, Orpheus was known for elegant, exquisitely finished singing. The group was probably ripe for broadened expressive possibilities, but the turbocharged sounds heard Saturday night represented a total personality change. Apart from Michael Tippett’s jolly “Dance, clarion air,” I’m not convinced it suited the music at hand.
As was Krehbiel’s norm, Burnett had 24 singers, but they seemed to have been chosen for power more than subtlety — or clarity. He coaxed less of a chamber choir sound than the weight and force of a big symphonic choir. There was generous expressive shaping, but too much pushed toward high volumes. Overly loud singing is especially counterproductive in an acoustic as generous as this.
Even intimate liturgical motets from the Tudor area — William Byrd’s “Ave verum corpus” and two Thomas Tallis settings of “Te lucis ante terminum” — were beefed up to Brucknerian weights.by Alec Roth did an imaginative elaboration, with drifting counterpoints and echo effects, of the plainsong tune framing Tallis’ first “Te lucis.