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This evening's
concert takes account the present season of the church's year,
includes also music celebrating the 500th anniversary of the composer
Thomas Tallis, with also a selection of lighter music from both the
Tudor and Victorian periods and also music presently being prepared
for the choir's forthcoming CD release of 20th century American,
Canadian and English Choral Music.
The first
selection of music reflects the importance of the composer Thomas
Tallis and his contemporary and partner in music printing - William Byrd.
It is now
generally agreed that these two are the greatest of the Tudor Church
composers - a fact evidenced by the fact their music is still in
regular use some 400 years later.
There is also a
piece in this section written over a 100 years later by the Venetian
composer Lotti, and whilst undoubtedly beautiful- shows little
advance on the music of the two English composers.
The madrigals
selected are chosen to show the immense range of moods that were
covered by such pieces, from the light and airy "Mother I will
have a husband" - ( anyone will do, good or bad, according to
the text) written by Thomas Vautor, a domestic musician in the
household of Sir George Villiers which shows a very modern looking
style, to the tortuous and desperate style used by George Kirbye in
his "See what a maze of error". Kirbye was fond of the more
melancholic madrigal, as can be seen in the choice of texts for some
of his other madrigals - 'Why wail we thus', 'Mourn now my soul' and
aptly for these days of roadside cameras - 'Alas what hope of speeding'!
The other madrigal
in this section is the unpretentious and charming one by the composer
who single handedly started the madrigal craze - Thomas Morley.
The part song is
in a way a natural successor to the madrigal, though by and large its
composers do not show the same depth of invention and word painting
as their predecessors, and it has to be said that a great many of
these songs were just "pretty" tunes on which could be hung
almost any set of words.
Amongst the
composers attracted to the idiom were some very famous names, we have
included a virtually unknown piece by Sir Arthur Sullivan -whose
'Long day closes' ranks as a masterpiece of the genre, one by Hamish
MacCunn, famous for the wonderful tone poem 'The land of mountain,
sea and flood', and a piece by Macfarren - now almost unknown as a
composer, but at the middle of the last century an enormously
successful composer who was knighted.
Although the part
song attracts few composers these days, we have included one by our
Director setting the famous Lowry text in the style of a part song
originally composed for an American University Choir.
The Choir will be
releasing a CD later this year of 20th century choral music from both
here and across the Atlantic. To whet your appetite for this music,
we have included a Sanctus by Craig Courtney (a near American
equivalent to John Rutter), a song from the wonderful Robert Frost
poem settings by Randall Thompson, and 3 short movements from what I
consider to be one of the finest choral works to have emerged from
"across the pond" in recent years - the Requiem by the
Canadian composer, Eleanor Daley.
To close, and it
being the 70th anniversary of his death, we move to the music of
Gustav Holst,- always slightly ahead of public taste and writing
music that his lifelong friend Vaughan Williams admired but did not understand!
Holst set two
psalms to English hymn tunes for string orchestra, organ and choir
and this is the second, (Psalm 84 being the other). Using the tune we
would now sing to the hymn 'All creatures of our God and King', Holst
creates a compelling piece simply by the use of speed alterations to
the tune.
TJK 2005 |