James Weeks: Mala punica

Delivery & returns

Reviews

“This is a seductive thing: lush, finespun music by James Weeks, performed by his peerless vocal ensemble Exaudi and the excellent instrumentalists of the Netherlands-based Hortus Ensemble – artfully recorded, too, by the Winter & Winter label… There’s a refinement and definition to the writing that sounds just right in Exaudi’s chiselled-but-definitely-not-chaste delivery.”  The Guardian ****

“Weeks’s own Exaudi vocal ensemble is joined by the Hortus Ensemble in an immaculately detailed performance where each line carries weight and audibly contributes to the whole.”  Gramophone

“Under composer-conductor James Weeks, the vocal ensemble Exaudi has forged a formidable and fearless reputation in contemporary music. On this CD they are joined by the excellent instrumentalists of the Netherlands-based Hortus Ensemble for Weeks’s own seductive Mala punica (pomegranate), a set of eight canonic pieces based on the Song of Songs, and Walled Garden, three pieces for strings and flute trios that Weeks argues is a ‘kind of musical “bed” for the “aural garden” of the vocal pieces to take root in.’ The result is a refined, lush sequence which, in this authoritative reading, is marvellously hypnotic in effect.”  Choir & Organ *****

“A stunningly subtle, disarmingly simple achievement; a crystallisation of basic ideas down to the point that they transform into something else entirely. Combining the metaphor of the hortus conclusus with a setting of Song of Songs, Weeks’ piece models an exquisite tension between chaste procedure and order, and over-tumbling sensuality.”  The Rambler blog, Tim Rutherford-Johnson

Album recommended and critically acclaimed by New York Times Critic Alex Ross on The Rest is Noise blog