CD Review of Slavic Holiday
Group's Performance Full of Simple Beauty
By Beth Adelman
Early Music America Magazine - 2002
The Rose Ensemble, based in Minneapolis/St. Paul, handles this material with great skill and grace. Their vocal tone is bright yet warm, and their articulation is clear and crisp. This is interesting music from a part of the world we've just begun to explore. This music is at once familiar and exotic: Western Catholic in orientation yet, at times, Eastern Orthodox in its sound. It is also a little like listening through a time warp; war political turmoil, and geography meant that many Western musical ideas found their way only slowly to Eastern Europe. So, for example, 'De Nativitate Domino,' written in the 15th century, sounds a lot like a 12th or 13th-century Latin conductus.