P a s t C o n c e r t s
Season 2021-22
Hortus Conclusus
Love in the Garden
Saturday 9 July 2022, 7.30pm
St Stephen's Church, 38-42 Rochester Row,
London SW1P 1LE
Directed by David Allinson
Victoria, Missa Trahe me post te
motets by Guerrero, Victoria and Lassus
madrigals by Wilbye, Ramsey and Pilkington
A summer night of pastoral delights, of gods, heroes and nymphs ... and sweet honey-sucking bees.
In this programme of sacred and secular Renaissance music, conceived for the gardens of Stowe House, we sing luxurious settings of the Song of Songs by Victoria, Guerrero and Lassus — in which the beloved is wooed in a garden of sensual delights.
Victoria’s Missa Trahe me post te is a scintillating Mass based on his own motet: ‘Draw me after you; we will run in the scent of your ointments’.
Balancing the sacred works, our selection of ravishing English madrigals echoes the Arcadian gardens of Stowe House, in which the Greek muses stand sentinel, hard by an Elysian field. We sing to Oriana, the muse of astronomy, but also to fallen heroes while the bees buzz among the blooms. As darkness falls we embrace the exquisite melancholy of dusk by singing the greatest madrigal written in English, Wilbye’s Draw on sweet night.
Vivacious Vivanco
Brilliant Bruceña
Saturday 2 April 2022, 7.30pm
St Giles in the fields
60 St Giles High Street
London, WC2H 8LG
Directed by Gareth Wilson
Sebástian de Vivanco deserves to be better known. One of Victoria’s most accomplished contemporaries, his 400th anniversary falls in 2022. To celebrate we are delighted to be performing his beautiful Missa In Manus Tuas a8 from a new performing edition.
Along with other motets by Vivanco, our programme will include works by the obscure Diego de Bruceña (1567-1622), recently brought to light by Professor Michael Noone as he investigates music printing in early 17th century Salamanca.
Pictured: the Cathedral (Sé) at Miranda do Douro, Portugal, where the single surviving copy of the music of Diego de Bruceña is found.
Inviolata
Saturday 12 February 2022, 7.30pm
St Mary’s, Bourne Street, London, SW1W 8JJ
Directed by David Allinson
£12 / £10 (conc.) in advance
(until 7pm on 9 February)
£14 / £12 (conc.) thereafter
Please buy your tickets online in advance, as we wish to avoid queues and cash handling at the door.
Josquin’s serene hymn to the Virgin Mary, Inviolata, is one of the greatest masterpieces of the early Renaissance. It caught the attention of many musicians during the 16th century, who reworked and enriched its honeyed lines.
At the heart of our warming winter programme is a beautiful Missa Inviolata which survives in a 16th century Spanish manuscript without attribution, probably composed by Philippe Verdelot. Taking the opportunity to celebrate the 450th anniversary of this highly influential composer, we will sing other sacred and secular works by Verdelot, along with Marian motets by contemporaries including Lusitano, Bauldeweyn – and Jean Mouton, whose 500th anniversary falls in in 2022. His eight-voice canon, Nesciens mater, is one of the wonders of the age.
Hodie Christus natus est!
Christmas in Rome
Saturday 11 December 2021, 7.30pm
St. George’s Bloomsbury, London WC1A 2HR
Directed by David Allinson
Advance Tickets: £12/ Concessions: £10 (to 7pm on Wednesday 8th December 2021)
On the Door (or after 7pm on Wednesday 8th December): £14/ Concessions £12
Attendees are strongly advised to purchase tickets in advance. Cash purchases will not be possible on the door owing to Covid mitigation measures
Palestrina, Missa Hodie Christus natus est for double choir
and seasonal motets by Palestrina and contemporaries
Palestrina wrote superlative music for the Christmas season. Few of his Mass settings are so inventive and joyful as the Missa Hodie Christus natus est, based on his own double choir motet. With moments of solemnity and breadth, this music sparkles with festive optimism: the perfect riposte to the travails of 2021. Equally exciting are Palestrina's motets, from the warm and deceptively simple Alma Redeptoris mater to the rollercoaster of Surge illuminare: 'Arise, shine … for thy light is come’.
To garnish this feast of Roman Renaissance music we take a last look back at Josquin des Prez, whose 500th anniversary was celebrated this year, through the admiring eyes of George de la Héle (1527-1586) by singing the Agnus Dei from de la Héle's Missa Praeter rerum seriem, a glorious fantasia on Josquin’s brilliant Christmas motet. And we catch an echo of our last Christmas concert before the pandemic: in December 2019 we sang a programme built around Mouton’s lively Quaeramus cum pastoribus. In 2021, across the months of pandemic silence, we offer an answering call: Croce’s rich reworking of Mouton’s material as a joyful double-choir motet.
Celebrating Josquin 'Master of the Notes'
Saturday 23rd October 2021, 7.30pm
St Mary’s, Bourne Street, London, SW1W 8JJ
Directed by David Allinson
Online event followed by Q&A with David Allinson on Zoom
Sunday 7th November, 7pm
In his lifetime Josquin des Prez achieved a greater level of fame across Europe than perhaps any composer before him, and in death he cast a long shadow over the work of the following generation. To mark 500 years since his passing, the Renaissance Singers offers a selection of his emotive, contemplative and audaciously clever music.
Motets and chansons will be performed including
Gaude Virgo
Salve regina
Inviolata
Mille regretz
plus selections from Masses, including movements from Missa Pange Lingua and Missa L’homme armé sexti toni.
This concert was supplemented by an oniine workshop featuring recordings of the music performed in the concert on Sunday 7th November at 7pm followed by a live Q&A with David Allinson, to which all ticket holders are invited.
It is also possible to purchase tickets for the online event only.
