Toward the Dawn

"Toward the Dawn" charts a course from twilight to sunrise, echoing both the rhythms of church liturgy and the medieval experience of night, seductive and unsettling in equal measure. Taverner’s mighty Ave Dei Patris filia (based on a chant for Matins) stands at the end of a sequence of sacred music, chansons and madrigal, by such masters as Byrd, Lassus, Tallis and Monteverdi, and Nico Muhly’s Gentle Sleep, a haunting setting of words by Shakespeare written especially for Stile Antico.