Early Music Festival Ends on High Notes--Washington Post Review, Tuesday June 27, 2006

 

In the early music world, there are few men who can sing in the soprano range without sounding nasal, pinched or strained.  Drew minter is one of the successful countertenors, and even though he's been at it for more than three decades, his voice shows little sign of age.

Sunday's concert at the National Gallery of Art was a survey of 16th and 17th century Italian music, allowing Minter and the accomplished musicians of the early music ensemble Tempesta di Mare to showcase the style, ornamentation ad improvisation of that era.  

Minter artfully employed Renaissance-style ornamentation in music by Giulio Caccini, Marchetto Cara and others, sliding, trilling, and quivering his voice around the notes.  Minter's improvisations and cadenza-like passages added musical dimension to the lyrics of love and pious devotion.

Minter's performance of Sigismondo D'India's "Listen to the Nightingale" was a Renaissance tour de force, the melody perfectly painting he text, which describes the bird's song ("now full, now solemn, now subtle, now soft").

The recital was the finale to this year's Washington Early Music Festival.

--Gail Wein

Click Here for Excerpts from the performance