CD Review of Fire of the Soul
By Laurence Vittes
Gramophone
If it's Rohaczewski (died c1620) and Titov (1650-1715) and Zielenski (c1550-1616) you're humming, it's possible you've been listening to the Saint Paul-based Rose Ensemble. Founded in 1996 by artistic director Jordan Sramek, the group has been in residence at the Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis since 1997 where they draw upon and respond to the region's strong Eastern European ties. This, their fifth self-produced recording, highlights the mission of the dozen or so members of this mixed vocal ensemble to sing Gregorian chant, Renaissance choral music and modern works reminiscent of earlier times commissioned from Minnesota composers.
Stylistically, the move forward a century from the sweetly devotional Zielenski to the more doggedly modern (for the 17th century) Titov finds the Ensemble remarkably homogeneous and unperturbed-- perhaps too much so. The concert ends with an intended 'hit', a radiant Ave Maria by Minnesotan Sergey Khvoshchinskiy (b1957). Although it strikes a self-consciously manufactured tone at the start, the confident use of late-Renaissance gestures, complete with an ethereal soprano in the style of Allegri's Miserere, is ultimately convincing.
Recorded at St. Bernard's Catholic Church in Saint Paul, the sound has only minimal ambient information but is clear with good dynamic range and bass definition. Sramek's booklet-notes appropriately raise the banner for his troops and their repertoire in an informative, discursive manner.