The Sixteen, Britain's most popular small choir, generally offers performances of larger works ranging from the early period of English polyphony to the 20th century. But they've tried just about everything else at one time or another, so it's unsurprising to see them here, attempting to enter the territory of the English cathedral choir with a program of mixed anthems, madrigals, and part-songs from the Renaissance and the 20th century, with nothing in between. The rubric under which the program is subsumed, Poetry in ...
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The Sixteen, Britain's most popular small choir, generally offers performances of larger works ranging from the early period of English polyphony to the 20th century. But they've tried just about everything else at one time or another, so it's unsurprising to see them here, attempting to enter the territory of the English cathedral choir with a program of mixed anthems, madrigals, and part-songs from the Renaissance and the 20th century, with nothing in between. The rubric under which the program is subsumed, Poetry in Music, is interesting enough, but it's not very closely adhered to: four of the works set not poems, but the biblical text "When David heard that Absalom was slain." The result in terms of the program is less coherent than one might wish, but there's no question that the Sixteen and leader Harry Christophers are up to their usual high standards vocally. Text intelligibility well exceeds that heard in the recordings of the aforementioned cathedral choirs, and you might actually seek out...
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