective giving more prominence to the treble than Stile Antico's equally captivating but more uniformly balanced rendition. The Tallis Scholars' version also is four minutes faster than Stile Antico's, and on direct comparison you might notice that the slower tempo enhances the inherent tension in the harmonic rhythm - a very apt reflection of the text's seeming contradiction ("In the midst of life we are in death.").

Finally, the Tallis Scholars use a performing edition prepared by David Wulstan (the manuscript's missing sections of the tenor part had to be re-composed); here, the performing editions were prepared by members of Stile Antico. Without copies of at least one of the scores it's not easy to tell the differences, although it does seem as if the Wulstan version employs more cross-relations than the current one.

The performances here are uniformly excellent, celebrating not only the richness and diversity of Sheppard's harmonic structures, but delighting in the sheer momentum of his often relentless, unceasingly unfolding lines and sometimes clashing colors. And although the textures may be rich, these singers (and recording engineer) never obscure the character of individual lines - we hear everything, and in the most agreeable acoustic we could imagine for this music.

For various reasons (clearly explained in the liner notes) most of Sheppard's works have been the victim of centuries-long neglect, but their quality and deserved standing alongside other great masters of the period, Tallis and Parsons, for instance, is without doubt. Let's hope that this will not be Stile Antico's last foray into this repertoire - but whatever the group does next, we'll be listening. Highly recommended. (David Vernier)

The 14 young singers comprising Stile Antico are going from strength to strength. Their previous three albums have garnered awards and critical praise for seemingly effortless and luminous renditions of Renaissance polyphony. Here they turn to John Sheppard, unaccountably still one of the least-known of a coterie of singer-composers from the Tudor period of England.

During the period from 1547-1603 (the death of Henry VIII to the accession of Elizabeth I), there was a dizzying succession of monarchs and corresponding switches in State religion. From the boy king Edward's imposition of strict protestantism, through Mary Tudor's return of Catholicism and finally Elizabeth's establishment of Anglican protestantism, these were dangerous and bloody times. Composers like Tallis, Byrd and others including Sheppard had to be able to instantly switch their styles and profess appropriate allegiances upon pain of loosing their livelihoods, or even their heads.

We have but sketchy knowledge of John Sheppard's career; he was a chorister at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1543, leaving there in 1548 to become a 'Gentleman of the Chapel Royal' in London - a similar pattern to the other better-known contemporary singer-composers, gravitating from the provinces to the capital. However, while Tallis has been celebrated for over a century, Sheppard's name has only slowly surfaced in the last three decades or so. Hyperion Records produced several ground-breaking sets of his Masses, including the exquisite 'Western Wynd' Mass, which advanced his star considerably. Matthew O'Donovan's erudite notes for this Harmonia Mundi SACD explain the most likely reasons for Sheppard's comparative obscurity; for example, little of his oeuvre was published, the MSS are often incomplete and require much scholarly detection work in consolidation. It is certainly not the quality of his compositions which are in question, just that the vagaries of history have been unkind to him.

While Hyperion's sets concentrated on Sheppard's Latin works, Stile Antico have elected for an illuminating comparison of the Latin and vernacular styles, with most of the Latin works probably dating to Mary Tudor's brief reign (except the sumptuous Te Deum, which shows some signs of being attributable to Henry VIII's reign). The vernacular liturgical pieces must originate in Edward VI's time, using texts from Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer. Here, the flight of Sheppard's Latin polyphony is severely curtailed, with nearly homophonic settings, little repetition and greater textual clarity (paralleling the reforms of Church music promulgated on the Continent by the Council of Trent).

Arguably one of Sheppard's best liturgical pieces in the vernacular style, the 'Our Father' illustrates the composer's simplification of his Latin style. It is in 5-part SAATB, and keeps warmly to the mid-range for its melodic lines, which are harmonically varied but lack the spicy collisions of his Latin mode. The bass line leads continually, as though representing the Church's foundations, while the close harmonies may symbolise the unity of Faith. These Tudor composers loved interweaving cryptic symbolism in their works, it was often the only fairly safe way of expressing their personal views.

Of the Latin works, 'Gaude Maria' is an exquisite and sunny 6-part Responsory (SSAATB). Its florid counterpoint begins raptly, in awe of the great Mystery of the Immaculate Conception, taking wing as it contemplates the motherhood of Mary and its consequences. Sheppard at several points uses "gimel", a technique for splitting the treble part into two solo voices, and he divides some of his other parts too, forming a rich tapestry of sound. Intervening plainchant lines from the tenors sound from further back in what one can imagine as a candle-lit church, the acoustic halo being evocatively atmospheric.

'Media Vita' is at the heart of this compilation; a sustained and sonorous setting of the obsequies, from "In the midst of Life we are in Death" to the Nunc dimittis ("Lord, lettest now thy servant to depart in peace"). It may relate to the death of a fellow parishioner, musician and composer Nicolas Ludford, its unique gravitas denoted by Sheppard's use of breves to carry the Latin cantus firmus. Stile Antico's stately progress through this wonderful work is a near-miracle of breath control, rhythmical but not metrical lines and transparency of texture, coupled with hypnotic ebb and flow of dynamics. It arrives at an awe-inspiring climactic conclusion. The 6-8 part 'Te Deum' is another important Latin work, alternating chant settings of the medieval Latin hymn with richly-scored petitions from the psalms, which traditionally follow the hymn. A work of considerable grandeur. One wonders at which ecclesiastical event it was first performed.

There is little to say about Harmonia Mundi's recording in All Hallows Church, Gospel Oak, London, a late Victorian Church with a fine and well-tamed acoustic. The sound, whether stereo or MC, is simply so right for this music, marrying the building's response to the singers exactly as the Tudor polyphonists expected, the vocal timbres truthfully represented. The producer has judiciously managed changes in choral perspective for breath-catching atmospheric effects. HM's 3 fold Digipak production is sumptuous, with notes in three languages - well-illustrated and on superb paper.

I have no doubt that this new album will be as acclaimed as Stile Antico's previous ones. It is a significant milestone on Sheppard's journey to modern recognition for his considerable talents, offering many beauties and evoking its period with considerable emotional force. (John Miller)

State-of-the-art Kings Place has as many echo-chambers as a medieval cathedral, and that’s just the foyer, so it was a pleasure to queue for one’s tickets while the five members of Il Suono delivered some spirited Gabrieli.

But 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. Their last Cd, which won a Grammy, was devoted to settings of the Old Testament’s ‘Song of Songs’. Their new one, released to coincide with this concert, is devoted to works by a Tudor contemporary of Thomas Tallis - and fellow-member of the Chapel Royal - named John Sheppard.

Not much is known about him, but it’s thought that his magnum opus - a massive antiphon entitled ‘Media vita’ - was written in response to the deadliest epidemic to hit London after the Black Death, which may also have caused his own. Its slow and monumental opening gave little hint of what would follow, as the polyphony unfolded and the harmonies began to take unexpectedly dissonant paths. The sound was muscular, balanced, and completely vibrato-free, the musicianship impeccable. And as the singers built their sonic cathedral in the air, one realised that sound - rather than ideas - was the purpose of the work. Some sections were male-voice, others called for a multiplicity of parts, but the whole thing floated serenely ahead, propelled by an inner drama a million miles from the mood-music of minimalism.

Their recital was entitled ‘Swansongs and memorials by Renaissance masters’, and if nothing else equalled Sheppard’s masterpiece, the programme had a lovely coherence, with plainchant linking the anthems and motets. Byrd’s ‘Retire my soul’ had the majesty one associates with his music, while Dufay’s bass-heavy ‘Ave regina coelorum’ gradually set itself free of its moorings, and Gombert’s ‘Magnificat’ soared brightly in the heavens.

With Dufay’s motet composed to be sung around his deathbed, Lassus’s ‘Vide homo’ written three weeks before his end, and the plainchant prayers for the absolution of the dead evoking the fires and earthquakes of judgment day, intimations of mortality hung over everything. Is all that excessively morbid? For an answer, just turn on the television. ***** (Michael Church)

Late New Year’s resolution: serious immersion in Polyphonic music pre-1650! The impetus for this resolve was a concert at King’s Place by Stile Antico, a wonderful group of young singers who took last year’s Early Music Award for “Song of Songs” on Harmonia Mundi (highly recommended – and on iTunes and eMusic). Like many people, and with a pretty good music education, not much was taught me about music pre-Monteverdi. And apart from listening to the occasional Tallis Scholars and Hilliard Ensemble disc, I’ve never really explored this huge, wonderful but rather daunting repertoire.

I think the main problem is that because it’s written for unaccompanied voices there isn’t the difference in texture and colour that immediately alerts you to the different sound worlds of, say, Haydn and, from 100 years later, Brahms. There aren’t the obvious ‘syntactical’ or ‘grammatical’ give-aways that – in symphonic or operatic repertoire – immediately say “that’s Russian” or “that’s French” and “I’d say 1850ish” or “late 19th century”. The other barrier, for me at least, is that this music is so old that it’s difficult to establish a context and a sense of how one composer “fits” alongside another.

One way to give the music a sense of chronology and context, it occurred to me, would be to adjust the composers’ dates to a time when the historical background is there as part of one’s education and general perception. So, taking some of last night’s composers’ dates, and adding on 300 years, would give you: Byrd (1840-1923), Dufay (1697-1774), Sheppard (1815-1858), Gombert (1795-1860), Josquin (1750-1821) and Schütz (1885-1972). Crazy I know, but it means that Sheppard’s dates would equate with someone like Liszt and Schütz’s with someone like Stravinsky – and in a modern context they’re chalk and cheese. To the untutored ear so much of this old music sounds similar (especially as the words are often drawn from the same biblical sources) but when placed in relative context, I’m certainly encouraged to listen for advances in both harmony and structure, to take the two most obvious elements.

Sitting through Stile Antico’s concert – and though the King’s Place acoustic is a very appealing one – I felt for the singers not having that extra warmth and delay that an ancient cathedral chapter house lends the music (especially at the ends of pieces where the building usually takes over, swilling it around the huge open spaces to often magical effect). But Hall One is such a lovely space – a beautiful blend of light wood (that still smells of wood, deliciously!) and plain blue, subtly lit, that it feels strangely old and new at the same time! It’s perfect for music of the classical period – Haydn opera excerpts last year sounded ideal in the hall. And it’s also got an intimacy that seems to engender a very palpable rapport between audience and performer (and audience and audience given the number of sweets and drinks that were offered strangers during these winter months of tiresome coughs).

The first half of the programme ended with John Sheppard’s 25-minute Media vita, at whose heart sits the Nunc dimittis – a song that always moves me profoundly with its sense of fulfilment and its touching fusion of the just-born and the soon-to-die, and the very cyclical nature of life and death and its constant renewal. It’s a wonderfully concentrated work and the young, sappy voices of Stile Antico, blended with the skill of a great winemaker, got it across it magnificently. Their latest album – launched, as it happens, last night – is a Sheppard collection and I, for one, will be putting it straight into the “In Tray” of polyphonic music that I’m determined to grapple with this year. And I sincerely hope that, come the autumn, someone will be able to play me a piece of medieval polyphony and I’ll be able to say “Hmmm, I’d say late 16th century, probably Flemish…or possibly French”. And somehow, listening to Josquin or Gombert on my iPod strikes me as amazingly cool! (James Jolly)

When polyphony first emerged, the Church banned it for the suggestive sensuality of vocal interplay - it must have seemed like musical group sex. So while Renaissance settings of the evocative, often erotic Song of Songs may be less overtly seductive than more contemporary versions, composers such as Lassus, Gombert and Victoria took the Church's point to heart, exploiting the undulating mesh of voices and the delicious pain trapped within the delayed gratification of dissonant suspensions. Most scholars maintain that these Biblical verses depict King Solomon's romance with a Shulamite girl, but there have always been those who insist that the texts actually reflect religious devotion (a little hard to buy, given all the fruit and flower imagery attached to body parts). One of the church's objections to polyphony was that the words became less comprehensible-a justifiable complaint. That said, one can imagine the sly smile of the monks who used plainchant to sneak into their devotions the clearly understood phrase "While the King was on his couch, my perfume gave forth its fragrance." Alleluia indeed.

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. They create an aural plushness with gently tempered vibrato and the help of some well-engineered reverb. In the motet "Vadam et circuibo" by Victoria they build drama and intensity brilliantly, somehow managing to sound like they've added more then the one extra tenor credited on the track listing. The blanket of sound creates an effect that is, not to put too fine a point on it, orgasmic. The group is equally skilled at the tasteful expressivity demanded by the more devotional settings, such as Gombert's "Quam pulchra es." The energized, melismatic "Veni, dilecte mi" of Lassus presents a more impatient musicalization of the same phrases. Lhéritier's "Nigra sum," Clemens's "Ego flos campi" and, especially Ceballos's "Hortus conclusus," are strikingly fervent despite their spareness, a testament to the truth that passion need not be demonstrative to be intense. (Joanne Sydney Lessner)

When Stile Antico, a bright, young early-music vocal ensemble from England, made its New York debut as part of the Music Before 1800 series at Corpus Christi Church on Sunday afternoon, it was not the first time the group had set foot in the building. A representative of Harmonia Mundi, the label for which Stile Antico records, said the singers had visited the church during their first trip to the United States, when they performed at the Boston Early Music Festival in June.

That stopover, as well as the additional time Stile Antico spent in the church before the concert, gave the singers opportunities to hear how the room would respond to their sound. Not that they needed to work hard to make an impact. Listen to Stile Antico's most recent CD, "Song of Songs," and you are confronted with an ensemble of breathtaking freshness, vitality and balance. It was no fluke of marketing that made the disc a best seller and earned it a Gramophone Award (though the group's profile was probably boosted by having worked with Sting).

Nevertheless, Stile Antico's extra effort paid dividends during a concert that nearly duplicated the contents of the album, a collection of 16th-century European settings of passages from the biblical Song of Solomon. The intelligence with which these singers approached their work on record was also evident in the way they deployed their forces live.

During one plainchant selection, "Dum esset rex", two members sang from the back of the center aisle, making the entire sanctuary ring. Two further plainchants, "Laeva eius" and "Speciosa facta est", were sung from an enclosed chamber to one side of the altar, creating a haunting, disembodied distance.

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. After those selections, the encore - a stately "Miserere mihi, Domine" by William Byrd - was a much-needed cold shower.

Stile Antico is hot property nowadays and was hardly likely to turn down a gig at York - it was through taking part in the Young Artists Competition a few years ago that they got their break. This was a new programme, 'In Paradisum: Swansongs and Memorials by Renaissance Masters'. Spanning more than two centuries of music, it was a programme of works by composers aware of their own mortality. William Byrd's plangent Retire my Soul opened the concert, followed by plainsong taken from the Requiem service, which sandwiched all the polyphonic works. Dufay's Ave regina caelorum was much more strident, the basses providing a particularly grippling platform on which the rest of the parts moved. The highlight of the concert was John Sheppard's Media vita, a vast work, which was beautifully paced by the group - another motet that mirrored the great arching roof of York Minster's chapter house particularly well. Works by Gombert, Josquin, Lobo (the particularly beautiful Versa es in luctum), Schütz and Lassus followed in the second half, with an encore in the form of Tallis' Te lucis ante terminum. This was a wonderfully homogenous sound: the ensemble sings through the phrases in suhc a way that gives direction while never appearing rushed. (Jonathan Wikeley)

The other John McCabe premiere, albeit on a smaller scale, proved equally accomplished and similarly satisfying: the world premiere of his choral piece Woefully array'd, sung amid a programme of Renaissance music given in St Francis Xavier Church by the brilliant emerging early music vocal consort, Stile Antico. By way of a build up, the impassioned cries of Gibbons' O Lord, in Thy wrath ('O save me') could not have been more apt, and even more so what followed: the Good Friday anthem Woefully Array'd by the great Henrician composer William Cornysh the younger. It was the anonymous Crucifixion poem set by Cornysh ('They mowid, they grynned, they scornyd me, / Condemp to death ... With paynys my vaynys constraynyd to crake ...') - as vivid as Dunbar - whose penitential character McCabe elected to emulate in his own modern reworking of the poem.

Somehow McCabe contrives to create modern dissonance that has a medieval flavour (yielding to unexpected consonance at the word 'lamb'), and a by turns wanly expressive and prickly treatment of the updated words which excites and involves at every turn. The introduction of a kind of medieval organum and the unexpected upward semitonal slip near the close all added to a handsomely pleasing new choral work, exquisitely followed up, in this exploration by Stile Antico of the theme of Passion and Resurrection, by another Henrician masterpiece, John Taverner's motet for Holy Saturday, Dum transisset Sabbatum. (Roderick Dunnett)

There's a great deal to be said for conductorless choirs: they listen better and they watch more intently. Certainly Stile Antico, a baker's dozen of young a cappella singers, seems to thrive without the distraction of a baton-waver.

The anniversaries of the deaths of Handel and Haydn - 250th and 200th respectively - have inspired a run of events at YEMF covering music of remembrance and requiem. In Paradisum, Stile Antico's impassioned tribute on Monday evening, spanned two centuries of "swansongs and memorials" from Dufay to Schütz, interleaved with appropriate plainchant.

The group opened in profound contemplation with Byrd's five-part Retire, My Soul, caressing its long, instrumental-style lines with an easy finesse. But it was another Englishman, writing 50 years earlier, who stole the laurels.

Media Vita is easily the longest motet of Queen Mary's reign (1553-8). It frames the Nunc Dimittis with a fervent prayer for deliverance, itself encapsulated in a recurring punchline about the bitter pains of death, and colourful dissonance. The choir sustained an extraordinary concentration throughout its 25 spellbinding minutes.

Light and shade were equally apparent in a brisk account of Gombert's Magnificat and in the rich harmonies of Lobo's Versa Est in Luctum. The sheer unfussiness of the evening delighted the eye almost as much as the ear. Conductors beware. (Martin Dreyer)

The theme of this year's York Early Music festival is births, deaths and anniversaries, with significant dates for Handel, Haydn and Purcell duly noted. But the most spontaneous performance came from the young Danish quartet Baroque Fever with a programme dedicated to the birth of the sonata.

One of the pleasures of the festival is the quirkiness of the venues. The Holy Trinity Church, with its intimate jumble of ancient box pews facing in all directions, is not the most obvious place for a recital, but violinists Peter Spissky and Bjarte Eike adapted to the erratic sightlines by sprinting in and out of the aisles, trading improvised lines on the hoof. It may not be what 17th-century Italian masters Dario Castello and Marco Uccellini had in mind, but it became a playful form of baroque jazz.

There was a lachrymose air to the concerts exploring themes of mortality, the most macabre being a programme by Alla Francesca entitled Music for the Black Death. The young British choir Stile Antico brought an incredible intensity of sound to an apocalyptic piece of polyphony by the 16th-century English composer John Sheppard, rather aptly written in response to a virulent strain of flu. The Clerks brought a more intimate tone to a sequence of obsequies written by medieval composers, including Ockeghem's tribute to Binchois, Josquin's tribute to Ockeghem, and Dufay's tribute to himself. Josquin's elegy imparts the information that Ockeghem was "learned, handsome in appearance and not at all stout", suggesting that celebrity weight obsession is hardly a modern problem. (Alfred Hickling)

At the weekend, the daytime Festival concerts continued, under the theme "Music from the time of the expulsion of the Moors". As part of this diverse and comprehensive programme, we were able to hear the British vocal ensemble Stile Antico, one of the most promising choral groups of the moment. In their programme, a single work: the Officium defunctorum of Tomas Luis de Victoria, one of the greatest monuments of the Golden Age of Spanish Polyphony...

The vocal perfection of the members of this ensemble was was put to the service of a music which displays a sublime vocal harmony. Balance, delicacy in each melodic design, care of cadences and a pure sound were the elements that contributed to the perfection of their interpretation. 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. (Gonzalo Roldán Herencia)

The last place in the world I would have expected a musical revolution to take place would have been renaissance vocal music. How many different ways can a group sing "Now is the Month of Maying"? Beginning with The Deller Consort in 1948, we've enjoyed a usually high standard of vocal ensembles and since the 1970's the major universities and conservatories of the world have gestated a group of note every five years or so. Making things more unlikely, the newest kids on the block have arrived on the most well-beaten path for groups like this. Most are ex-choral scholars from Cambridge University. The ensemble in question is Stile Antico and over the last few years they have broken into a different paradigm of performance for vocal groups of this sort. Recently harmonia mundi released their third recording Song of Songs and they've just completed their US debut at the Boston Early Music Festival.

As the title suggests, this recording is a compilation of renaissance compositions using texts from the Song of Solomon, the biblical collection of love poetry, purportedly written by King Solomon to a Shulamite girl. Many groups have fished in this pool before, but Stile Antico's repertoire choices and exquisite program notes (written by Matthew O'Donovan, one of the basses) draw a well delineated link between the surge in medieval popularity and the suitability of these texts for the purposes of the Marian 'cult' that portrayed the Virgin Mary as the representation of the church as a whole.

This album holds together as a concert and a concept better than any other attempt at this repertoire that I have heard (actually, all three of their albums do that) but Stile Antico really set themselves apart in the way in which they perform. T hese musicians work without a conductor, which is common practice for chamber instrumentalists, but uncommon in a group of this size. Perilous as the concept might sound for a group of singers, I've never heard people present this repertoire with such a high level of commitment. Their other releases, Music for Compline and Heavenly Harmonies offer the same exquisite ensemble and intelligent programming choices. I know the group will be in New York in October, this year, but for a full breakdown of their concert itinerary I'd check their website. This repertoire has never been more engaging. (Hugo Munday)

This group of young singers have perhaps garnered most widespread attention through their touring activities with Sting (in his Dowland project). Away from his star wattage, they have their own healthy glow. There is something inherently natural-sounding about their performances here, in composers ranging from Ceballos to Vivanco. There is, one feels, a wealth of church-going history behind the chamber-like sensitivity. Marvellous.

The idea of bringing together different settings of the Song of Songs texts in a programme is by no means new... as ever, it is the interpretation which is crucial, and here this splendid ensemble has much to offer. The group Stile Antico consists of twelve young singers, all very well-educated, equipped with outstanding technical and stylistic skills. This, their third album, impressively underlines what the previous two have clearly shown: these young singers have successfully attained the first rank of interpreters of demanding vocal polyphony. Their first two discs featured compositions by the great Englishmen, like Byrd, Tallis and Sheppard; on this following release, the young singers show that they can also bring the whole range of interpretative resources to the work of the Franco-Flemish and Iberian traditions.

Stile Antico produces a flowing sound, always in the spirit of the meaning, beautifully combining absolutely homogeneous voices capable of the finest interpretative distinctions. There is no single approach for music before 1600 ? the twelve excellent vocalists demonstrate the almost-constructivist density of Gombert alongside the textual expressivity of Lassus and the lush works of the later Spanish composers, full of polychoral, early-Baroque effects.

The ensemble, without a musical director, demonstrates a sure instinct for beautiful flowing tempos, and sings at the same time with solidity, freedom and without pressing... 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. Their future development can be unconditionally recommended to all those interested in this music.

This stunning recording of Biblical love poetry is the third disc from the undirected 12 young British singers of Stile Antico - one of our Top Five Choral Groups. The music is exclusively 16th century and the texts are all by King Solomon. the singers enter Palestrina's Nigra sum ('I am black) in slow caressing waves until their sound becomes a lover's smothering embrace. The soprano's sinuous plainchant on the same words is without blemish. There is no hurry in the ensemble's tonguing of Palestrina's Osculetur me ('Kiss me'), the consonants heard as vivid word-painting, and their rising scales in Victoria's Vidi speciosam ('I saw beauty') are as heady, erotic odours. (Editor's Choice, RJ)

The 1500s were a period of sea-changes in Western music: the gradual shift from modality to tonality, the rise of instruments as tools for expression independent from voices, and the dawn of music publication were only some of the events that made this period so dramatic. Composers were also engaged in daring new experiments in secular music, such as the exploration of extreme word-painting in madrigals and the eventual creation of what would come to be known as opera. Given this atmosphere of novelty and transition, the sacred music of the time can, upon first hearing, sound staid and cold, the musical equivalent of luminous yet motionless stained-glass painting.

Yet, as the British vocal ensemble Stile Antico recently demonstrated, there are worlds of expression to be found in this beautifully crafted church music. Their US debut concert, given as part of the BEMF on June 12th in Emmanuel Church, presented many settings by various 16th-century composers of texts taken from the Song of Songs. The title of their program included the term "sensuous polyphony"; and while the words of the biblical text clearly reflect that title, what made this concert so remarkable and enjoyable was that the ensemble demonstrated the sonic sensuousness that is inherent in the music itself.

Anyone who explores recordings and performances of sacred music from the 1500s will soon discover that some vocal ensembles are perfectly content to simply sing the words and the notes, honing a crystalline sound, but allowing the design of the works themselves to be the main device of musical expression. There may be something to be said for that: these works contain compelling melodies, and involve highly complex, varied polyphony and contrapuntal sophistication.

But 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. Through the use of swelling dynamics and varied articulation, discreet acts of word-painting - far more subdued than what can be heard in the secular music of the time - were brought to the fore. Moreover, the individual personalities of each composer and his approach to the texts were not only magnified, but also made sensually evocative. The tripping counterpoint and dense imitative textures favored by Clemens non Papa became delicious devices, with a somewhat different flavor from the more mild homophony and parallelisms prominent in the pieces by Francisco Guerrero; the darker hues and striking harmonies of Nicolas Gombert and Jean Lhéritier - holdovers from practices of the previous century - were vividly colored; and the seamless cadences that make the music of Giovanni Palestrina and Tomás Luis de Victoria so vast were delivered with a tactile smoothness. Even the subtle differences in textures between these last two composers, whose music can sound so similar to one another's, were illuminated: Palestrina's smoothness shone with white light, while Victoria's displayed a more colorful spectrum.

All the singers in the ensemble seemed to revel in these lush musical gestures. Set up in mixed formation (rather than by section), 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. (Tom Schnauber)

First up was Stile Antico, a British vocal ensemble making its keenly anticipated US debut with a program devoted to settings of the biblical Song of Songs. Historically the lovers' yearning in this highly sensual text was often seen as a metaphor for the relationship between God and his people, or between Christ and his church, and apparently the entire book was like catnip for the polyphonists of the 16th century. This program included settings or adaptations by Palestrina, Lassus, Gombert, and Victoria as well as selections by less familiar composers such as Sebastian de Vivanco and Jean Lheritier.

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. Polychoral settings by Vivanco and Francisco Guerrero were a particular pleasure, as was Victoria's elaborate motet "Vadam, et circuibo." (Jeremy Eichler)

Magic was in no short supply. Friday evening at Emmanuel Church the British a cappella ensemble Stile Antico made its American debut with a program of Renaissance settings of the Song of Songs, including a striking antiphonal setting of "Veni Dilecte Mi" by Sebastián de Vivanco and seamlessly lush works by Palestrina, Lassus and Victoria. The 13 singers produce a beautifully balanced sound and are likely to become worthy competitors for the Tallis Scholars. (Allan Kozinn)

This disc's theme of musical settings drawing from the "Song of Songs" is a familiar one to lovers of Early Music. The focus here is on polyphonic settings from the Renaissance; but musical interest in the texts continued into the Baroque and was just as strong in Lutheran as in Catholic traditions. It was only in the latter, however, that the multilayered allegorical and anagogical readings of these Old Testament love-poems were fully explored. In Christian devotional and therefore musical and artistic terms the poem's protagonists of the lover and the beloved were taken to represent Christ's love for each man's soul (on this Catholics and Lutherans agreed). In Catholic countries, the beautiful beloved was further identified with the Church and with Mary, who was herself a "figure" of the Church and a model of the perfect Christian. Some modern secular minds find these matters hard to comprehend and many a similar disc's booklet essay has run aground trying to explain them. This time, Matthew O'Donovan (who is also a bass in stile antico) navigates the issues skilfully in his essay, a close reading of which should assist listeners in more deeply appreciating the music.

Not that even a casual hearing of the sublime works on this disc could do other than impress and, one hopes, give balm to the soul. The richness and diversity of the settings are extraordinary for a cappella works written on similar themes within a period of about 80 years. We traverse the post- Josquin world of the little-known (but evidently gifted) Lhéritier and celebrated (and scandalous) Gombert through the giants of classical polyphony, Lassus, Palestrina and Victoria, to almost the dawn of the Baroque, with the polychoral motets of Guerrero and Vivanco. Still, it was sensible of the ensemble to intersperse plainchant antiphons frequently throughout the programme for some moments of repose amidst all the polyphonic brilliance. Each listener will find one piece in particular that stands out even in this exalted company. For O'Donovan it is the "opulent beauty" of Clemens non Papa's Ego flos campi, truly a soaring yet serene masterpiece. Yet, as so often in such mixed recitals, it is the "Divine Orlande" (Lassus) who seems to me to win the palm. His setting of Veni, dilecte mi, which O'Donovan rightly calls "madrigalian", pulses with energy and amorous excitement. It is hard not to think more of the literal than allegorical meaning in Lassus's sensual, almost erotic setting.

Several members of stile antico are familiar names from the superb Brabant Ensemble, including the three Ashby sisters. Unsurprisingly, both ensembles exhibit a most welcome purity from the female voices. Sometimes the tenors make less than beautiful sounds in moments of high drama, but this is a minor blemish. Where appropriate, the singers add some delicious chromatic spice by applying false relations in some pieces. Somehow I missed this young British vocal ensemble's first two releases (they were reviewed in February 2007 and February 2008). This third is so impressive that my omission will be remedied very quickly. (Andrew O'Connor)

The Song of Songs (also known as the Song of Solomon) is a biblical work of tremendously influential provenance. The Christian Church has made great use of it not only as a canticle of love between and man and a woman, but also of Christ and the Church and even the Virgin Mary. In the western church particularly this short book had enormous influence and was the subject of numerous settings of choral music of all types. Its vivid (and sometimes quite erotic) imagery, the beauty of the lines, and the direct emotional appeal make it ripe for composers interested in both the spiritual dimensions and the more grossly physical ones as well. Even in pre-Christian times the work was a treasure trove of ideas and commentaries for the ancient Hebrews.The new English choral group Stile Antico has been making big splashes with Harmonia mundi as of late, this being the third release, fortunately (and intelligently) available in SACD surround sound. These "youngsters" are a fabulous group with superbly graded ensemble skills, tonal luster, and a wonderfully blended style that raises them to the very top of similarly-constituted groups. The sound on this disc is expertly blended and beautifully dispersed among the channels, surely one of the finest examples of choral distribution on an SACD that I have come across.

The number of composers in the head note (along with the ever-prolific "Anonymous") reflects a wide variety of styles and temperaments that seek to demonstrate the broad range of responses to the texts. Most of the texts set are literal, but there are a few which are based (sometimes quite loosely) on the canticles themselves, intended to mirror a certain element which the composer was fixated on. Curiously enough, most of these verses are the same ones; in others words, we do not find a vast array of representative sections of the Songs, but the same ones (with some variance) tend to appear over and over. There need be no mystery in this, as some of these verses stand out when considering the overall message of the biblical book, and some are quite frankly the most startlingly descriptive.

This is 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)

Following their first two Harmonia Mundi releases of English Tudor music - by Thomas Tallis and William Byrd - Stile Antico now turns to European motets of the 16th and early 17th centuries. The earliest composer of the nine presented on this CD, the Frenchman Jean Lhéritier, was born around 1480, still in the late Middle Ages; the youngest, the Spaniart Sebastian de Vivanco, dided in 1622 at the dawn of the Baroque. Alongside several very prominent Renaissance masters, such as Palestrina, Lassus and Victoria are found the lesser-known Spaniards Francisco Guerrero and Rodrigo de Ceballos, or the Franco-Flemish composer Nicolas Gombert. The are united not only by their period, but by the fact that set texts from the Canticum Canticorum - the Song of Songs - that wonderful collection of Old Testament love poetry which Martin Luther named "das Hohelied", and which suggested such wonderful settings to countless composers.

This highly erotic poetry, which describes the spiritual, emotional and even physical relationship between two lovers, was interpreted by Jews and Christians alike as a representation of the relationship between God and the Israelite people ? or between Christ and his bridge, the Church, as well as between Christ and the soul. Its conjunction with the Marian devotion of the Middle Ages must provide at least one reason for the huge popularity of these texts amongst Renaissance comosers. Another may simply be the quality of the texts, some of the most beautiful love poetry ever written, which may have inspired artistic souls, even - or especially - if clerics were involved, as was so often the case (as with Gombert).

Stile Antico, a group of young British singers, on this recording six women and six men, to whom a seventh is occasionally added, concentrates exclusively on the music of the Renaissance. 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. The first six minutes alone of this amazingly beautiful CD, Clemens non Papa's seven-voiced motet "Ego flos campi", is sufficient to put the listener completely under their spell. Like a Gothic cathedral, this dazzling masterpiece offers peace and beauty, sensuality and magic in equal measure. A feast in sound! (Oswald Beaujean)

The Song Of Songs, King Solomon's poetic meditation on love, has become choral music's soul equivalent, poised on the cusp of sacred and secular interpretations of the nature of Solomon's desire. And despite the celibate church's long dominance in this matter, it remains hard to regard lascivious lines like "Your lips drip nectar; honey and milk are under your tongue" as allegories of God's sacred inclinations. Sumptuously delivered by the peerless Stile Antico, the verses are set to melodies by the likes of Palestrina, Gombert and Guerrero. The standout piece is Tomás Luis De Victoria's epic motet "Vadam et circuibo", a masterpiece of polychoral ingenuity. (Andy Gill)

In only a few years, the 14-member British vocal group 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, often comparing the treatment of the same borderline-erotic secular texts by different great 16th-century composers. 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)

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. Their third CD is a selection of motet and plainchant settings from the Song of Songs, the startling Old Testament collection of erotic love poems ascribed to King Solomon. Less familiar composers - Lhéritier, Francisco Guerrero, Vivanco - are included alongside Lassus, Gombert and Victoria. Palestrina's flowing lines in "Nigra sum" ("I am black but beautiful") and "Osculetur me" ("Let him kiss me") blur the boundaries of sacred and profane to sumptuous effect. (Fiona Maddocks)

Renaissance composers were quick to latch onto the Song of Songs as source material, and for perfectly good reasons. The book's ardent love poetry and lush eroticism offer plenty of opportunity for sensuality - but because the texts are biblical, they come with the respectable imprimatur of the church. It's a win-win proposition, and this gorgeous assemblage of settings by some of the leading figures of 16th century polyphony demonstrates why. 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 Tomás Luis de Victoria, which is everything that love music can and should be. (Joshua Kosman)

After hearing Jean Lhéritier's magnificent and deeply affecting setting of Nigra sum you might understandably feel cleansed, blessed, and exonerated from all misdeeds you've ever committed, its effect is so spiritually moving and textually illuminating. And 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. The theme is the Song of Songs, which is not exactly an original idea, but it doesn't matter: the music itself carries the day, and besides, most of this repertoire is not so commonly heard.

Lhéritier is one of those undeservingly lesser-known compositional voices (although happily the Nigra sum recorded here can be found online in the Choral Public Domain Library, minus the abundant, juicy cross-relations Stile Antico provides in its performance!). His style will remind experienced listeners of Gombert (who was a close contemporary and whose marvelous Quam pulchra es is included), from its endlessly flowing, cadence-averse polyphony and heart-penetrating melodic themes right down to the open-fifth ending.

The program intersperses the primary choral works with pertinent plainchant settings of Song of Songs texts--a sensible idea both for variety and for calling attention to the relationship between formal church liturgy and composers' more elaborate (sometimes more "worldly") interpretations of these popular passages. The plainchants, each lasting less than a minute, also serve as a nice contrast to the longer motets, the most impressive of which must be Victoria's huge (10-plus-minute) Vadam et circuibo, 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!" (David Vernier)

Song of Songs is the most erotically charged book in the Bible, and these motets and plainsongs from the from the Renaissance all draw upon its lascivious verses. Moreover, the superb singers of Stile Antico are up to the challenge of presenting all the required moods from pious restraint (Palestrina thought that all that sex was really about God's love for the church) to melting abandon (listen to 'tibi dabo ubera mea' - from Gombert's Quam pulchra es). Moreover, although some of these works are famously great (Victoria's Vadam et circuibo, and Ego flos by Clemens non papa), Hortus conclusus by the obscure Rodrigo de Ceballos is right up there, and so is the lithe and supple plainsong Alleluia Tota pulchra es, brilliant sung by women's voices. The sound on this recording is excellent and so is the tuning... a magnificent display of the very best kind of polyphonic music. (Anthony Pryer)

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... Polyphonic or monodic, Stile Antico's sacred vocal music is intense, dramatic, fervent: simply sublime. It translates the passion of these young singers... Without a conductor, this group, which loves to work together, offered to a audience lightly chilled by the cold, music which warmed the heart. (Colette Khalaf)