Reviews

Reviews: The Great Service

28.04.2008

According to Anthony Fiumara in Trouw of April 26, 2008.

“The NKK performed the liturgical works of Byrd with honesty and simplicity […] The choir’s fluent sonority was masterful […] Hillier had not chosen the contemporary works because of their link with Byrd, and yet they dovetailed with his works wonderfully. The short piece again (after ecclesiastes) by Pulitzer prize-winner David Lang was breathtaking by its very straightforwardness […]
In the archaically folksy Five Lullabies by New Zealander Jack Body the choir sounded Orff-esque in its rhythm and exotic as a result of Body’s fantasy language. And in the narrative piece by Englishman Gavin Bryars, about the last days of the philosopher Kant, the ritual tranquillity occasionally, with restrained excitement, nodded in the direction of close harmony.”

Gerrit Stulp in the Friesch Dagblad of April 24, 2008:

“The music was performed with a particularly lovely, straight and yet very suggestive sound, suiting Hillier’s style and conducted with suppleness by him. There was no way the listener could get tired of the style […]
From the very start one was gripped by O Lord, open thou our lips and O clap your hands (Psalm 47), which were followed by again (after ecclesiastes), an exciting contemporary work by David Lang, in which the interesting harmonies were very striking. Rise up, my love, by Howard Skempton, though packed with sharp dissonance, gave an overall impression of delicacy.” […]