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The Dream of Herod
Music for Advent and Christmas

Tenebrae
directed by Nigel Short

Classic FM, December 2002

Tenebrae is a professional choir, established by former King's Singer Nigel Short to address the market for fine singing in fine buildings. Jacques Villeneuve and James Bowman are among the group's patrons, testimony to Short's networking powers. The conductor stresses the passion and precision generated by his singers ad the enjoyment comes from the inspired repertoire selection. Plainsong smoothly covers the joins between works such as Peter Wishart's Alleluya, Hadley's I sing of a maiden and Short and Richard McDonald's effective The Dream of Herod.

Andrew Stewart

International Record Review, December 2002

As for Christmas presents … one of most impressive offerings is The Dream of Herod – the recorded debut of the chamber choir Tenebrae. Under the direction of ex-King’s Singer Nigel Short they like performing by candlelight in resonant ecclesiastical spaces, mixing medieval chant with renaissance and contemporary choral works to create an ‘ethereal mood of contemplation’. They certainly create quite an impression here with short sequences of music for Advent, ‘Mother and Child’, Christmas, and a brand new semi-dramatic work The Dream of Herod composed by the conductor himself. Chant, popular carols, and twentieth-century anthems rub shoulders evocatively, and we hear just how close ‘O come all ye faithful’ is to the plainchant original – ‘Adeste Fideles’. Barry Rose’s arrangement of ‘Silent Night’ is exquisitely understated and throughout this programme the choir judiciously trade in seasonal sentimentality for singing of sincere simplicity. ‘Passion and Precision’ is their motto and it’s nowhere more potent than in the stark Dream of Herod in which the ancient villain, haunted by the genocide he has inflicted on his people, eventually finds redemption – a tale with plenty of contemporary resonance this Christmas.