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Tenebrae
King’s Place, London
TENEBRAE’S end-of-year celebration was a very well-mannered Yuletide party, featuring many of artistic director Nigel Short’s favourite Christmas choral works, some of them quite rarely heard.
Opening in semi-darkness with the 4th century plainchant Rorate Coeli, Tenebrae’s choristers — seven women and eight men — burst into life with Peter Wishart’s extrovert setting of the 15th century text Alleluya! as the lights suddenly blazed.
A lively evening might have been expected at that point, but the opening salvo turned out, quite deliberately, to be the loudest and most exuberant choral work of the first half.
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