Coming Soon, An early Christmas with Stile Antico

The wonderful young British vocal ensemble Stile Antico are celebrating their tenth anniversary season this year, and before they set off on an extended tour of the United States later this month there's the small matter of their latest recording-project - an anthology of Flemish and German Christmas music, due for release just in time for the festive season this year.

In some respects, this new project is a bit of a departure from form: the ensemble's previous Christmas disc focused on the English Tudor composers, and this is their first extended foray into German-language repertoire (one of the singers told me about the painstaking language-coaching that's gone into the preparation-process!). But like several of Stile's earlier projects (and in particular their acclaimed explorations of the sixteenth-century English music), the programme is animated by the religious tensions of the Reformation, with an opulent polyphonic mass-setting contrasted with shorter pieces which are starker and almost Lutheran in character. That centrepiece is Clemens non Papa's ornate five-part Missa 'Pastores quidnam vidistis’, its movements interspersed with seasonal motets and carols including Eccard's 'Übers Gebirg Maria geht' (something of an evensong staple in its English version 'When Mary to the Temple went') and Michael Praetorius's evergreen 'Es ist ein' Ros' entsprungen' as well as less familiar fare by Handl, Hassler and Lassus.    

I spent a lovely afternoon on Tuesday sitting in on one of the sessions, over at All Hallows Gospel Oak in North London (which was certainly chilly enough to create the necessary Christmas ambience, helped further by the excellent Lebkuchen - spiced German Christmas biscuits - generously provided by one of the sopranos!). Getting to eavesdrop behind the scenes as recordings are coming into being is always one of my favourite perks of the job, but this group are especially rewarding to watch in session: the twelve singers famously work without a conductor, and as they set down the Kyrie of the Clemens mass on Tuesday it was fascinating to see how efficiently and concisely every single singer chipped in with observations about phrasing, balance and pronunciation, and to watch Harmonia Mundi's veteran producer Robina Young fine-tuning every aspect of ensemble and intonation from the control-room to ensure that absolute clarity and precision which have become Stile's hallmarks over the past decade.

So, Happy 10th Birthday, Stile - and though I'm ten months' premature, this disc looks like reason enough to look forward to Christmas!

A Wonderous Mystery!: Flemish and German Christmas Music will be released on Harmonia Mundi this autumn. 

Photograph ©Richard Grossman

Recent and related recordings by Stile Antico

(You can browse their full discography here.)