Review: "In a Strange Land" - Stile Antico

This album, titled “In a Strange Land”, combines some seven composers, all writing in circumstances of exile – some forced to leave protestant Elizabethan England for their Catholicism, others writing within the kingdom but forced out of meaningful positions, making them, in effect, exiles in their own home.

In a Strange Land

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The Stile Antico ensemble, with their modest yet well blended 2 voice per part ensemble, feel right at home with the early Baroque and Renaissance music contained in this album, managing to project warmth and dedication even in the most basic of harmonies. William Byrds’ two pieces here are marvelously done, as well as the more rhythmical numbers, such as Richard Dering’s “Factum est silentium”.

One has to give credit to the producers of this classical music album for a well-constructed program, with a contrasting character for each track, never gives in to monotony. This while holding everything in the context of the exile theme, including in the sang texts. And so there is an uncanny variety of color and temperament, such as on John Dowland’s ”In this trembling shadow”, which is performed on one-voice-per-part form, most suitable to this lovely piece. The other group coming in from another corner at 2:10 is nothing but heavenly.

The Stile Antico finds a place for a contemporary composer as well, and hearing it coming in right after Peter Philips [1560-1628] may come as a shock. Huw Watkins’ work, “The Phoenix and the Turtle” is based on a poem by Shakespeare written in 1601 and, according to the publisher of the work, “…uses the metaphor of a bird’s funeral to describe the death of an idealistic love”. How this relates to the “exile” theme it’s not entirely clear, but a fine choral piece nonetheless.

A superb release, then, well constructed and supported by a recording that picks up the individual touches of the singers yet combines the proper space to blend the group. Highly recommended.