GRAMMY Nominee, Best Small Ensemble Performance, 2018
Divine Theatre
Stile Antico’s GRAMMY-nominated recording explores the fascinating sacred music of Giaches de Wert. Best known as a madrigalist, Wert is often cited as as a major influence on Monteverdi, but his religious works have until now received little attention. In this rich selection of motets, his skill as a composer of sacred music is established beyond doubt. A consummate word-painter, Wert was drawn to narrative texts, which allow his uniquely dramatic style full reign – most memorably in the stories of Christ calming the storm and the conversion of St Paul.
Recorded: April, 2016
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Format: Hybrid SACD
Catalogue Number: HMM807620
Stile Antico’s new disc ventures unusually into his sacred music, which rewards discovery… unexpectedly rich in imagination, variety, and often sheer joyful energy, and the performances boast a high-quality technical brilliance.
Financial Times
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La Clef ResMusica, February 2017
The English singers of Stile Antico are able to point up all these features with the tip of a brush, often attaining truly exciting interpretations…
Andrea Milanesi, Avvenire.it (7 July, 2017)
Stile Antico are the perfect artists for this repertory, bringing equal measures of clarity and passion to the music.
Tony Way, Limelight (4 August, 2017)
This selection of motets, mostly for five or six voices, is unexpectedly rich in imagination, variety, and often sheer joyful energy, and the performances boast a high-quality technical brilliance.
Richard Fairman, Financial Times (20 January, 2017)
The astonishingly vivid Ascendente Jesu in naviculum, which tells of Jesus and his disciples at sea in a storm, probably best showcases Stile Antico’s extrovert potential… this album is one of their most engaging recordings.
Edward Breen, Gramophone (April, 2017)
Yet again, the ensemble impresses through its cohesion, vocal colour, the freshness of its voices, the clarity and agility of the counterpoint, and its expressivity…
Jean-Baptiste de La Taille, ResMusica (15 February, 2017)
Stile Antico makes you prick up your ears and want to follow the texts. And the more you do the more you find to engage and amaze you. This after all is the role of the finest performers… I urge you to search this disc out, it’s as good as they come.
Gary Higginson, MusicWeb International (May, 2017)
The 12-person ensemble sings the pieces with overwhelming beauty and exactitude, forming rich, ethereal harmonies and fluid counterpoint that pull me in every time.
Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader (23 February, 2017)
Stile Antico… seem to penetrate to the expressive heart of the music. Add in gloriously clear and perfectly idiomatic sound from London’s All Hallows Church, and the end result is a superior album…
James Manheim, Allmusic.com
The rewards of this outstanding disc are double. On one hand, one is presented with the marvel of High Polyphony performed to perfection. On the other hand, there is a feeling that new doors have been opened.
Fritz Balwit, Audiophile Audition (11 February, 2017)
Leave it to acclaimed British vocal ensemble Stile Antico to breathe new life into music written by seldom-heard composers…
Holly Harris, Winnipeg Free Press (26 Jan, 2017)
De Wert’s music’s supreme beauty, captured in convincingly natural spaciousness… will likely sweep you away… Stile Antico consistently moves the music along, creating a glowing sonic tapestry.
Jason Victor Serinus, Stereophile (5 March, 2017)
Stile Antico brings brilliantly to life this highly varied selection of Wert’s beautiful motets.
Jon Sobel, Blogcritics.com (January 18, 2017)
- Gaudete in Domino
- Hoc enim sentite in vobis
- Saule, Saule
- Vox in Rama audita est
- Amen, amen dico vobis
- Egressus Jesus
- Peccavi super numerum
- O Crux ave, spes unica
- Ascendente Jesu in naviculam
- Virgo Maria hodie ad coelum
- Quiescat vox tua a ploratu
- Deus iustus, et salvans
- O altitudo divitiarum