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

Puer Natus Est - Tudor Music for Advent and Christmas

Videte miraculum - Thomas Tallis
Audivi vocem de caelo - John Taverner
Rorate caeli desuper (Gradualia I, 1605) - William Byrd
Gloria (Missa Puer natus est) - Thomas Tallis
Tollite portas (Gradualia I) - William Byrd
Sanctus & Benedictus (Missa puer natus est) - Thomas Tallis
Ave Maria (Gradualia I) - William Byrd
Agnus Dei (Missa Puer natus est) - Thomas Tallis
Ecce virgo concipiet (Gradualia I) - William Byrd
Magnificat - Robert White
Puer natus est - Plainchant
Verbum caro - John Sheppard

Stile Antico's program centers on Thomas Tallis's magnificent seven-part Christmas Mass, based on the festive plainchant Puer natus est ('A boy is born'). The mass is interspersed with seasonal Tudor music, including William Byrd's exquisite Propers for the fourth Sunday of Advent, responsories by Taverner and Sheppard, Robert White's exuberant setting of the Magnificat, and Tallis's own sublime Videte miraculum.

2372 CD $17.95

Media Vita - John Sheppard




Gaude, gaude, gaude Maria
The Lord's Prayer
I give you a new commandment
Media vita
Christ rising again
Haste thee, O God
Te Deum

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.

2323 CD $18.95

Song of Songs

Ego Flos Campi - Jacop Clemens non Papa
Osculetur Me - Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Antiphon: Dum Esset Rex - Plainchant
Surge, Propera Amica Mea - Francisco Guerrero
Quam Pulchra Es Nicolas Gombert
Antiphon: Nigra Sum - Plainchant
Veni, Dilecte Mi - Orlande de Lassus
Vadam Et Circuibo - Tomas Luis de Victoria
Alleluia: Tota Pulchra Es - Plainchant
Ego Flos Campi - Francisco Guerrero
Nigra Sum - Jean Lheritier
Antiphon: Laeva Eius - Plainchant
Hortus Conclusus - Rodrigo de Ceballos
Nigra Sum - Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Antiphon: Speciosa Facta es - Plainchant
Veni, Dilecte Mi - Sebastian de Vivanco
Trahe Me Post Te - Francisco Guerrero
Antiphon: Iam Hiems Transiit - Plainchant
Vidi Speciosam - Tomas Luis de Victoria

The beautiful and often erotic poetry of the Song of Songs found some of its most sumptuous settings in the motets of Palestrina, Lassus, Victoria and other Continental 16th-century masters. Sung here by Britain's "brightest new stars" of Renaissance polyphony, the singers of Stile Antico, these staples of the choral repertory have never before sounded so vital or texturally rich.

9023 CD $18.95

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.

8880 CD $18.95

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.

8539 CD $18.95


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