English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble: EMS 18 November

[doversoul1]

Echoes of Venice

Lucie Skeaping presents a concert given at the University of Southampton's Turner Sims Concert Hall. The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble perform Venetian music for brass including the premiere of two new pieces by the winners of this year's National Centre for Early Music Young Composers' Award.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00016sk

[BBMmk2]

Sounds interesting!

[Richard Tarleton]

Echoes of Venice

Lucie Skeaping presents a concert given at the University of Southampton's Turner Sims Concert Hall. The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble perform Venetian music for brass including the premiere of two new pieces by the winners of this year's National Centre for Early Music Young Composers' Award.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00016sk

I struggle with the concept here - is it modern music played on early instruments, or "in the style of" music - what exactly is it? Perhaps we'll find out.

[Richard Tarleton]

Echoes of Venice

Lucie Skeaping presents a concert given at the University of Southampton's Turner Sims Concert Hall. The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble perform Venetian music for brass including the premiere of two new pieces by the winners of this year's National Centre for Early Music Young Composers' Award.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00016sk

I struggle with the concept here - is this for modern music played on early instruments, or "in the style of" music - what exactly is it? Perhaps we'll find out. It sounds like a bit of an oxymoron.

[doversoul1]

I struggle with the concept here - is it modern music played on early instruments, or "in the style of" music - what exactly is it? Perhaps we'll find out.

I think the two new pieces are something to do with this.

The award was judged at the National Centre for Early Music in York on Thursday 10 May, when the shortlist of entries was performed by the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble.

http://www.ncem.co.uk/composersaward2018

The competition usually has one performer / ensemble for whom/which the applicants are asked to compose.

[oddoneout]

I think the two new pieces are something to do with this.

The award was judged at the National Centre for Early Music in York on Thursday 10 May, when the shortlist of entries was performed by the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble.

http://www.ncem.co.uk/composersaward2018

The competition usually has one performer / ensemble for whom/which the applicants are asked to compose.

So the young composer has to get to grips with the characteristics and capabilities of the instrument(s) in question as well as coming up with a piece. Next year it is viola da gamba, either solo or with electronics(I think that's what was said). One of the winners this year has apparently already been successful previously - and is still in the junior category.

[Richard Barrett]

So the young composer has to get to grips with the characteristics and capabilities of the instrument(s) in question as well as coming up with a piece.

Just like writing for any other instrument(s)!

[oddoneout]

Just like writing for any other instrument(s)!

Indeed, but as a previous successful competitor remarked, they are not necessarily so often encountered nor familiar, especially for the younger entrants.

[ardcarp]

Just like writing for any other instrument(s)!

Not quite sure about that. Even for modern instruments it is possible to arrange things to lie easily and idiomatically. The same applies to cornetti. viols and no doubt others. And if a keyboard tuned to one of the historic temperaments is involved, best surely to avoid the remoter keys?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Not quite sure about that. Even for modern instruments it is possible to arrange things to lie easily and idiomatically. The same applies to cornetti. viols and no doubt others.

But isn't that precisely get[ting] get to grips with the characteristics and capabilities of the instrument(s) in question? A composer (no matter what their age) writing for any instrument for the first time - whether Sackbuts or Flutes - has to do this.

[Richard Tarleton]

Is it just pluckers who still use (insist on ) tablature, which adds another level of complication...?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I struggle with the concept here - is this for modern music played on early instruments, or "in the style of" music - what exactly is it? Perhaps we'll find out. It sounds like a bit of an oxymoron.

I felt much the same, but it was interesting nevertheless. Odd that it was in the Early Music Show though.

Leading on from that, where does it leave modern instruments that have changed very little over the centuries?

[Quarky]

Leading on from that, where does it leave modern instruments that have changed very little over the centuries?

The competition next year is for Viol , or for Viol + electronics!

[doversoul1]

I felt much the same, but it was interesting nevertheless. Odd that it was in the Early Music Show though.

The competition is organised by the National Centre for Early Music and the Early Music Show has been broadcasting the winning compositions for many years now. It’s good to see that it has finally caught the attention of a wider audience

http://www.ncem.co.uk/composersaward2018

[Richard Barrett]

I struggle with the concept here - is this for modern music played on early instruments, or "in the style of" music - what exactly is it? Perhaps we'll find out. It sounds like a bit of an oxymoron.

"Early" instruments and "modern" instruments are, in the end, all "old" instruments, so in principle all could be thought of as equally available to contemporary composers, just as many percussion instruments used in the "modern" orchestra have been imported into Western music from other cultures where, as in the past, "they do things differently". So a consort of viols is not really so very different from a piano trio. I don't imagine that a competition like this would put any stylistic constraints on entrants, although from their titles I imagine that many of them did allow themselves to be conditioned by the music generally played by the instruments in question. In a situation like this, though, the players are often more of a problem than the instruments, since early music specialists won't often have had to play highly chromatic music, let alone things like microtones, and probably won't have seen very many quintuplets, let alone more complex rhythmic subdivisions. On the other hand there are plenty of players of "early" instruments, particularly recorders, who have begun to specialise in contemporary music. I've written plenty of recorder parts in ensembles otherwise consisting of "modern" instruments, and also for triple harp (tuned microtonally), slide trumpet, harpsichord etc. There are one or two examples of contemporary music involving the lute, going back to Mauricio Kagel's Musik für Renaissance-Instrumente in 1966, but I haven't seen such a part using tablature.