REVIEWS
THEATRE OF VOICES IN CARNEGIE HALL'S ZANKEL AUDITORIUM
TheaterofVoices-Music-Review-NewYorkTimes
TheaterofVoices-Music-Review-NewYorkTimes-1.webarchive
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STIMMUNG
PDF from Press Highlights reviewing Stimmung from Harmonia Mundi.
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THEATRE OF VOICES AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL
*****
THEATRE OF VOICES/ARS NOVA COPENHAGEN
GREYFRIARS KIRK
Reviewed in The Scotsman by
Kenneth Walton
JOHN Taverner - not to be confused with his modern day near-namesake, John Tavener - holds a seminal position in musical history. Much of that is due to one work, his Western Wind Mass, which every student of music is directed to as a prime example of the 16th-century composer's art of wrapping a sacred polyphonic masterpiece around a popular secular tune.
In this performance by Paul Hillier's Danish-based vocal ensemble, Theatre of Voices, it sounded every bit the glowing masterpiece, due as much to the presentation as the magnificent refinement and ringing resonance of this performance. Rather than sing its various sections as a continuous sequence, Hillier inserted breaths of fresh air in the form of thinner-textured medieval songs (with appropriate sacred allusions) and motets by Taverner's younger contemporaries, Thomas Tallis and Christopher Tye.
The overall effect was rather like a Baroque ritornello, the interweaving mass movements providing a binding polarisation. Tye's In pace ended the entire sequence on a transcendent, mystical note. Hillier's impressive ensemble combined truly humanistic charisma with pure-toned precision and eloquence of phrasing. This series continues to be a glittering gem within the Festival music programme. .
THEATRE OF VOICES/ PHANTASM
THE SCOTSMAN
JAN FAIRLEY
GREYFRIARS KIRK
WILLIAM Byrd's 16th-century mass for four voices is a gorgeous piece to sing, and the Theatre of Voices gave it vibrant shape and body, evoking the transcendence of real church practices. Composed when Catholic services were illegal and thus performed in intimate private gatherings, the liturgy is brought to life on a deeply subjective level as if imbued with its emotional history of privation.
From the opening Kyrie, the singers established distinctive timbres, sculpting phrases with subtle dynamics. Accompanied by the quartet of differently sized viols of the Phantasm consort, this was a chamber concert par excellence.
The mass was allowed to breathe by the interspersion of viol consort instrumentals: Fantasia's by Ferrabosco and Byrd; In nomine's by Tallis and Byrd; and Parsons' delightful Ut re mi fa so la, in which those five notes played on one viol are simultaneously decorated by the others. The most stirring moments came with two Protestant psalms: Tallis's Why fum'th in sight and Dowland's Lamentations of a Sinner.
As twilight entered through the kirk's stained-glass windows, the music's profound messages hung in the air.
