Review: A cappella ensemble Stile Antico performs a lush and spine-tingling concert in St. Paul
[Byrd's music] was bursting with beauty, a point repeatedly underlined Tuesday night at St. Paul's Landmark Center by Stile Antico, a much-decorated a cappella English ensemble of a dozen singers ... the performance offered ample evidence of why Stile Antico is the world's most celebrated early music ensemble.
Made up of six women and six men, the group is unusual in that ... Stile Antico doesn't employ a conductor, developing its performances and recordings in communal fashion. Hence, its concerts are a showcase for collaborative creation, the singers choreographing cues, nods and eye contact to weave their lush sound.
And lush it is, as well as spine-tingling, meditative, festive and fascinating ... the rich-voiced dozen displayed an expertise with the repertoire that would be the envy of any ensemble.
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From the concert's opening strains of "Emendemus in Melius" to a concluding encore by Thomas Weelkes, Stile Antico demonstrated that its cooperative method of shaping the group's sound is a tremendous success. Its vocal blend was invariably well-woven, its widely contrasting dynamics smoothly negotiated.
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It was a concert full of transporting dreamscapes, among them the lovely "Nunc Dimittis" from Byrd's "Great Service," the tender center of "Vide Domine afflictionem," and a "Ne irascaris, Domine" that surged and receded like an ocean's waves. And lest listeners become too deeply hypnotized by the guided meditation in song that is "Optimam partem elegit," the ensuing "Factus est repente" burst forth with an appropriately fiery tale of Pentecost.
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If Stile Antico is classical music's chief ambassador for the sound of the Renaissance, the music is clearly in good hands.
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