Vo.oca.:Nff" �
D8
II ENTERTAINMENT
tkc. 8,
·zo\\ C
REVIEW
!Ensemble effort near perfection An evening of Tudor music without compromise or pandering
·sTILE ANTICO When: Monday night Where: Chan Centre BY DAVID GORDON DUKE
The British vocal ensemble Stile Antico made an extraor dinary Canadian debut Mon day with a program of music from Tudor England. At first glance the offering, under the auspices of Early Music Van couver, seemed uncompromisingly narrow: Latin sacred music for Advent and Christ mas from a quintet of 16th-cen tury composers. But, in this instance, focus twas anything but limiting. The singers, who work as a co operative without a conductor or leader, anchored their pro gram with music by two com posers: movements of Thomas Tallis's Missa Puer natus est were interspersed with shorter works by William Byrd. The ensemble's 13 young members share an intense enthusiasm for their artistic mission; though intrinsically steeped in specifically British traditions of vocal music mak ing; they create a new and iden tifiable sound. Their Latin dic tion is precise and consistent; sopranos sing with the utmost purity but embrace the sound of female singers, not boys; lower voices add richness and warmth. There is a passion ate frankness to the singing
1
0
Stile Antico is focused on music from Tudor England, not the pop-derived sounds that are so popular nowadays. but little fuss or faddishness. Line is everything. Small-scale dynamic contrast is created through the constant ebb and flow of changing textures. Pia nissimos are focused, entirely lacking the pop-derived croon that is increasingly the norm with North American ensem bles; fortissimos are glorious but never raw. Stile Antico's repertoire included a modicum of plainchant, a snippet of John Taverner for treble voices
(memorably sung from the Chan's choir loft), as well as a work by John Sheppard and Robert White's eccentric Magnificat. It was the music of Byrd and Tallis that made the evening so remarkable. Tallis's highly indi vidual work proved the more florid and showy, Byrd's the more economical and refined. The addition of just a very few, very well chosen words from the platform provided witty insight into the music and the
social and political environ ment of the composers' times. Following a concert so entirely without compromise or pandering, the volcanic reaction from the Chan Cen tre audience was jarring but well deserved. A single encore, Tomas Luis de Victoria's 0 magnum mysterium, the sole example of non-English reper toire offered, ended an evening of near perfection. Special ta The Sun