Sunday, 30 September 7:00pm
Friends Event
The Dutch Church
Previewing the first concert:
Sunday 14 October 2007, 6:00pm
Concert: Portuguese & Spanish Renaissance music
Temple Church, London, EC4Y 7BL
Charles V laid down the
principle of Cuius regio, eius religio, a phrase in Latin that means
"Whose region, his religion". His son Philip II famously remarked upon his acquisition
of the Portuguese throne: "I inherited, I bought, I conquered". He
was a devout Catholic, and all Catholic music, both in Spain and in
Portugal, flourished under his reign. Both Frei Manuel Cardoso and
Duarte Lôbo, two of Portugal’s most important composers, spent most
of their lives under Spanish rule; ironically, precisely the period
in which Portuguese music began to enjoy its ‘Golden Age’. Tomás
Luis da Victoria, but even more so Francisco Guerrero, are the most
important Spanish composer of the time.
Tickets: £10 (£8 concessions) Bookings 07951 121420, or e-mail
tickets@renaissancesingers.com or book online at this website.
Monday 19 November, 7:00pm
Open workshop with John Milsom, Dutch Church,
London
Requiem Mass - Jean Richafort
We are delighted to welcome one of the UK's most distinguished
musicologists, John Milsom, who joins us to direct the first
workshop in our 2007/08 Season.
John has contributed much to the development of our knowledge of
music of the Renaissance period. He has led many workshops, and
produced many performing editions of music.
The subject of the workshop is the Requiem Mass by Jean Richafort
which was written on the death of Josquin des Pres, and may even
have been used at the funeral of Philip II of Spain This workshop
will be an opportunity to study this rarely heard work and to hear
John Milsom's insights.
Saturday 8 December, 7:00pm
Concert: “Shepherds, what did you see?”
St George's, Bloomsbury
Our Christmas programme consists of Christmas music of
continental composers from the 15th till the 17th century, with
the theme of the wonderful story of the Shepherds in the fields.
Monday 4 February, 2008, 7:00pm
Open workshop with Simon Lillystone, Dutch Church,
Austin Friars, City of London.
Saturday 8 March, 7:30pm
Concert: “Lamenta”
St George's, Bloomsbury
From the Wailing Wall to the Sistine Chapel, the Lamentations
of Jeremiah, with their poignant images of a city devastated and
a people exiled, form an enduring meditation which tragically
assumes fresh significance with every passing age, our own
included. This concert explores the Lamentations and associated
music for Lent by a variety of composers including the infamous
Carlo Gesualdo (who had much to be penitent about), Alfonso
Ferrabosco, the Elizabethan Court composer and doubleagent, and
Robert White, one of the “lost generation” of English composers
of the mid-sixteenth century.
- Ferrabosco Lamentations I
- Palestrina Lamentations for Holy Saturday
- Esteves Lamentationes
- Gesualdo Three responsories
- White Lamentations
Monday 14 April, 7:00pm
Open workshop: Philippe Rogier, ‘honour, glory and light of Flanders’
with Sally Dunkley
Dutch Church, Austin Friars, City of London
Philippe Rogier (c.1561-1596) was one of a
number of distinguished musicians of Flemish birth who made a
career in Spain, becoming director to the Spanish king in
1584, at the age of just 25. A collection of his motets was
published in 1595, and one of Masses shortly after his untimely
death the following year, but many of his works were lost in the
Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Nevertheless, enough of Rogier's
music survives to show him to have been an unusually fine
composer with an individual voice, whose musical vocabulary
combines the extended polyphonic technique of the Flemish school
with the emotional intensity of his adopted country, with a
glimpse into the following century in its compelling use of
sequential patterns.
Sally Dunkley's interest in 16th-century
vocal music was established during her years as a student at
Oxford. Since then, her career as a professional consort singer
has developed hand-in-hand with continuing study of the music as
editor, writer, researcher and teacher. She has worked
extensively on preparing performing editions from original
sources (some of which are now published by Oxford University
Press in the new series Musica Dei donum), and is increasingly
engaged in sharing her experience through workshops and summer
schools.
Sunday 18 May, 6:00
Concert: BYRD’s GREAT SERVICE
The Grosvenor Chapel, Mayfair
with commentary by John Milsom
Throughout his long association with the Chapel Royal, William
Byrd lived dangerously. The man whose now celebrated settings of
the Latin Mass sustained the forbidden worship of the recusant
Catholic underground also had the versatility and audacity to
produce one of the brightest jewels in the crown of the new
Anglican liturgy – the so-called “Great Service”.
The Renaissance Singers offer a rare opportunity to hear this
kaleidoscopic suite of psalms and canticles for the major
services of the Anglican Prayerbook in its entirety, ranging
from the intricacy of its madrigal-like solo passages to the
grandeur of music in up to ten voice parts. The programme will
also include three massive anthems by Thomas Tomkins, a Chapel
Royal composer of the following generation. These are some of
the last and greatest of their genre before English music was
engulfed by what Tomkins himself called the “sad and distracted
times” of the English Civil War and Commonwealth.
Byrd
The Great Service
Tomkins
O sing unto the Lord
O God, the proud are risen against me
O praise the Lord, all ye heathen
