COMPOSERS: Byrd/Taverner
LABELS: Decca Double Decca
WORKS: Sacred Choral Music
PERFORMER: Choir of King’s College, Cambridge/David Willcocks
CATALOGUE NO: 452 170-2 ADD (1960-3)
These performances, recorded during the late Fifties and early Sixties, are stylistically very much of their period. Today, some may find Willcocks’s intense and passionate direction, together with the unashamed use of vibrato, too Romantic for this repertoire, but the singing remains an object lesson in vocal control and diction. The poised performance of Taverner’s glorious Dum transisset and the hushed account of Byrd’s Ave verum sound particularly fine in the silvery acoustic of King’s College Chapel. Kate Bolton
Byrd/Taverner
These performances, recorded during the late Fifties and early Sixties, are stylistically very much of their period. Today, some may find Willcocks’s intense and passionate direction, together with the unashamed use of vibrato, too Romantic for this repertoire, but the singing remains an object lesson in vocal control and diction. The poised performance of Taverner’s glorious Dum transisset and the hushed account of Byrd’s Ave verum sound particularly fine in the silvery acoustic of King’s College Chapel. Kate Bolton
Our rating
3
Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:10 pm