Generous review of EX NIHILO cd by Albert Mena on Medio Tono!
English translation here, Spanish original beneath:
“The ensemble Graindelavoix is one of the greatest musical surprises of the last two decades, for its (miraculous) stylistic consistency, for the rigorous quality of the albums released in the last 18 years and for its ability to find the nuances that express the intentions of the composers performed, since the volume dedicated to Ockeghem's choral music in 2006 that gives, for example, to the Missa Caput an air of privacy and intimacy of enormous vertical force, elevating the message from individual humility to the beauty of collective art. Some critics at the time mentioned that the voices did not sound blended and that their individual personalities did not flow into a collective polyphonic sound. Little did they imagine that, 18 years later, this would be one of the characteristic features of the group, and that precisely one of Björn Schmelzer's jobs at the head of the group would be to cure the voices of the members to enrich with timbres, effects and humanity works that had traditionally been interpreted with a striking lack of color.
Composer Joan Magrané said that the ensemble possessed a sensational technical and expressive quality, before and after they presented one of his works (Miserere mei Deus) at the Auditori de Barcelona, along with Gesualdo's Tenebrae Responsoria. These, recorded in 2020, were another step in the aesthetic consolidation of Schmelzer and his team, giving exceptional prominence to the timbres of each performer, but without losing sight of the overall sound. This album starts with one of the voices that has accompanied Graindelavoix for most years, Marius Peterson, a tenor with a more than recognizable instrument, capable of offering dramatic outbursts of considerable epicness that bring him to the forefront, as well as skilled in contributing to the harmonic lines of the ensemble. It is only necessary to compare what was offered by another genius of contemporary baroque interpretation, Philippe Herreweghe, and his Collegium Vocale Gent, in 2013, to realize the enormous conceptual and musical work of the Graindelavoix to revolutionize the dramatic construction of the work and allow us to peer into the abysses of expression, for example, in Tristis est anima mea with the rhythms, the descending lines, the sets of definition, the sfumati.
The band's latest album is Ex Nihilo. Polyphony beyond the order of things, which features one of the voices that has accompanied Graindelavoix the most, the Belgian bass Arnout Malfliet, as well as two of the female voices incorporated in recent years, Florencia Menconi, Argentine mezzosoprano based in Basel, and Teodora Tommasi, Italian soprano and instrumentalist. All are examples both of the individual virtuosity that the members bring to the ensemble and of Schmelzer's work to channel it under a unique and far-reaching vision. An example is found in the aching beauty of Bernardino de Ribera's Vox in Rama, with the unison voices creating a velvety, emotionally charged color, to which texture is added through agilities that do not break the ensemble, coloring the vowel changes with more or less air and making consonants appear and disappear to emphasize and give impetus to the emotional journey of the piece. Exquisite.
If music is essentially a collaborative work, in Graindelavoix the musical expression is the individual explosion within the collective unity. The recording and editing work has also evolved under the executive production of Carlos Céster with the production and distribution company Glossa Music. And Schmelzer's informative work cannot be overlooked, offering in podcasts and articles his vision of historicism, the lessons learned from studying figures such as Nicolaus Cusanus and the philosophy and mentality of Europe throughout the history of music. Live Graindelavoix's flame shines brightest, as the choices of the performers and the beauty of Schmelzer's work come together to create a sound of exquisite quality, of sublime trills and textures, of volumes regulated to the impossible. If you have the chance, don't miss it.”
