'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)
