Lamentations - R3 - Weds 16th at 7.30

[ardcarp]

Peter Phillips is having a go with the BBC Singers Tallis Lamentaions I and II beginning and ending the programme. One of my rellies is a professional singer who is in several of the well-known London set. He says Phillips doesn't do much in rehearsals...just invites the right singers to make the Tallis Scholars what they are. He sounds a bit down on PP to me! However we shall see. I know the Tallis and the Robert White really well but not the other stuff. Music a bit 'out of season' maybe? Interesting interval item. Mark Bebbington is one of the few piano recitalists who doesn't play from memory. Maybe he can be excused here....and I can't imagine the VW without strings.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014grp

Peter Phillips, the founder and director of The Tallis Scholars, returns to collaborate with the BBC Singers in a programme of settings of the biblical Lamentations of Jeremiah. Traditionally sung during the solemnity of Holy Week within the Catholic Church, these old testament texts have been the subject to many music settings over many centuries. Alongside iconic settings by the likes of Tallis, Brumel and Whyte are works from the 21st century by Matthew Martin and Nico Muhly.

Recorded at BBC Maida Vale Studios on 13th January 2022.

Thomas Tallis: Lamentations I
Dominique Phinot: Lamentations
Nico Muhly: Recordare, domine
Antoine Brumel: Lamentations

8.10 p.m.
Interval music (from CD)
Vaughan Williams arr. Maurice Jacobson: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Mark Bebbington and Rebeca Omodia (pianos)

8.25 p.m.
Robert Whyte: Lamentations for five voices
Matthew Martin: Lamentations
Thomas Tallis: Lamentations II

Not all early music...maybe this should be under The Choir section....but I didn't want to take today's CE broadcast off the page.

[oddoneout]

So glad you highlighted this ardcarp, I was so behind with everything I would have missed it otherwise, which would have been a shame. Satisfying "church" acoustic, an unBBCS top line, music that was good individually but also made a good sequence. I was very taken with the Mathew Martin
Interval piece didn't work for me, not so much because of the difference between sustaining strings and percussive piano (although that's quite a drawback as far as I'm concerned) as the lack of the extra layers of harmony that seem to arise from the chords played on strings, especially towards the end - the notes in between the notes almost. Without them some of it sounded not just rather thin but also not quite right, almost as if they were the wrong notes.

[DracoM]

an unBBCS top line - YES indeed, and delightfully notable and welcome.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Peter Phillips is having a go with the BBC Singers Tallis Lamentaions I and II beginning and ending the programme. One of my rellies is a professional singer who is in several of the well-known London set. He says Phillips doesn't do much in rehearsals...just invites the right singers to make the Tallis Scholars what they are. He sounds a bit down on PP to me! However we shall see. I know the Tallis and the Robert White really well but not the other stuff. Music a bit 'out of season' maybe? Interesting interval item. Mark Bebbington is one of the few piano recitalists who doesn't play from memory. Maybe he can be excused here....and I can't imagine the VW without strings.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014grp

Peter Phillips, the founder and director of The Tallis Scholars, returns to collaborate with the BBC Singers in a programme of settings of the biblical Lamentations of Jeremiah. Traditionally sung during the solemnity of Holy Week within the Catholic Church, these old testament texts have been the subject to many music settings over many centuries. Alongside iconic settings by the likes of Tallis, Brumel and Whyte are works from the 21st century by Matthew Martin and Nico Muhly.

Recorded at BBC Maida Vale Studios on 13th January 2022.

Thomas Tallis: Lamentations I
Dominique Phinot: Lamentations
Nico Muhly: Recordare, domine
Antoine Brumel: Lamentations

8.10 p.m.
Interval music (from CD)
Vaughan Williams arr. Maurice Jacobson: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Mark Bebbington and Rebeca Omodia (pianos)

8.25 p.m.
Robert Whyte: Lamentations for five voices
Matthew Martin: Lamentations
Thomas Tallis: Lamentations II

Not all early music...maybe this should be under The Choir section....but I didn't want to take today's CE broadcast off the page.

I thought this was excellent with , as others have said, vibrato well moderated .It was also well put together with some very informative comments.
Last two times I saw Mark he played without music. One was a recital where he dropped the scheduled Gaspard because he’d injured his little finger (I think in playing a game with one of his children) and one of the movements puts a lot of pressure on that finger. He did however play the Liszt Rigoletto Variations (superbly) .I also heard him in a John Ireland Concerto at the Cadogan which I think he did without score. Lovely work , that.
I wasn’t expecting to like the two piano Tallis - but it worked even without the glorious string writing - quite a good test of the works inherent musical quality.

[ardcarp]

Last two times I saw Mark he played without music.

Apologies to Mr Bebbington. Maybe I should have said in my OP, 'who doesn't always play from memory.' (He had the dots in front of him when I've attended his recitals at our local music club.)

I'm glad the BBCS with Peter Phillips went down well with Forumistas, as it did with me.

[DracoM]

[Ein Heldenleben]

Apologies to Mr Bebbington. Maybe I should have said in my OP, 'who doesn't always play from memory.' (He had the dots in front of him when I've attended his recitals at our local music club.)

I'm glad the BBCS with Peter Phillips went down well with Forumistas, as it did with me.

It’s an interesting point - presumably it was out of the norm repertoire. Under rated pianist Mark - not flashy but musical..