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For purity and precision of tone, and flawless intonation, Nigel Short s chamber choir Tenebrae is pretty much unbeatable. Here, Poulenc s choral masterpieces: sacred works, Second World War cantatas, are all stamped with his uniquely expressive, mongrel style. One moment you re in a monastery, the next a nightclub. Harmonies glide, then wriggle or shriek. It s quite a whirl, but Tenebrae s firm sense of pitch keeps them upright and their beauty radiates like a halo. Warm, affecting music, thrillingly performed. --Geoff Brown, The Times, August 2010
Poulenc's Figure Humaine makes extreme demands on ensemble and intonation, as plenty of commercial recordings can prove. Nigel Short's Tenebrae is astonishing ... a showcase for Poulenc's choral writing, I'm finding it hard to imagine this recital being bettered. --BBC Music Magazine
Poulenc's Figure Humaine makes extreme demands on ensemble and intonation, as plenty of commercial recordings can prove. Nigel Short's Tenebrae is astonishing ... a showcase for Poulenc's choral writing, I'm finding it hard to imagine this recital being bettered. --BBC Music Magazine
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I had never heard any of Francis Poulenc's unaccompanied voice compositions before, so it was a real delight to hear Tenebrae with Nigel Short. A perfect performance - the choir has a really wonderful sound, soft yet strong. Thank you !
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Not to put too fine a point on it, Poulenc composed everything at the piano. For unaccompanied choral music this can create quite startling problems of ensemble for the singers, with essentially random harmony and counterpoint. One shouldn't make these out as flaws though, for the results, when performed with as effortless perfection as this, are wonderful. The little devotional pieces are enchanting, but the magnificent Figure Humaine, a suite of surrealist wartime laments and love poems by Paul Valery, is quite overwhelming. This is one of those pieces where Poulenc quite simply rose above himself, who knows how, and became a great composer in the service of a suffering France. A performance from which tears are hard to withhold.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Tenebrae perform the music with their usual technical accomplishment. Everythingthey do is perfection.
The singing seems effortless and they deliver the whole CD with supreme professionalism and commitment.
Highly recomended to all true music lovers, the more you listen the better it gets
The singing seems effortless and they deliver the whole CD with supreme professionalism and commitment.
Highly recomended to all true music lovers, the more you listen the better it gets
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