Early Music America on Music for Compline
Early Music America (Summer 2007)
Reviews
Choir and Organ enjoys Music for Compline
One of those alchemic discs with a total greater than the sum of its parts… This is as near-perfect a recording as you will find of this repertoire, and one that sounds as fresh as the Tallis Scholars did 25 years ago.
Choir and Organ (April 2007)
Music for Compline wins CHOC du Monde de la Musique
These polyphonic settings, true “songs of the night”, glow with a mystical radiance, whose most poetic nuances are captured by the young vocal ensemble Stile Antico… One is struck by the maturity and acute sensitivity of this interpretation… Stile Antico demonstrate a joy in their singing which is literally euphoric.
Marc Desmet, Monde de la Musique (February 2007)
The Daily Telegraph praises Music for Compline
Debut recordings rarely come as impressive as this… Stile Antico have a future as bright as their pure and crystalline soprano sound.
Elizabeth Roche, The Daily Telegraph (3 March, 2007)
AllMusic’s verdict on Music for Compline
This is superb choral singing that stands out from the crowd of recordings of unaccompanied English music of the sixteenth century.
James Manheim, AllMusic
“Youthful Delights”: The New York Sun on Music for Compline
This is a beautiful disc, rendered with dignity, purity, and understanding.
Jay Nordlinger, New York Sun (16 January, 2007)
The Boston Globe reviews Music for Compline
The members of Stile Antico demonstrate the immaculate ensemble work and balance of better-known groups — remarkably, since they sing without a conductor — but their sound is richer and more deeply hued.
David Weininger, The Boston Globe (16 March, 2007)
Praise from Philadelphia
This is superb singing that’s also blessed – I mean that literally – with profound delicacy and reverence. You sense the group is singing for its own spiritual good, with a combination of relaxed, introspective tempos and inner conviction.
David Patrick Stearns, The Philadelphia Inquirer (11 February, 2007)
Opus Haute Définition’s verdict on Music for Compline
On its first recording for Harmonia Mundi, the young British vocal ensemble Stile Antico reaches the very highest level. Their performance achieves a perfect balance between polyphonic clarity and sense of colour. Breathing as one, the members of Stile Antico give an ideal luminosity to their singing… Indispensable.
Jean-Jacques Millo, Opus Haute Définition (30 January, 2007)
Music for Compline receives the Diapason d’Or
With a magnificent tonal palette and bold choices of dynamics, the interpretation is remarkably cohesive and inventive… At the close of this rich office, the spell is such that we are convinced, in the words of Baudelaire, the twilight poet par excellence, that “the world falls asleep in a warm light”.
David Fiala, Diapason (February 2007)
High Praise in the Sunday Times
The singing is staggeringly beautiful, the balance meticulous.
SP, The Sunday Times (18 February, 2007)
High praise from the American Choral Journal
The singing is amazing… Stile Antico creates an intensity of forward musical motion that is breath-taking… a virtual manual on how to sing music from this era.
James L. Queen, American Choral Journal (May 2007)