THE SPIRIT SINGS AT CHANTICLEER
Nothing charges up your Christmas spirit more successfully than Chanticleer’s Christmas concerts. Heard it before? No matter. Most of the sacred repertory is new annually, spanning a millennium or more. Text languages? Nothing special—just eight of ’em a night this year. Revolutionary 16th-century composers helped save the day for us, more than once. This time one motet featured the Englishman William Byrd, who adroitly continued writing sacred music and—-somehow——avoiding execution in the bloody Reformation battles going on outside his door….
