Music Lane

Posted by Chris from Lafayette (B) on July 12, 2017 at 11:05:22

In Reply to: RE: HIP!!!!!!! Two reviews - of the same performers and pieces - Sydney and Canberra posted by Timbo in Oz on July 10, 2017 at 16:48:06

. . . although, given the participation of women rather than boys, I'm not sure how HIP it is. This would be the new Chandos release (part of their Chaconne series) of music by Victoria, sung by the Nordic Voices. This is an ensemble of three women (two sopranos and a mezzo) and three men (tenor, baritone and bass) from Norway.

As you may guess, this is normally not my usual repertoire (!), but I'm very happy with this 24/192 5.0 recording. Of course, all six singers sing with a non-vibrato, straight tone, but there's something about a few of the Scandinavian groups I've heard whereby the non-vibrato ensemble or choral singing of the women still manages to generate a surprising amount of color and nuance. I remember being struck by this many years ago when my wife and I saw the Swedish Radio Choir perform, and they were doing some modern piece where the choristers were spread our all over the auditorium. One of the sopranos was singing very near where we were sitting, and I remember being struck by how colorful, almost sensuous, her straight-toned vocal production was.

It's the same situation with the singers on this recording: it's a beautiful sound, with so much nuance, shading and exquisite shaping of phrases. In fact, it's the opposite of many performances I've heard of works from this period of music, where the ensemble or chorus just plows their way through to the end with minimal inflections. BTW, I'm very much against the one-to-a-part choral interpretations of Josh Rifkin and others in the music of Bach, but, here, it works very well and I certainly applaud the almost seductive results.

The artsy-fartsy cover is shown below: