The complete works on Future Radio

Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis is one of his best known works, and Tudor church music was a major influence on the composer. During 2008 I am playing all the Vaughan Williams symphonies on my Future Radio programme, and this Sunday (Feb 17) it is the turn of the Eighth Symphony. This for many, including me, is one of his finest works, and it certainly destroys the myth of the composer as a backward looking English pastoralist, with its scoring for vibraphone, xylophone, tubular bells, glockenspiel and three tuned gongs.

I'm coupling all the Vaughan Williams Symphonies with choral music from Thomas Tallis. This will be taken from the splendid new 10CD box of Tallis' complete works at bargain price from Brilliant Classics sung by the Chapelle du Roi directed by Alistair Dixon. Tallis also composed a number of instrumental works which are included in the box. They are not of the same peerless quality as his choral works, but are, nevertheless well worth hearing. I paid £30 for the boxed set (texts included on CD-ROM) from an independent record store, but they are available cheaper online. Which rather captures the current lunacy of the classical music industry. The last of the ten Tallis CDs was recorded by Signum in 2004, and they were selling individually last year for £15.

Cue columns of plainsong soaring upwards.
Listen on Future Radio at 5.00pm every Sunday and 12.50am every Monday UK time in real time here (convert to local time zones here). Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

If you like Spem in alium try this …

Read next week's Proms picks by Pliable here.

Tuesday's late night BBC Prom by the Tallis Scholars includes a little known work by Alessandro Striggio. A search on Amazon.com for Thomas Tallis’ mighty forty part motet Spem in alium returns 43 results. But a search for Striggio’s motet for the same forces, Ecce beatam lucem, returns just 2 results. The popularity of Tallis’ masterpiece is perfectly understandable, but the neglect of its progenitor is something of a mystery.

Alessandro Striggio worked in Florence and Mantua in the 1550s, and developed a luxurious and opulent style of choral writing that culminated in a Sanctus for sixty voices that has sadly been lost over the intervening centuries. The motet Ecce beatam lucem was composed in 1561 as a celebration of Catholicism. It was written to mark the visit of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este to France where he was preaching against Protestantism, and uses forty voices organised in varying groupings through the course of the work.

In 1567 Striggio travelled to London where Ecco beatam lucem was received rapturously. It is thought that a request by Thomas Howard fourth Duke of Norfolk prompted Thomas Tallis to start composing Spem in alium in 1567 as a response to the popularity of Striggio’s motet. There are some striking similarities. They both use the same forces, share the key of G, and exploit the spine-chilling impact of forty-voice polyphony. Tallis however raised the game, Spem is more overtly sacred, and the technical writing and development is more accomplished.

But as they say on Amazon.com if you like Spem in alium you will also like Ecce beatam lucem. I have the first Huelgas Ensemble version directed by Paul van Nevel (photo below). This 1994 CD was recorded was made in the St Barbara Church, Gent, Belgium with the choir standing in their signature circle (photo above). The couplings are also well worth hearing, including some more little known Renaissance polyphony from Costanzo Porta, Josquin Desprez, Johannes Ockeghem, Pierre de Manchicourt and Giovanni Gabrielli, as well as Spem in Alium itself. The same forces have recently re-recorded Ecce beatem lucem for Harmonia Mundi in SACD surround sound. Despite these two fine versions by the Huelgas Ensemble there is still a real gap in the market for choral groups with forty top flight voices to fill, and some additional recordings of Ecce beatam lucem would make a real change instead of the 44th version of Spem.

* Now hear the similarities for yourself with this brief sample from the first Huelges Ensemble recording of Ecce beatam lucem, or listen online to both works complete for seven days after the concert.

If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to Masses of early music on iPods
Image credits, Huelgas Ensemble Berliner Festpiele,
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XL - On An Overgrown Path

XL is the new choral work by English composer Antony Pitts. It uses the same forces as Tallis' sublime 40 part motet Spem in Alium, and was composed as a companion piece. XL is on a new Harmonia Mundi CD sung by the Rundfunkchor Berlin directed by Simon Halsey. It also includes the Tallis motet, Knut Nystedt's Immortal Bach, and Zoltán Kodaly's substantial Laudes organi.

Other posts linking to the work of Antony Pitts, and well worth reading are Jerry Springer rebel grabs Gramophone accolade and
Raindrops are falling on my chant.

Raindrops are falling on my chant

In my rave review of Antony Pitts directing Tonus Peregrinus' on Naxos in medieval choral music from the Notre Dame School I commented that I thought you could faintly hear rain falling as Rebecca Hickey gave a ravishing account of Perotin’s Beata viscera.

I made contact with Antony after posting and asked him if I was correct. He is one of the switched-on musicians who understands the importance of music weblogs, and he came straight back with this helpful answer.

Pliable (in haste) - indeed it is. Beata viscera was recorded on our last morning in Chancelade Abbey, before a mad dash to the airport, so we couldn't wait for the rain to stop...
Antony

So now there are three excellent reasons to buy this Naxos CD. First, because you get seventy minutes of the most gorgeous singing you will hear for a very long time. Secondly, because if you are an audiophile you can test the resolution of your gear, and impress your buddies, with the Perotin raindrops test. And thirdly, because you can't hear the rain on low-res MP3 it gives you a great reason to keep supporting musicians by buying good old fashioned CD's. I must emphasise that the noise doesn't detract at all from the music. Listening intently on both my B&W Nautilus 803s and top end Sennheiser HD580 headphones I can just hear rainwater gurgling in downpipes. It is just a lovely touch which adds a unique sonic signature to a beautiful recording.

Antony also supplied useful information about his new work XL. It is a companion piece to Tallis' Spem in alium and has just been released on Harmonia Mundi. The scoring is for eight choirs, SATBarB, BBarTAS,BBarTAS, SATBarB, BBarTAS, SATBarB, SATBarB and BBarTAS, and the Faber published score gives three alternative layouts for the choir. It could be an interesting new option for programme planners who are scheduling the Tallis 40 part motet. .

If you enjoyed this post take an overgrown path to Classical misunderstandings - Hildegard

Master Tallis' Testament

Authentic performance is conventionally defined as played on original instruments and in an original style (without vibrato etc), but performances in 'authentic' surroundings can add an equally valid frisson.

Norwich Priory became a Benedictine Monastic Priory five years after its foundation in 1096, and the Norman groundplan is the most authentic of any English cathedral. Among many glories the cloisters, which unusually for a dissolved house remain intact, are outstanding. They were burnt down in 1272, and subsequently rebuilt with an unusual covered upper story for the monks to use for work and contemplation in winter. (It is a common mistake to think cloisters were simply used by monks walking in silent, contemplative circles. Together with the Chapter House and church they were a central point for the monks, used for working, reading and writing. When I arrived to stay in the Benedictine L'Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux I didn't know the etiquette of monastic life, and had to ask what could be done, and what was forbidden in the cloisters. I was surprised to find that the cloister was a working, as well as contemplative area).


The Cloisters, Norwich Cathedral Priory

Norwich Cathedral Priory is almost within a stone's throw of a Dominican Friary which is acknowledged as the finest remains of any medieval friary church in England. The Dominican Friary was retained after the suppression as St. Andrew's Hall, a venue for public events, and is now the principal concert venue in Norwich. Alas, and quite inexplicably for a large ecclesiastical building, the acoustics of the architecturally magnificent St. Andrew's Hall are abysmal. The Cathedral Priory, which is now the Episcopal Cathedral, is also a concert venue with along and chequered history including the first performance of Elgar's Sea Pictures conducted by the composer in 1899. Thankfully, it is in the flattering acoustic and magnificent setting of the Cathedral that the Keswick Hall Choir have chosen to present an innovative programme entitled Mater Tallis' Testament (taking its name from Herbert Howells' organ work of the same name which was included in the concert).

Master Thomas Tallis was represented by his Lamentations of Jeremiah and two motets, Suscipe quaeso and Loquebantur varris linguis. (The latter using a Saron plainchant as a Cantus Firmus , with a wonderful unadorned presentation of the chant at the end). Framing Tallis's masterpieces were works by Britten, Howells, Vaughan Williams (his Mass in G Minor, itse;f a homage to Tudor polyphony), Walton's The Twelve (which is closer to Belshazzar's Feast than polyphony), and a very effective contemporary cantata Haes Dies by Peter Ashton who was in the audience.

Tallis, Vaughan Williams, Britten et al soared to the wonderfully embellished Norman roof. The Keswick Hall Choir conducted by John Aplin were in their usual impeccable form (although at forty-four strong, some would argue, a little full bodied for the Tallis), and in the 20th century works the contribution from the from David Dunnett at the console of the modern organ (which is the second largest cathedral organ in Britain) perched on the pulpitum screen was magnificent.


Keswick Hall Choir in rehearsal in Norwich Cathedral

And the silent contribution of the Benedictine Priory was wonderful. We walked in the darkened cloisters during the interval as snow flurries swirled outside, and I was reminded of my stay at the Benedictine L'Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux , and the monks in their black habits walking into the darkened abbey church at three o'clock in the morning for matins. As Peter Levi wrote in the Frontiers of Paradise - "English monastic ruins are almost more impressive than a living monastery; they are doubly dramatic. They pose formidable questions about God and the soul, to which the light and shadows of their ruined architecture offer the merest hint of answers."


Programme for Master Tallis' Testament, Norwich Cathedral Priory, 26th February 2005

Benjamin Britten (1913-76) - A Hymn to the Virgin

Thomas Tallis (c.1505-85) - The Lamentations of Jeremiah

Benjamin Britten - Voluntary on Tallis' Lamentation

Peter Aston (b.1938) - Haes Dies

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) - Mass in G Minor

Herbert Howells (1892-1993) - Master Tallis' Testament

Thomas Tallis - Suscipe quaeso and Loquebantur variis linguis

William Walton (1902-83) - The Twelve