In a Strange Land: Elizabethan Composers in Exile

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Unsurprisingly, refinement abounds, though sometimes at the expense of ‘bite’. — BBC Music Magazine, March 2019, 4 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 5 out of 5 stars (Recording) More…

Release Date: 11th Jan 2019
Catalogue No: HMM902266
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Length: 71 minutes

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January 2019
The New York Times

Recordings of the Year 2019
International Classical Music Awards

2020

Nominee - Early Music

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Dowland: Flow my teares (Lacrimæ)

Work length5:10

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Stile Antico

Byrd: Tristitia et anxietas

Work length10:34

$1.40

$1.75

$2.05

Stile Antico

Dering: Factum est silentium

Work length2:25

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Stile Antico

Dowland: In this trembling shadow cast

Work length3:46

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Stile Antico

Philips, P: Guade Maria Virgo

Work length5:22

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Stile Antico

Monte, P: Super flumina Babylonis

Work length5:28

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Stile Antico

Byrd: Quomodo cantabimus

Work length7:41

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

Stile Antico

Philips, P: Regina cæli lætare

Work length2:34

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Stile Antico

Watkins, H: The Phoenix and the Turtle

Work length5:46

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Stile Antico

White, Robert: Lamentations

Work length22:41

Album only

Stile Antico

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The regime of Queen Elizabeth I dealt harshly with supporters of the old Catholic religion. Torn between obedience and conscience, some of England’s most talented musicians - Philips, Dering and Dowland - chose a life of exile abroad. Others chose to remain in spiritual isolation in England, comparing themselves to the exiled Israelites in Babylon.

Amongst them were Robert White, whose five-part Lamentations are one of the glories of English music of any age, and William Byrd, whose anguished Catholic music is referenced in Shakespeare’s enigmatic poem The Phoenix and the Turtle, vividly set by Huw Watkins especially for Stile Antico.

Reviews

March 2019

Unsurprisingly, refinement abounds, though sometimes at the expense of ‘bite’.

January 2019

Stile Antico, as ever, excel in plangency…[in Byrd’s Quomodo cantabimus they] allow the texture to unfold with a gentle flow in what is some superb singing but I long for a more treble-dominated balance for such pointed texts. They find this is Huw Watkins’s setting of Shakespeare’s The Phoenix and the Turtle. Here, especially towards the end, they employ the sort of energy I would love to hear them bring to Byrd.

January 2019

The conductorless British vocal ensemble are in their element with this thoughtfully-assembled programme exploring music by Elizabethan composers who found themselves literally or figuratively estranged from their homeland due to their Catholic sympathies; Robert Dering’s Factum est silentium showcases their springy agility and immaculate ensemble, whilst Huw Watkins’s new setting of Shakespeare’s The Phoenix and the Turtle had me craving more contemporary music from this source.

6th January 2019

The dozen voices of Stile Antico give achingly expressive performances of Elizabethan masterpieces, all informed by their composers’ Catholicism, steadfastly maintained under a Protestant regime.

20th January 2019

In a Strange Land: Elizabethan Composers in Exile (Harmonia Mundi) is the latest collection, released with unerring timeliness, from Stile Antico, the 12-strong ensemble whose name signals tonal purity, precision and musical intelligence. The theme is spiritual and political disjuncture

The New York Times 12th December 2019

Stile Antico excel in everything they sing, but for the yearning melancholy of William Byrd they always seem to reserve something particularly special, a balm for the troubled soul.

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