Give The Sixteen and their director Harry Christophers credit: with the choir's satisfying bright, yet rounded, sound, and an abundance of well-loved Christmas season repertory on hand, it would be hard to imagine their not making a Christmas album that people want to buy, even if they pretty much phoned it in. And they have not done that in the least: despite its generic title, Song of the Nativity is a fresh take on the holiday release with a unique structure. The program alternates traditional carols -- mostly ...
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Give The Sixteen and their director Harry Christophers credit: with the choir's satisfying bright, yet rounded, sound, and an abundance of well-loved Christmas season repertory on hand, it would be hard to imagine their not making a Christmas album that people want to buy, even if they pretty much phoned it in. And they have not done that in the least: despite its generic title, Song of the Nativity is a fresh take on the holiday release with a unique structure. The program alternates traditional carols -- mostly monophonic, with a bit of simple traditional, multi-part writing in some -- with pieces from the contemporary tonal choral school. Thus there are none of the Renaissance choral pieces that are standard on such releases. The contemporary works are mostly English, but the program opens with the striking O magnum mysterium of the American Morten Lauridsen, a work inspired not by scripture, but by the painting Still Life with Lemons, Oranges, and a Rose by Francisco Zurbarán...
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