Stile Antico: Media Vita
In a few days, the wait is over for fans of Stile Antico, the phenomenal vocal ensemble who specialize in Tudor and Renaissance choral music (and high-profile side projects with Sting.) They release "Media Vita," a selection of works by the sixteenth century composer John Sheppard.
Less well-known than Thomas Tallis, Sheppard's fame has spread slowly, because his compositions only made it to the twentieth century in manuscript form and many of them are incomplete. What survives bears all the hallmarks of greatness. This recording provides ample evidence of his bold, rich and individual harmony, as well as an inspired knack for compositional passion, while still adhering to Archbishop Cranmer's protestant tastes for concise word setting.
The performance captured here is at the same lofty standard that Stile Antico's earlier recordings attained - almost perfect. This group engages the listener like no other, with the purpose of soloists, the tonal evenness of an ensemble, and with a clarity that is ground-breaking. On a few listenings, though, this perfection is itself the disc's undoing. I don't expect my thoughts to be received well, but I'm left willing the performance to move me more than it does.
If I'm honest, I miss children in this music. Children don't sing as well as the sopranos in Stile Antico, plain and simple. They are slavishly subservient to the choir director in front of them, the absence of which is one of the inspired features of this group. They also think about football while they sing and who might get the carol service solo instead of them, but when they get it right, for me, there is an experience beyond the finesse on this album.
If you doubt me, and live within a reasonable distance of New York, duck into St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, during a sung service and judge for yourself. Profound utterances, from the young, barely conscious of what they say, have a power that was understood by Britten, Walton, Boyce, Greene, Purcell, by all the great composers of liturgical choral music, all the way back to Sheppard. In the hands of a child, these notes and words come from a different sphere, literally. A sphere that the rest of us have had to leave behind. -- Hugo Munday
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Linda