Stile Antico

Stile Antico is an ensemble of young British singers, fast gaining recognition as one of the most original and exciting new voices in its field. In 2005 the group won the inaugural Audience Prize at the Early Music Network International Young Artists’ Competition, drawing critical praise for its ‘wonderfully vivid singing’ and ‘perfectly focused and ideally balanced voices.’ Since this success, Stile Antico has appeared throughout the UK, including at the City of London, Lake District Summer Music and Beverley and East Riding Festivals; engagements for 2007 include the York Early Music Festival. The group has also collaborated with Sting on tour in his project Songs from the Labyrinth, performing lute songs by John Dowland.

Working without a conductor, the members of Stile Antico rehearse and perform as chamber musicians, each contributing artistically to the musical result. Their repertoire ranges from the glorious legacy of the English Tudor composers to the works of the Flemish and Spanish schools and the music of the early Baroque. They are passionate about the need to communicate with their audiences, combining thoughtful programming with direct, expressive performances. They are also committed to developing their educational work, for which they have received generous funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Discography

Heavenly Harmonies

9 Psalm Tunes for Archbishop Parker's Psalter - Thomas Tallis Third Tune: Why fum'th in Flight - Tallis Vigilate - Byrd Fifth Tune: E'en Like the Hunted Hind - Tallis Ne irascaris Domine - Byrd Second Tune: Let God arise - Tallis Exsurge Domine - Byrd Sixth Tune: Expend, O Lord - Tallis Infelix ego - Byrd Eighth Tune: God grant with grace - Tallis Laetentur Coeli - Byrd First Tune: Man blest no doubt - Tallis Quis est homo - Byrd Veni Creator: Come Holy Ghost - Tallis Introit: Spiritus Domini - Byrd Offertory: Confirma hoc Deus - Byrd Communion: Factus est repente - Byrd Seventh Tune: Why brag'st in malice - Tallis Tribulationes Civitatum - Byrd Fourth Tune: O Come in One to Praise the Lord - Tallis Laudibus in Sanctis - Byrd

Grammy-nominated vocal ensemble Stile Antico returns with its second recording for harmonia mundi. Heavenly Harmonies juxtaposes the highly expressive Latin motets of William Byrd (c. 1540–1632) with the austere, homophonic psalm tunes of Thomas Tallis (c.1505–1585) in a performance notable for the British group’s “staggeringly beautiful singing” (The Sunday Times) and recorded in a fittingly majestic acoustic. At the heart of the religious disputes which ravaged 16th-century England, the towering figures of the Catholic Tallis and Protestant Byrd embody two opposing tendencies. What is sometimes overlooked is how much the motets from Byrd’s Cantiones sacrae I and II (1589 and 1591) owe to the concise and expressive language pioneered by Tallis a generation earlier, when he also contributed the nine psalm tunes to a new psalter by Archbishop Matthew Parker (1567) – printed but regrettably never offered for sale. The program also includes Byrd’s Mass Propers for Pentecost from his Gradualia of 1607.

Music For Compline

Libera Nos I & II - Shepard Salva Nos, Domine - Plainchant Christe, Qui Lux Es Et Dies - Byrd In Pace In Idipsum - Shepard In Manus Tuas - Tallis Jesu Salvator Saeculi Verbum - Shepard In Manus Tuas I - Shepard In Manus Tuas II & III - Shepard Miserere Nostri Domine - Plainchant Miserere Nostri Domine - Tallis Miserere Mihi Domine - Byrd In Pace In Idipsum - Tallis Christe Qui Lux Es Et Dies - White Veni, Domine - Plainchant Nunc Dimittis - Byrd Te Lucis Ante Terminum - Tallis Gaude, Virgo Mater Christi - Aston

For their spectacular debut recording, the exciting young British early-music vocal group Stile Antico presents a program of English Renaissance music associated with the office of Compline (absorbed by the Anglican Church into Evensong), the service that ends the monastic liturgical day. A who’s-who of 16th-century British composers, including Thomas Tallis, William Byrd and John Sheppard, are represented here by hymns, antiphons, responsories, motets and psalms—the occasion not only for music of intimacy, elegance and reflection, but for flights of breathtaking canonic and contrapuntal invention and harmonic daring.

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