Les Voix Baroques Reviews

“The concert offerings of this year’s Boston Early Music Festival got off to a strong start last night with a performance by Les Voix Baroques, a protean Montreal-based ensemble here...The performances last night captured that intertwining, with stylish and refined singing”

Each of the other soloists, all from Canada’s Les Voix Baroques, brought a beautiful voice and sensitive interpretation to his or her arias, including Matthew White’s clear and effortless alto and Shannon Mercer’s warm soprano. Tenor Jacques-Olivier Chartier, 22, is an Evangelist-in-waiting. The tone quality, the expressiveness, the technique are all there.Baritone Tyler Duncan, as Pilate, had a voice to match: rich, forceful and authoritative. He was the ideal contrast to the other baritone, Joshua Hopkins, as Jesus.

The Portland Baroque Orchestra, along with vocal soloists from Montreal’s Les Voix Baroques and a chorus from Portland’s own Cappella Romana, delivered a rich, opulent, and emotionally stunning performance of J.S. Bach’s jovian St. John Passion on Friday, March 11 at 7:30 pm at the First Baptist Church downtown....The soloists were one and all superb singers and master period stylists.

"Saturday's concert was not only a landmark performance by the ensemble but also the strongest performance of any kind this season...The singing was uniformly first-rate...Five members of Montreal's Les Voix Baroques sang the solos, and joining them in the choruses were another half-dozen from Portland's Cappella Romana -- exceptional voices all, and all exceptionally well-integrated with the dynamic contours and phrasing of the orchestra. Soprano Shannon Mercer and alto Matthew White (in an exquisite duet with Joanna Blendulf on gamba) made their final desolate arias heartbreaking high points; baritone Joshua Hopkins sang the role of Jesus with all the appropriate warmth, gravitas and pain; and tenor Jacques-Olivier Chartier and baritone Tyler Duncan were equally captivating and beautifully controlled."

Les Voix baroques, ce sont 12 voix solistes, un ensemble de haute volée (on y voit par exemple Shannon Mercer, Matthew White et Joshua Hopkins), d'où émergent les différents personnages.... Disposant d'un terreau pareil, le chef peut se permettre le luxe de distribuer les airs à diverses voix.

"Les Voix Baroques was a dozen voices strong, with emphasis on strong. Their balance and blend were ideal, intonation was nearly always spot on. Even more impressive was the precision of their ensemble."

"the music making is poetic and and expressive...the six singers listen, watch and respond to each other with keeness and subtlety. Throughout Alexander Weimann directs judiciously from the keyboard.

Les Voix Baroques were as suave, painful, tender and obstinate as the confusing and exhilarating frisson of a ripening first love.

Just when you think that wonders have nearly ceased in the world of early music, along come Les Voix Baroques, a small cluster of six singers and two players – a keyboard and a plucked string – to show you that wonders never do cease... It was astonishing and refreshing to hear what so small an ensemble could achieve.

Les Voix Baroques is an ensemble of young voices with a remarkable ability to create startling colours in ensemble passages. Only artful listening can make this happen – obviously something the members of Les Voix do extremely well. These four Carissimi oratorios have far less chorus than solo material, so the shift in texture from solo passages to harmonically rich part singing is dramatic and highly effective.

The singers’ solo work also merits comment. We’ve placed much value on straight tone (vibrato-free) singing for early music repertoire, and there’s certainly plenty of it in this recording. Unusual, however, is the freedom for individual singers to move into a vibrato at specific points in phrases. This contrast between vocal styles gives emphasis to key moments in a text or musical line. It’s a wonderful effect and feels quite natural.

A very satisfying disc… Viva Les Voix Baroques!

Chez Atma, aussi, nous trouvons un bijou baroque: un CD de quatre oratorios de Carissimi sur les histoires de Jonas, Jephté, Ezéchias et Job. Nous sommes là dans un registre bien plus éloquent que «végétarien». Les Voix baroques, menées par Matthew White et Alexander Weinmann, éclairent avec vigueur cette musique, post-monteverdienne.

Many of his scores have been lost, so it’s hard to tell that Roman Giacomo Carissimi was one of the most celebrated composers of his day (1605-1674). But thanks to brilliant recordings such as this one by Montreal’s Les voix baroques, led by countertenor Matthew White and conductor Alexander Weimann, that is likely to change. Here are four oratorio-like “sacred stories” (Jonas, Jephte, Ezechia and Job) gorgeously played and sung. The music is expertly matched to the Old Testament texts’ drama, and sensitively sung by singers including soprano Suzie LeBlanc and tenor Lawrence Wiliford. The booklet includes the texts.

The members of Les Voix Baroques – including countertenor Matthew White, sopranos Suzie LeBlanc and Catherine Webster, tenor Colin Balzer, and baritone Tyler Duncan – are among this country’s best early-music singers, and the vocal solos of the four mid-17th century Latin oratorios recorded here are exquisitely sung. But the choruses, particularly the laments at the emotional core of Carissimi’s subtly dramatic settings of Old Testament stories, are finer still. Harmonic progressions open like flowers in slow-motion photography; pungent dissonances, perfectly tuned, arch and resolve. One also relishes the delicacy of instrumental entries and an elegant continuity within each piece.

Members of 


Mercury Baroque and Les Voix Baroques gave excellent performances of an imaginative selection of works designed to contextualize the musical creations of Henry Purcell, in celebration of the great British composer's 350th birth year. Both ensembles possess the essential quality of individual virtuosity and collective vision, and the entire concert, most of which consisted of rarities, showcased the performers' excellence and the depth of British music around Purcell's life.

A thirteen-member company of singers and instrumentalists, led from the keyboard by Alexander Weimann, contextualized four works by Henry Purcell...This program was both ingenious and intricate: a collage in eight parts blending instrumental and vocal offerings to create a striking sampling of about eighty years of repertoire, from composers both famous and obscure, all linked together in an exploration of melancholy. The selection, superb musicological practice that approaches composition in its subtle selectivity and pacing, was matched by the splendour of the performances. Sopranos Shannon Mercer and Yulia Van Doren, alto Matthew White, tenor Charles Daniels, baritone Tyler Duncan, and bass Robert Macdonald were accompanied by seven fine instrumentalists...this was collegial, collaborative music-making of the highest level...Even the music by relatively unsung masters was powerfully evocative, in no small part thanks to the extraordinary commitment of ensemble leader Alexander Weimann. “Melancholy England” proved an astonishing performance of remarkable music — a brilliant conception which should instantly be repeated in other centres or, better still, preserved on disk.

"This release concentrates its attention on Carnival and Lent, occasions at the time for extremes in indulgence and abstinence—what the liner notes insightfully term the “theater of humors.” What we get from all this are songs urging lust, drink, madness, and food on the one hand, and councils of misogyny, despair, and the welcome of death on the other. There’s much to enjoy in both groups, both obscure and well known, from LeJeune’s amusing and mildly risqué Une puce j’ay dedans l’oreille, to Dowland’s supremely depressing From Silent Night.
Les Voix Baroques isn’t well known, despite having several releases on Analekta and ATMA Classique. They certainly deserve more recognition. Their lineup of six vocalists has repeatedly changed over the years, but the qualities the ensemble exhibits as a whole have not. They display secure intonation and a wonderful vocal blend (East’s Poor is the Life), excellent balance between contrasting textures (Othmayr’s Quis quis requiem quaeris), and a refined sense of dynamics (Vecchi’s Fate silentio)."

"Parmi les réussites au plus haut niveau sur la même étiquette, on lui adjoindra, dans un tout autre genre, le CD intitulé Humori par Les Voix humaines et Les Voix baroques, un disque carnavalesque raffiné et réjouissant."

Tafelmusik and Les Voix Baroques performed this massive work with the minimal forces recommended more than two decades ago by Joshua Rifkin, who proposed putting just one voice on each solo part and using the combined solo voices for the choir sections (plus three voices for the points at which Bach runs a chorale tune beneath the main chorus).
The eight soloists appeared as members of Montreal's Les Voix Baroques, though all but two appear to be based on the other side of the Atlantic. They were all strong voices and gave full sound even to Bach's most robust choruses, in part because eight good singers are bound to have a more pointed attack than 80."

"The program is well conceived and put together insightfully....Les Voix Baroques has already made a name for itself with a few convincing recordings. The vocalists sing with agility, in tune, differentiating their dynamic entrances luminously and have at their disposal a command of a very homogenous way of declamation and voicing that is also steady in the stirring sections. The characteristic necessity and audacity to exaggerate that is sometimes required when singing madrigals, is also not lacking. The vocalists are equally convincing, whether they are singing solo or as part of the group."

Dr. Matthias Lange (PhD), 19.03.09

Some of the finest small-ensemble performances of early-Baroque music in Canada come from Montreal. Les Voix Baroques – sopranos Suzie LeBlanc and Catherine Webster, countertenor Matthew White, tenors Charles Daniels and Colin Balzer and baritone Sumner Thompson – have here assembled music meant for the period immediately before and after Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent in the Christian calendar. As such, it mixes celebration and reflection. This delectable CD contains well-known as well as obscure works from the late 16th and early 17th centuries by such composers as Michael Praetorius, Samuel Scheidt and Claudio Monteverdi. The singing is balanced and remarkably expressive. Accompaniment as well as instrumental interludes come from ever-elegant consort, Les Voix Humaines. **** (Full 4 stars)

Humori by Les Voix Baroques and Les Voix Humaines (Atma). God bless the scholars and musicologists. Carnival is the period just before Lent which, as the superb notes here remind us, was called by Goethe “a festival that people give to themselves and not one given to the people.” This madrigal comedy by Orazio Vecchi was intended, then, to take place over three days during Carnival and devoted to the four “humors” of medieval medicine— blood, phlegm, yellow and black bile. By comedy’s end, all were supposedly ready for Lent. Composers on the disc include Roland de Lassus, Praetorius, Scheidt, Dowland, Gibbons and Monteverdi. The whole thing is delightful. ★★★( J. S.)

Les Voix Baroques ****½

"un cadeau parfait, pour les amateurs de voix...De l'humour léger (Italie) ay mélancolique (Angleterre) à l'humour encadré (Allemagne), ce disque est un véritable feu d'artifice baroque magnifiquement conçu. Du travail d'orfèvre.



“One of Canada's most distinguished Baroque ensembles, Les Voix Baroques, performed last night at Christ Church Cathedral. Their program consisted of Latin oratorios from the 17th century, two of them by Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674)...The performance was stylish and effective. The five singers who make up the vocal contingent of the ensemble had a wonderful blend in the choral passages and each made fine solo contributions as well....The instrumentalists, by the way, were hardly less impressive than the singers. This is an ensemble that takes the Baroque repertoire and its demands very seriously and produces some wonderful music as a result....Despite the relatively esoteric nature of the program, close to 400 people attended the concert and rewarded Jeptha with a standing ovation."

“The more, indeed, that one listens to this CD( Canticum Canticorum, the more one realises its riches (almost every track could be picked out for individual praise) and how much thought has gone into the planning of it. Throughout the singing and the instrumental work are alike are of a high order. The recorded sound is close and detailed but radiant.”

“But it's the singing that's the real star here. These six singers--Dorothee Mields, Catherine Webster, Matthew White, Colin Balzer, Sumner Thompson, and Robert Macdonald--sometimes accompanied by baroque strings and winds, sometimes not, are all experienced artists and veterans of some of the world's finest vocal groups and performing venues. All matters of ensemble precision, balance, blend, phrasing, and expressive articulation come naturally to them, whether it's Purcell (My beloved spake) or Palestrina (Osculetur me osculo oris sui). The two Willan selections--the Marian motets Rise up, my love, my fair one, and I beheld her, beautiful as a dove--are exquisite little gems well known to Canadian choirs but deserving of far greater attention elsewhere; it's nice to hear them in these sensitively sung, one-voice-to-a-part renditions. Other highlights are Walton's lovely marriage motet from 1938, Set me as a seal upon thine heart, and Dunstable's Quam pulchra es, sung here by three ideally matched male voices. The instrumental accompaniments (and one ensemble-only selection--a Passacaille by Marin Marais) are first-rate, consistently complementary to the voices, and everything is expertly captured in the agreeable acoustic of Quebec's Église Saint-Augustin. Liner notes by François Filiatrault are thoughtful and informative, adding helpful background to understanding the program's choices and purpose. Strongly recommended!

David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com, July 2008

“Difficile pour les chanteurs d'aborder un tel repertoire, qui fait se succeder des esthetiques tres differentes et oblige les interpretes a trouver un just equilibre entre la presence individuelle, expressive de chaque voix et le fin travail de madrigaliste que reclament les pages polyphoniques. Matthew White et ses acolytes relevent le defi avec talent, bien soutenus par un continuo race mene de main de maitre par Stephen Stubbs. De quoi disserter agreablement une bonne heure sur les vertus contrastees ou au contraires reconcilies de l'amour sacre et de l'amour profane.”

“Canticum Canticorum is a brilliant artistic-marketing tipple point by the Canadian period ensemble Les Voix Baroques....Les Voix Baroques, under the direction of founder Matthew White, has collected 16 settings of the Songs that span from John Dunstable and the 15th Century to Sir William Walton and the 20th Century, spanning late Medieval England, Renaissance Italy, Baroque Germany and France, and 20th Century Canada and England. The group nimbly dispatches each of the tectonic periods of choral music with a period instrument and performance flair. Interestingly, the most striking settings are those of the Canadian Willan and Walton. These most recent additions to the canon stand up well with those of the Alte Musik warhorse composers."

"The sonics of this ATMA Classique recording are pristine and crystalline. The entire set possesses a Renaissance oil portrait patina, even in the more recent compositions. But this is not a dusty or dank patina. It is vibrant and colorful, sensual and pious. This may be the "classical" recording of the year."

Montreal currently has a particularly strong collection of early- and Baroque-music practitioners clustered around organist Christopher Jackson's Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal and countertenor Matthew White's Les Voix Baroques. Both have new discs on the dynamic ATMA label that warrant a full 4 stars...

LES VOIX BAROQUES Canticum Canticorum: The frankly erotic Song of Songs, found in the Old Testament, has been the source of inspiration for composers for centuries.... Hearing the 20th-century pieces with only one voice per part gives them a compelling edge compared to the usual round, big-choir sound. Top tracks: "Set Me as a Seal Upon Thine Heart" by William Walton and "My Beloved Spake" by Thomas Tomkins.

The sacred-erotic poetry of the Song of Songs has attracted many musical settings over the centuries. This anthology focuses on settings from the 16th and 17th centuries, opening with Lassus and Palestrina and closing with Purcell’s My Beloved Spake. In between we are treated to settings by Schütz, Mazzochi, Tomkins and Charpentier.
Although Le Voix Baroques’ artistic director, Matthew White, remains among the singers here, he has invited Stephen Stubbs as guest director. The performances are notable for their sonorous beauty and musical refinement, matching the sensuality (sometimes veiled, sometimes impassioned) of their varied and captivating program.... A fascinating and beguiling disc.” 5 stars

Uri Golomb , Goldberg Magazine, April 2008

“Véritable énigme théologique, le cantique des cantiques occupe une place ambiguë parmi les livres de l'Ancien Testament. Si de tout temps on s'est interrogé sur le sens sacré ou profane de ce poème amoureux, les compositeurs ont, pour leur part, consacré de nombreuses oeuvres à ces textes. Certaines des pages qui composent ce disque sont parmi les plus belles du répertoire et la qualité de l'interprétation soutient cette qualité. Disposés avec grâce, les épisodes vocaux et instrumentaux s'enlacent de façon harmonieuse et les voix s'élèvent, ouvrant cet espace immatériel où la musique est libérée des contingences terrestres. Une nouvelle et appréciable contribution d'une formation musicale à découvrir, dont il faut au passage souligner le tout aussi pertinent Membra Jesu nostri de Buxtehude, paru en 2007 sur la même étiquette.

“The singers - Suzie LeBlanc, Catherine Webster, Matthew White (Les Voix Baroques' director), Colin Balzer, and Nathaniel Watson - also made a virtue out of their varying timbres. White's warm alto and Balzer's focused, fluent tenor mediated between the sopranos' straight tones (LeBlanc's sine-wave purity, Webster's organ-pipe flute) and Watson's robust, flexible baritone.

After intermission came a masterpiece, "Membra Jesu Nostri," a cycle of seven cantatas, each focused on part of the crucified Christ's body: feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart, face. Emotional directness gives it an intimate aura - uncluttered choral textures communicate the texts (devotional poetry framed by biblical quotations) with rich clarity, while solo arias, their floridity tempered by measured phrasing, crystallize each passing mood. Even the predictable seems new. ”

“Here, the five soloists and the equally-sensitive instrumental group form a superbly integrated consort, movingly communicating the vibrant intimacy and urgent sensuality of Buxtehude’s music….I believe this superb new version can hold its own against all competition” ( Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri-Atmaclassique)-5 Stars

“The five singers are all assured soloists who show consistent expressive flexibility and tenderness. They seem ideally suited to one another in five part choruses and trios and their finely balanced and sweetly sensitive approach to consort singing is a pleasure to listen to. There is a subtle assertiveness in the communication of text( in which the instruments share an admirable matching role), and the result is rather like listening to an exquisitely subtle performance of Monteverdi madrigals….like the Sixteen’s exemplary account it allows the music to unfold naturally with sincerity and taste.”

“Most people associate the golden age of Lutheran music in Germany with J.S. Bach, but it was already in full bloom a generation earlier, when Danish-born Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) was working in Lübeck. Unlike many other Protestants, Martin Luther loved the emotional power of devotional music, which gets a particularly beautiful example in this new disc from Les Voix Baroques, a young Montreal ensemble led by countertenor Matthew White. Membra Jesu Nostri (literally "the body parts of our Jesus") meditates on the seven corporeal sufferings of the Messiah while he hangs on the cross. The result here is mesmerizing in its mix of gentleness and intensity – instrumentally and vocally (the recording includes soprano Suzie LeBlanc). Top track: Cantata VI: The Heart.” ! ( Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri-Atmaclassique)"

“On this ATMA recording, these young singers are so wonderfully matched, vocally and musically – Suzie LeBlanc (soprano), Catherine Webster (soprano), Matthew White (alto), Pascal Charbonneau (tenor), Thomas Meglioranza (bass) – and although all are accomplished soloists, their strength here is in their seamless ensemble work. Throughout, their singing is infused with energetic freedom and emotional colour. “! ( Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri-Atmaclassique)"

“Les Voix Baroques, mind you, are no simple eight-voice choir. They are a group of soloists, produced by Canadian countertenor Matthew White (himself one of the eight), whose aim is to work with prominent instrumental ensembles to present "historically aware" interpretations of renaissance and baroque music.

Their current engagement by Tafelmusik is thus typical, and they will be repeating this performance tonight, tomorrow and Wednesday at Trinity-St. Paul's and Tuesday at the George Weston Recital Hall, both in Toronto.

The single most rewarding outcome of this scaled-down approach to the St. John Passion was the effect that full responsibility for Bach's rich and profound choral fabrics had on the soloists. From being just star turns, their solos became integral parts of the whole discourse of the work, understood as such, and far more affecting than they tend to be in conventional presentations of this music. The soloists were transformed from visiting trained seals into consummate musicians schooled in the hard and marvellous discipline of Bach's choral writing.”

"All is played with fervour and lively response to the rich stylistic diversity of the period, vocal items reveal White's technical accomplishment, expressive sensibility and tonal warmth."

“Encore une superbe réalisation pour le contre-ténor Matthew White et son ensemble Les Voix Baroques, avec ce programme tout Alessandro Scarlatti: trois Cantatas peu enregistrées, un Motetto, Infirmata, vulnerata, d'une grande intensité dramatique, ainsi que deux Sonatas à quatre pour hautbois, flûte à bec, deux violons et basse continue. Le thème, Disperato Amore (désespoir amoureux) n'a peut-être rien de réjouissant, mais les oeuvres aux titres éloquents de Ombre Tacite ou Bella quanto crudel recèlent cette économie d'effets brillants au profit d'une sobriété toute contenue…Le petit orchestre des Voix baroques brille littéralement dans les pièces instrumentales."

I don't know why so many Baroque-era recordings have pleased me so much lately, but this Canadian disc is one of them. Countertenor Matthew White has a firm yet fluid and very clear sound in his selections by J.S. Bach, J.C. Bach, John Blow, William Byrd, and Purcell, and the instrumental group Les Voix Baroques supports him tenderly and assertively.

They also dig in with what I can best call authoritative tact in works by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Thomas Simpson, and Anthony Holborne. And that's one of the reasons I like this CD, come to think of it: the repertoire by both familiar and unfamiliar composers is out of the ordinary. It's a reminder that in the late Renaissance and early Baroque, music was as much a part of everyday life as it is today -- only it was made fresh for you by musicians, not piped in from a set of ubiquitous radio stations or MP3 downloads. White and Les Voix Baroques re-create that sense of something being made new and on the spot, and that's an achievement many bigger or well-known groups never manage.

“The first spot went to Les Voix Baroques, a chamber ensemble fronted by countertenor Matthew White. Founded in 1999 and dedicated to the performance of unexplored repertoire from the 17th and 18th centuries, Les Voix Baroques have toured the prairie provinces and the Maritimes; on Tuesday they finally made their Toronto debut, joined by Montreal soprano Nathalie Paulin (who decamped from Toronto a couple of years ago)…the eight-member instrumental ensemble shone as they made the music declaim, seduce,"

"...that only slightly more than half the disc features White; the rest is instrumental selections--pieces by Biber (dances), Schmelzer (a lament), Simpson (a pavan), Purcell (a fantasia), and Tallis (In nomine)--played with technical polish, finely honed articulation, and good ensemble balances. The sound is very fine, giving appropriate prominence and clarity to White's voice while giving the instruments room to breathe.”

"Les Voix Baroques are excellent throughout, as accompanists and on their own in the striking instrumental laments....Canada is producing some fine counter-tenors at present and Matthew White is the admirable protagonist in one of the best Analekta releases to date. A warm recommendation"

“Here we have yet another very well-matched group of singers who have mastered both the expressive character of the solos and the uniform articulation and phrasing required of the ensemble passages, all of which is nicely coordinated with their expert instrumental partners (not such an easy task in this music!)…It’s difficult to find anything but praise for these performances--and for sound that's exceptionally clear and vibrant and well-balanced among voices and instruments…Highly recommended! ( Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri-Atmaclassique)"