Gibbons, Byrd and Tye..live tonight at 7.30

[rauschwerk]

Oh, so it really IS to keep the BBCS in work, irrespective of how well or how indifferently they may fare in the programmes?
Hmm.

I think that might indeed be the case.

[DracoM]

Oh dear.
If that really is the principle to be observed, then I would suggest, having often read the postings on that thread, that if the BBC ever decided to plug the BBCS into regular weekly Choral Evensong on a Wednesday instead of cathedral foundations etcetc, the audience for CE would tumble alarmingly.
Horses / courses?

[jean]

A good part of the programme was of quite recently-ly composed music. Aren,t they supposed to perform that either?

[DracoM]

Au contraire!
Modern music other groups find either inimical to their core taste or overly-taxing is right in the meat of their expertise!

[jean]

So when the newer music makes specific reference to the earlier stuff, what are they to do?

(I was pleasantly surprised by the Byrd, as I,ve said earlier.)

[vinteuil]

So when the newer music makes specific reference to the earlier stuff, what are they to do?

... well, I s'pose they might work to acquire the Historically Informed Performance Practice styles which so many other groups seem to have been grappling with, more or less successfully, over recent decades?

[Gabriel Jackson]

... well, I s'pose they might work to acquire the Historically Informed Performance Practice styles which so many other groups seem to have been grappling with, more or less successfully, over recent decades?

Since no one has any idea what singers sounded like in the 16th century (and as Peter Philips has pointed out, if modern ears were able to hear such singers, they might well hate what they heard) how is the sound of the BBC Singers less "historically informed" than other groups?

[ardcarp]

Since no one has any idea what singers sounded like in the 16th century (and as Peter Philips has pointed out, if modern ears were able to hear such singers, they might well hate what they heard) how is the sound of the BBC Singers less "historically informed" than other groups?

I think that point applies to instruments too. OK we have examples of violins, bows, harpsichords, organs, flutes, etc, etc, from which researchers can infer more about HIPP than they can about singing.

However, I listened to a Hogwood performance (AAM) of a Haydn symphony (The Surprise) last night, and instrumental HIPP has, even for music of this late date, led to astonishing clarity. This is where vocal HIPP has led most groups....and is it unreasonable that they should work on the same principle?

Peter Phillips is quite right. We might indeed not like what we heard via a musical Tardis. I suspect (though can't possibly know) that matters of tuning and ensemble are much better now than they were.

[Gabriel Jackson]

I think that point applies to instruments too. OK we have examples of violins, bows, harpsichords, organs, flutes, etc, etc, from which researchers can infer more about HIPP than they can about singing.

Exactly! There is loads of information about instrumental playing, and there are instruments still around that can be played. So we can hear a 17th-century violin. We can't hear a 17th-century voice.

However, I listened to a Hogwood performance (AAM) of a Haydn symphony (The Surprise) last night, and instrumental HIPP has, even for music of this late date, led to astonishing clarity. This is where vocal HIPP has led most groups....and is it unreasonable that they should work on the same principle?

It may not be unreasonable but that doesn't make it right. The astonishing clarity you describe can only be perceived relative to another kind of intrumental sonority, colour, balance etc. Surely Haydn wouldn't have thought the sonority of the instruments at his disposal possesed astonishing clarity because he didn't have anything to compare it with that was less clear.

But HIPP (of which I am a big fan) is an entirely modern invention. And the soundworld of many specialist early music vocal groups is an entirely modern invention. Preferring the sound of one of these groups to that of the BBC Singers, say, is one thing but asserting, as many do, that any approach other than one that they happen to like is wrong is absurd, surely?

Peter Phillips is quite right. We might indeed not like what we heard via a musical Tardis. I suspect (though can't possibly know) that matters of tuning and ensemble are much better now than they were.

I think you're probably right about that. And on the subject of the Tallis Scholars, of course Peter Philips has never claimed any kind of "authenticty"for his group, merely that they produce a sound he likes to hear in the music they perform.

[Gabriel Jackson]

.
What seems counter-intuitive is to programme material for the BBCS in which there are readily available a dozen and more genre-specialist ensembles

The conductors of two such ensembles regularly work with the BBC Singers...

[BBMmk2]

Is it just me, I am not keen on their sound?

[Nick Armstrong]

Is it just me, I am not keen on their sound?

My post #4 above answers your question in the negative, I think Bbm!

[BBMmk2]

My post #4 above answers your question in the negative, I think Bbm!

Oops! sorry Cali!!

[DracoM]

<< The conductors of two such ensembles regularly work with the BBC Singers... >>

And your point is? It is the material programmed and the sound produced that is at issue, not the conductors. The BBCS sound much the same whoever is conducting them IMO.

[Nick Armstrong]

Oops! sorry Cali!!

Not at all. Pleased to answer any of your questions in similarly clairvoyant manner, if I can...