"Outstanding" BEAUTEOUS SOFTNESS in review

Following the release of BEAUTEOUS SOFTNESS, Tim’s second solo album of 2023 has received widespread praise from critics, including a number of 5 star reviews and CD of the month accolades. The album saw him revisit a favourite composer in Henry Purcell, as well as some of his contemporaries: John Blow, Pelham Humfrey and William Webb. It was a project conceived during the lockdowns of the pandemic with David Bates and La Nuova Musica, distilling the turmoil of this time in some of the finest songs from the 17th century.

“Quite simply the finest - and most finely sung - collection of songs by Purcell and his contemporaries that you are likely to hear…
Every word is weighed, every phrase is shaped, and every lyric offers up its full meaning. Velvety and dark, his coppery countertenor is as ripe as a plum. And while he’s capable of floating effortlessly over a long lyrical line, he can also surprise with his vocal muscularity… But perhaps his greatest gift is storytelling, ensuring that 70 minutes of largely contemplative songs are unlikely to lull anyone to sleep, beguilingly though he sings… A beautifully nuanced account of Purcell’s Evening Hymn, “Now that the sun hath veiled his light”, brings this outstanding recital to a close in a rapturous peal of “Allelujas”
Limelight (disc of the month)

“consistently sonorous… he’s a well-trained musician with reliably even emission (by no means a given in this vocal category), remarkable breath control and stylistically informed phrasing… he never over emphasizes words so as to unbalance the musical line… the musicians 
assembled a program of unhackneyed pieces well worth hearing.

.. The title track, to a text by Thomas Shadwell (who succeeded Dryden as poet laureate after the Glorious Revolution in 1688), sums up the melancholy charms of the whole project”
Opera News (critic’s choice)

“The phrase is sustained, the style deliberate; the piano nuance gives way to a continuous mezzo forte…. Composed almost exclusively of masterpieces, its program allows everything you want…
An hour and a quarter in wonderland... we never lose a word of the text, which never takes the place of a virtue which Tim Mead has made his master asset: musicality. What other joy than simple joy?
Diapason (5 stars)

“Mead’s theatrical experience comes through most clearly in his dramatic rendering of some of the songs from the odes… the vocal projection is assertive and rousing, and the momentum sustained… The stage songs are often presented with an affecting fluidity.”
BBC Music Magazine

“Tim Mead extends his falsetto very low, making the passage between chest voice and falsetto seamless. His sumptuous legato impresses in slow-tempo hits such as the lament from ‘The Fairy Queen’ and the ‘Evening Hymn’”
Classica (5 stars)

“The "beautiful softness" really ensures peace and inwardness here. Any expressiveness is just a delicate touch, you can indulge yourself wonderfully, chill out at the highest Elizabethan level of music-making. A wonderful album to relax in, to let yourself be carried away, has emerged, for which Tim Mead's straight, untroubled and seamlessly flowing voice is a sure guarantee.”
Rondo

“The appeal is not hard to see… Mead, with a variety of freestanding songs and theatrical music of various kinds, is lyrical and poetic. His diction is impeccable, and what one hears in his rendering of the texts is not conventional pastoral imagery but a singer who means what he sings… This is a Baroque countertenor release where the artist meets repertory especially successfully.”
All Music

“The atmosphere of the entire CD is serious and subdued, but that does not get in the way of Tim Mead’s expressive vocals, on the contrary… A pleasure to listen to.”
Klassieke Zaken

“Tim Mead's expressive countertenor hits exactly the right note for this early baroque music…With the utmost comprehensibility of the text, Mead succeeds very well in hitting the calm style of this music…The result of this congenial collaboration of artists at the highest level is impressive.”
Klassik Begeistert

In the coming 2023/24 season, Tim will release full studio recordings of Handel’s Theodora with Arcangelo under Jonathan Cohen (Alpha Classics) and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with La Nuova Musica under David Bates (Pentatone). In November he will return to the studio for a new solo album with Arcangelo which focusses on Italian repertoire from the 16th and 17th centuries, including a number of world premiere recordings.