Imposing … explores the expressive limits of music… somber and impressive.
- David Weininger, The Boston Globe
I watched the water pour down the mountainsides, like tears. … It was an extraordinary piece. … I scribbled in my notebook something about how do you prepare an audience for this? “Do you tell an audience that their hearts are about to be broken?”
- Fiona Talkington, BBC
So beautiful it hurts… This is music that demands the greatest emotions.
- Aksel Dalmo Tollåli, Aftenposten
A completely special work…. high-caliber sound art.
- Henrik Friis, Politiken
Infinitely beautiful ... many had to wipe away tears after the concert … Splendid.
- Svein Knutsen, Hardanger Folkeblad
Gives the feeling of a special event - conquers the room in a quiet yet powerful way. Clear … daring … uncompromising.
- Eystein Sandvik, NRK
References and allusions that are torn apart and reassembled in surprising combinations. … Even the most romantic passages trembled ominously in the constant awareness of the terrible sorrow that lay just within reach.
-Rasmus Weirup, Seismograf
The contrast pierces every time the soprano starts a phrase high in the register. At the limit of what is possible. At the limit of what can be endured. On the verge of a scream. The orchestra lies faintly below, with long notes that without warning leave the beautiful and slide into noise… Towards the end, the noise penetrates the orchestra. The human is breaking apart.
- Bodil Maroni Jensen, Ballade
Futrell creates a sore, painful world of sound … enormously effective.
- Aksel Tollåli, Scenekunst
“Stabat Mater is a particularly powerful work that, in its ugly-beautiful manner, shakes our inner labyrinth. The dramaturgy is compelling, and it’s impossible not to be moved by the stark anguish of losing a child. The string orchestra, harpsichord, and soloists merge into a unified body and voice, and amidst the pain, there’s also such beauty that it hurts. In form, the work feels complete and well-considered.”
- Nordic Council Music Prize Jury
Debut album reviews:
Already feels like a modern classic. … The music’s beauty is arresting, all the more so for the scuttling, juddering, convulsive sonic violence from which it often emerges: a radiant Raphael Madonna who has strayed into an El Greco Crucifixion. … despite the piece’s rich and acknowledged lineage, there’s an even stronger sense of Futrell’s own identity, his confidence in using his material to create something new. … A composer with a singular and appealing voice.
- Alexandra Coghlan, Gramophone
“A work of immense power, poignancy and distinctiveness.”
- Martin Cullingford, Gramophone, Editor’s Choice (Awards Issue 2024)
"It is actually beautiful music, music that captivates: Nevertheless, Tyler Futrell’s Stabat Mater is an expression of an unspeakable pain that has lost none of its topicality … It is the almost ethereal singing, the delicate string sounds that evoke this feeling of beauty, yet suggest helplessness, emptiness and infinite suffering no less emotionally and immediately … This almost disturbing contrast of the beauty of grief is beautifully accentuated in the sensitive, authentic and intense interpretation. It shows how contemporary a Stabat Mater can still be almost 300 years after Pergolesi’s masterpiece.”
- Remy Franck, Pizzicato
"With his Stabat Mater, composer Tyler Futrell creates a timeless form of universal mourning… Soprano Eirin Rognerudd and mezzo-soprano Astrid Nordstad, cut each other like sirens, switching between raw sorrow and loving thoughts… The lyrical acceptance at the end is haunting... As if a branch were to break, that is the grim final chord.” (5/6)
- Marchje Stokkers, De Volkskrant
"Gripping… Erin Rognerud and Astrid Nordstad sing brilliantly, and Terjungensemble sounds warm and lushly beautiful… I hope many will pick up this album.”
- Ola Nordal, on Instagram
“The start of the album is so heartwrenching… The text is clearly brought forward, actualizing the timeless story. Futrell’s Stabat Mater is a powerful piece of sacred music, which captures the universal and - unfortunaetly - eternal relevance of this ancient story."
- Ola Nordal, Ballade (2024 favorites shortlist)
“Disturbing… fragile and delicate… sublimely beautiful… We find ourselves in an “afterwards”, looking back, in a landscape after the earth has burned and the soul lies in ruins. Perhaps leaves us better able to allow war and death and misery sink into the consciousness with renewed empathy. Terjungensemble plays with warmth, paired with the barren, naked, and painful. Both soprano Eirin Rognerud and mezzo-soprano Astrid Nordstad take good care of Futrell's beautifully crafted melodies.”
Magnus Andersson, Klassekampen
"I was transfixed… Futrell has a real lyrical gift - an enviable capacity for melody and effective text-setting.”
- Ryan Ross, The Ross Review