SACDs - Guerrero

“The performances are second to none, rivetingly presented with all the skill of master musicians who have been doing this for years—the miracle is that they are all young, and yet still are able to penetrate the essence of these wonderful works. Need I say more?” Audiophile Audition, 31st October 2012 *****

“The McCabe piece...is beautifully tailored to the 12 voices of the choir. Although fiendishly difficult to perform, they manage it with superb poise and great dynamic sensitivity and projection. Clearly this is a group that can sing in tune, mantain its balance and enunciate words clearly.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2012 ****

“Stile Antico are probably at their best when the music invites them to sing out. The preference for a choral over a chamber music sound is clearly deliberate (as is the slow tempo adopted for the more solemn English pieces).” Gramophone Magazine, Janauary 2013

“The run-up to Christmas seems hardly the most propitious time to release an Easter-themed anthology of choral music, but regardless, Passion & Resurrection is to be welcomed both for its skilled execution, and for clever programming” The Independent, 3rd November 2012 ****

“Beautifully presented as always...Is the perfectly blended Stile Antico sound too uniform for all this varied music? The clarity of Taverner's Dum transisset is lovely, but Tomás Luis de Victoria's O vos omnes lacks some Spanish passion.” The Observer, 4th November 2012

“…the superb singers of Stile Antico are up to the challenge of presenting all the required moods from pious restraint… to melting abandon… a magnificent display of the very best kind of polyphonic music.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2009 *****

“The standout piece is Tómas Luis De Victoria's epic motet "Vadam et circuibo", a masterpiece of polychoral ingenuity.” The Independent, 29th May 2009 ****

“This ensemble, its members still in their 20s and just a dozen beautifully blended voices singing a cappella, has emerged as one of the best and freshest early music choirs around. Their third CD is a selection of motet and plainchant settings from the Song of Songs, the startling Old Testament collection of erotic love poems ascribed to King Solomon.” The Observer, 3rd May 2009

“…these are just the sort of performances I'd hope to hear in church, which was (one feels) the practical and creative laboratory for what is recorded: full but not strained singing, allowing an advantageous acoustic and the number (212) and freshness of voices to take care of blend and balance, with plenty left in reserve for the longer spans of the two magnificent Victoria anthems, Vadam et circuibo and Vidi speciosam.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2009

“One expectation that such an album may raise in its listeners is an answer to the question of what common and special inspiration might composers have taken from contemplating this most erotic of Biblical texts. The symptoms of their reactions might be sensuous melismas, perhaps, and anguished suspensions, surging bass–lines and… let us draw a veil there. Such devices and stratagems are in abundance, whether chastely deployed in turn by Clemens and Palestrina or flaunted all at once in the selections of Guerrero and Gombert, though no more so than they would be on a programme of Marian or Lenten devotions; and these are just the opening four tracks.
That unfair calculation ignores the plainchant antiphons between each pair of motets. These interspersions work well – as they must in a genuinely liturgical context, as here, thanks to the quiet good taste and stylistically homogeneous approach of Stile Antico, with an especially winsome unanimity to the female–only Tota pulchra es.
Indeed, these are just the sort of performances one would hope to hear in church, which was (one feels) the practical and creative laboratory for what is recorded: full but not strained singing, allowing an advantageous acoustic and the number (12) and freshness of voices to take care of blend and balance, with plenty left in reserve for the longer spans of the two magnificent Victoria anthems, Vadam et circuibo and Vidi speciosam.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010