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Title: No, no, no!
Review: Oh dear. This is an interesting attempt, but the English chamber choir approach does NOT work with Slavic church music. The basses are too polite, the baritones too clear, the tenors too swan-like, the altos too modest, the sopranos too bright. The different sections have varying success with the Church Slavonic/Russian "oo" vowel -- none of them produces it far back in the mouth enough to be convincing. After ten seconds of listening to this, and finding it intriguing to hear the different parts of the pieces articulated more specifically than a real Russian or Slavic choir would do, I lost interest and just found it sad and thin. Like hearing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir do Negro spirituals. If you want to hear more precision in this kind of music -- if real Russian choirs are too "heavy" for you -- try the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. At least they get the spirit and pronunciation right.
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