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Track(s) taken from SIGCD085

Esti dal

composer
author of text

Tenebrae, Nigel Short (conductor)
Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
CD-Quality:
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Recording details: May 2004
St Michael's Church, Highgate, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Adrian Peacock
Engineered by Limo Hearn
Release date: October 2006
Total duration: 3 minutes 8 seconds

Cover artwork: Photo by Olivier Haubensak.
 

Other recordings available for download

Andrew Swait (treble), The King's Singers
The King's Singers
The Rodolfus Choir, Ralph Allwood (conductor)

Reviews

'I really think we're in a choral golden age at the moment. I was inspired by Tenebrae when I heard them in a concert at St. Jude's in Hampstead and just had to get their new 'Allegri Miserere' album. It's beautifully sung, a wonderful recording that has introduced me to some pieces that I didn't know' (BBC Music Magazine)

'The strength of Tenebrae, their brand, if you like, is the breadth of range from almost kitschy murmuring to the full-throated beltissimo. The former brings welcome intimacy to the Britten Hymn to St Cecilia, while the latter powerfully propels Holst's Psalm 148 to its conclusion, albeit in youthful, fresh-sounding style. The album ends with that locus classicus of English choral singing, Faire is the Heaven, in which one would be forgiven for thinking Spenser's final words,'such endlesse perfectnesse' refer to the choir themselves rather than the state of Heaven. Some successful spatial effects in the engineering, and overall nicely captured' (BBC Music Magazine)
PERFORMANCE
RECORDING

'This album is a must for all connoisseurs of the finest unaccompanied choral singing. From the very first bars of John Tavener's Song for Athene, the opening work in a pleasingly eclectic programme, Tenebrae reveals itself as one of those exceptional choirs whose individual singers have been moulded into a single superbly sensitive and responsive musical instrument. The mood of each piece is captured to perfection, from Tavener's almost hypnotic transcendence to the passionate grief of Antonio Lotti's eight-part Crucifixus, whose agonised chromatic harmonies pack a terrific punch; or from the intensely moving and dignified simplicity of Alexander Sheremetev's Now ye Heavenly Powers (from the Russian Orthodox liturgy) to the exuberantly pealing halleluiahs of Holst's joyously inventive setting of Psalm 148. The soprano soloists in Allegri's Miserere have a combined purity and richness of sound, giving the celebrated ornaments a jewel-like brilliance. Britten's Hymn to St Cecilia enables the choir to display its virtuoso control of rapid dynamic and textural changes. This is an outstanding performance, which reflects every expressive nuance in both poem and music' (The Daily Telegraph)

'Despite the title, there's a distinctly eastern-European tinge to this selection of mostly unaccompanied choral pieces. John Tavener's affinity with eastern Orthadox chant is evident in his Song for Athene; Rachmaninov's Hymn to the Cherubim is followed by Count Alexander Sheremetiev's Now ye heavenly powers for men's voices, sung in Russian. The eastern Roman Catholic tradition is represented by Kodály's arrangement of a folksong and a sentimental Ave Maria from Pawel Lukaszewski. If the women's voices sound too grown-up for John Ireland's Ex ore innocentium, the fleetness of the second poem in Britten's Hymn to St Cecillia is a delight, and WH Harris's Faire is the heaven sublime' (Classic FM Magazine)
Esti dal translates as ‘Evening Song’ and is Kodály’s most famous choral work. A young soldier fighting for the Austro-Hungarian Empire prays to God for shelter and safe-keeping through the night.

from notes by The King's Singers © 2014

Other albums featuring this work

Landscape & Time
Studio Master: SIGCD090Download onlyStudio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
Postcards
Studio Master: SIGCD393Download onlyStudio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
Time and its Passing
Studio Master: SIGCD445Download onlyStudio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
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