St Mary's Metropolitan cathedral, Edinburgh
Sometime in the late 1500s, Thomas Wode, Vicar of St Andrews, scribbled a dour prophecy in the margin of his psalter: "I cannot understand bot musicke sall pereische in this land alutterlye." As Calvanists burned Latin choir books and many of the country's best composers fled south, the worried Wode gathered together for posterity manuscripts of all denominations.
For nearly 20 years, Cappella Nova have been delving into this and other archives of Scottish early vocal music. Their programmes are thoughtfully put together, packed with historical oddities and intrigue. Their most recent concerts took "spiritual gardens" as a thematic link, providing some easy neat imagery: polyphony that twists like vines, horizontal harmonies that blossom and fade. The first half was built around Antoine Brumel's sumptuous four-part mass, Descendi in Hortum Meum, interspersed with various late-medieval settings of the same Latin prayer. The second half took a broader scope on things horticultural, from Hildegard of Bingen's "green theology" to Holy of Holies, a striking new work depicting the Garden of Eden by Judith Bingham.
The venue for the Edinburgh concert was a church at the top of Leith Walk ? which on a Friday night meant a backdrop of shouts and sirens. Still, Cappella Nova's singing is determinedly reverential, with graceful, smooth lines shaped by conductor Alan Tavener. Theirs is a somewhat earnest take on this music, despite much of it being far from sober. That the choir's highest voices didn't gel in timbre, intonation or articulation was a shame; our ears are often drawn to the top, which here sullied the ensemble sound. Bingham stretched the group's dramatic capacity with scrunchy harmonies and bold, jagged lines that earned the best singing of the night.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jun/20/cappella-nova-review
Diora Baird Laura Prepon Ashley Scott Michelle Behennah Julie Benz
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