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"Cantori New York's program offered more to sink your teeth
into....[Chris DeBlasio's The Best Beloved], four fine
settings of Elizabethan poems touching on homosexual love
and imminent death, has an innate lightness, less a raging
against the dying of the light than a sweet image of sunset.
[T]he program's highlight was a major piece: the Requiem of
the Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür in its American
premiere. Strong and distinctive, it explored every aspect
of texture and text....the work moved inexorably from the
opening lines, intoned darkly and richly by the basses, to
the full-chorus conclusion, 'Lux aeterna,' a fierce,
consuming blaze of light."
"[Friedrich Cerha's cantata An die Herrscher der Welt]
shimmered with a nervous, mid-century beauty. Harmonies
hovered poignantly on the threshold of tonality, pristine
chantlike pasages soured with dissonance, and hope and
pessimism crisscrossed in vivid antiphony....Cantori sang
[Duruflé's motets] with soft-edged, pastel tones--finely
blended, rich and mellifluous."
"It isn't every day one gets to review the world premiere of
a piece that's nearly 100 years old....Ondine is a lovely,
lissome thing.... Cantori presented it very well. The rest
of the program was filled with meaty pieces.... Each of
Debussy's beautiful Trois Chansons de Charles d'Orléans cast
its own distinct mood.... The group's spirit of exploration
is laudable.... An enjoyable evening." "
"....an air of occasion....a performance that combined
moving restraint with narrative urgency. "
"The choir, directed by Mark Shapiro, sang with uncommon
polish. Few part-time choruses produce as unified and
velvety a sound... "
"The choir's flexibility in dynamics and coloration was
consistently striking, as was its gorgeously regulated tone.
"
"Beyond criticism."
Excellent Oratorio Receives Standing Ovation. "Precision of
voice and instrument was excellent."
"A virtuoso performance....a spectacular tour de force. "
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