Paul Mealor: A Tender Light

25th November 2011

“Mealor's settings of religious texts, notably a lengthy "Stabat Mater", along with his uplifting take on Byron's "She Walks in Beauty", [are] delivered with Tenebrae's precision and almost luminous grace.”

9th December 2011

***

“Mealor’s choral creations retain their own British glow, yet he could still suitably share a cupboard with Whitacre’s ecstatic music, and Morten Lauridsen’s too. Lush, warm chords follow a steady pulse, shifting en route into tone cluster crunches before resolving any modest tension with the harmonic equivalent of a handshake...this is a CD with gorgeous singing, much warmth, a beating heart and, as the title says, a tender light. Just don’t overdose.”

March 2012

“This is certainly not a recording of Ubi Caritas spin-offs...Tenebrae directed by Nigel Short pull out all the vocal stops at the right moments...Mealor has finally found his true compositional voice here - one that manages to avoid the mawkishness of much that characterises recent tonally imbued choral music.”

March 2012

****

“[Ubi Caritas's] mixture of expressive lyricisim with occasional unexpected harmonic shadings [is] beautifully rendered in Tenebrae's impeccable performance. The same penchant for peppering his writing with sudden twists of harmony and modulation characterises the four settings of Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal”

May 2012

“The performance [of 'Wherever you are'] on this disc is a more sophisticated one...but somehow the very sophistication is a bit misplaced...There is some very nice music here and there’s absolutely no doubt of the composer’s sincerity...The performances by Tenebrae are excellent, as one would expect from this source.”