Chanticleer's A Portrait is designated a "25th anniversary collection" in the album's sleeve notes. The anthology format is an ideal medium in which to appreciate the work of this virtuoso all-male San Francisco chorus, for it lets the listener hear how well the group can adapt its instantly identifiable sound to a variety of musical styles. Whether in the medieval and Renaissance pieces the ensemble started out with, in bouncy Mexican Baroque music, or in the punishing arpeggios of contemporary Chinese-American composer
Chen Yi's Wild Grass,
Chanticleer makes beautiful and precise sounds all the way; its fabled high male voices are a real revelation for the uninitiated. A Portrait is not really a retrospective greatest-hits compilation; while the album does contain material drawn from various albums, the 19 selections were all (with the exception of one 1987 track) recorded in the last ten years. But that's not really a complaint -- the album may not show everywhere
Chanticleer has been, but it does an excellent job at letting you hear where the group is going. Recently elevated general director
Joseph Jennings has moved the group toward contemporary music, classics of popular song, and arrangements of African-American spirituals, and with each new stretch comes a new demonstration of
Chanticleer's capabilities. A standout is
Augusta Read Thomas' Love Is a Beautiful Dream, with its sinuous Take 6-like harmonies. Indeed, any lover of close-harmony popular singing might well find this album an ideal way into the classical repertoire, and even longtime
Chanticleer fans may hear some of their favorites in a whole new way here.