The Clerkes of Oxenford and Tonus Peregrinus (the founders of)

[doversoul1]

Saturday
On today's Early Music Show Catherine Bott talks to David Wulstan, a pioneering figure in the understanding and interpretation of early music in general, and of music of the Tudor period in particular.
In the 1960s and 1970s David Wulstan created The Clerkes of Oxenford. With this group of singers he worked tirelessly to produce revelatory recordings of the music of Tallis, Sheppard, Gibbons, Tye, White, and others, which revolutionized the way it was interpreted, and the way we now hear it today.
[…]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01scxdg

Sunday
The vocal group Tonus Peregrinus was founded 23 years ago by the composer Antony Pitts and has since managed to fill a niche market in the recording industry with recordings of contemporary, newly composed music and early music going back to the Medieval era. Catherine Bott chooses some tracks from the group's back catalogue of recordings and talks to director, founder and composer Antony Pitts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01scxkz

[DracoM]

Many thanks - looks treasure indeed. The Clerkes were the first such group that truly electrified me. I had never heard that kind of sound and the clarity and purity of tone and elegance of execution were exemplary.

[Simon]

Well, this was always going to be good, wasn't it?

Great to hear from one of the true greats in terms of scholarship, and a thoroughly decent fellow too, and to hear the genuine compliments paid to him.

I enjoyed, especially, the Gibbons. He seems to have been eclipsed somewhat, but I've always through him the equal of any British composer of his era, and within the sphere of earlier music (perhaps only excepting HP G- and Dan's) his services were our favourites as trebles, esp. the 2nd and the short.

David Wulstan's Psalm was interesting, though I missed a bit of the commentary and didn't catch anything about the reasoning behind it, if there was anything mentioned. I thought the execution wasn't convincing; it perhaps would have been better from a different choir.

Again, R3 doing what it does best. Thanks to all involved.

CB you are a gem!

[Old Grumpy]

Agreed.

I thought it interesting that he had to wonder who might be able to sing those high parts - but I guess that's what it was like in those days. I did like the comment about having to uneducate those who had had singing lessons.

[Nick Armstrong]

Haven't heard it all yet, largely because I kept rewinding to hear the music again - wonderful stuff, and what a character David Wulstan is

Not for the first time, when I hear music by Sheppard, I'm struck anew by what a stunning genius the man was.

Beautiful programme.

Many thanks to Catherine B when she reads this

[Vox Humana]

Rats, I missed it! Thank goodness for "listen again". Something to look forward to tomorrow.

I well remember a couple of series of broadcasts the Clerkes did around 1970/1-ish that contained some works they never committed to LP, notably a dazzling performance of the Cornysh Magnificat that remains my ideal for this piece and a really quite exciting performance of Sheppard's Latin Magnificat for (as Wulstan saw it) AATB. Their broadcast performance of Tallis's seven-part mass was also slightly faster paced than the one on their subsequent LP and all the better for it. I would dearly love to hear some of those wonderful programmes again, but I imagine the tapes have been long wiped. Ah, happy days!

[DracoM]

Fascinating difference between the sound of Tonus Pellegrinus and the Clerkes.

With the Clerkes I always felt excited that the singers were literally on the edge of what was customary, expected, achievable, in music that had scarcely even seen the light of day, let alone been performed, in hundreds of years. They were at the cutting edge, and you could hear it in their singing which had thrill, daring and magnificent musicality. With TP, you feel it is magnificently sung, but it's just a teeny tad more comfortable, known, within the compass of the very fine professionals that now inhabit the early music scene.

Interestingly, the Eton Choir Book recordings of CCC/Darligton do more for me to rekindle that sense of adventure and thrill. For a modern boy-led choir, the Eton repertoire is hugely challenging, particularly at the pitch David Wulstan and [so it seems to my ututored ear] the Christ Church choir are singing the music.

It was what Sally Dunkley and Joanna X on the TP prog said about the high they got from singing high and pp. They are, like the CCC boys, into rarefied regions few can manage to sustain, let alone excel in, and that is a cause of grateful wonder for them and for their listeners.

BTW, many thanks for Catherine Bott's intelligent, expert and discreet prompting to get responses.

[Miles Coverdale]

Interestingly, the Eton Choir Book recordings of CCC/Darligton do more for me to rekindle that sense of adventure and thrill. For a modern boy-led choir, the Eton repertoire is hugely challenging, particularly at the pitch David Wulstan and [so it seems to my untutored ear] the Christ Church choir are singing the music.

The Christ Church Eton recordings are not really comparable with the Clerkes in terms of pitch. With a few exceptions, the Christ Church recordings are at source pitch, with the treble part peaking on high F or G. The Clerkes would routinely transpose the music up by a minor third so the top part frequently reached high B flat. In some pieces (eg Sheppard's Libera nos, which is notated using low clefs in the source), they would transpose it up by a minor sixth so that the treble part reached high B flat.

While the high pitch sound can be initially exciting, I find that listener fatigue sets in rapidly, and very much prefer the greater gravitas afforded by sing the music at source pitch. I know someone who used to sing high soprano with the Clerkes in one of their later incarnations, and she said that they had to modify the vowels so much to sustain those high parts without wearing their voices out that everything verged towards an 'ah'.

[Nick Armstrong]

Listened to the rest of the David Wulstan programme today. An absolute gem of a show.

I've been wondering for a while why on earth Sheppard doesn't have the 'profile' of Tallis or Byrd - Sally Dunkley gave a most interesting and convincing explanation - the Wall Street Crash! Listen to the programme to find out why!

[Nick Armstrong]

The Tonus Peregrinus programme was good too...

... and what an UNBELIEVABLE piece the Hugh Kellyk Magnificat is

http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item...._code=8.572840