Reviews
Review Search
A crack choir who sing with immaculate intonation and a sure sense of internal balance … I was left wishing there could be more
Polyphony’s exceptional energy, technical prowess and expressive flexibility make the most of every word and mood throughout this hour-long programme. This engrossing anthology of words and music comes highly recommended
A valued possession … highly recommended
Performance *****Sounds *****
Polyphony’s brand of singing, clean as a whistle, rhythmically wonderfully alive, impeccably tuned and voiced, polished yet always fervent, is justly renowned and on this disc, under the direction of Stephen Layton, it serves Britten's a cappella choral music extremely well. The variety here is vast, ranging from the still magical A Hymn to the Virgin, which Britten...
Almost the only criticism I have of this superb programme is that in Sacred and Profane, Britten's late group of settings of early English poems, Polyphony employ the sort of studied `authentic' pronunciation that one associates with the most scholarly of early music specialists. And yet at various points in his career Britten turned to the very different sounds and syntaxes of foreign languages...
This disc containing the major part of Britten's mixed-voice a cappella repertoire (the Hymn to St Cecilia is the only substantial omission) could hardly be a better showcase for the virtuosity of Polyphony and the increasingly assured talents of Stephen Layton. There's every sign that this music is particularly well "sung in": the phrasing - whether rapid, rat-a-tat or relaxed - carries such a...