Richard III and

**BBMmk2** · 19-06-13, 15:33

Ah, this sounds good. I wonder if the powers that be have ben reading threrads on this messageboard(or others, come to that), regarding the music of this time, albeit, on this board, the funeral music.

**ardcarp** · 19-06-13, 18:03

I seem to remember that CB said, a while ago, that she would drop a hint to the management when RIII's postulated funeral music was being discussed. So who knows...maybe The Forum was the seed of the idea.

**Catherine Bott** · 19-06-13, 18:27

Hello - yes, I did drop a very large hint, and was told that a Richard III programme was already in hand - so nothing to do with me at all! But rest assured that when I say I'll mention something, I always do....I'm recording a programme about Matthias Weckmann next week for broadcast in August, which I suggested after hearing a new recording of his music on CD Review.

Best wishes and happy listening.

**BBMmk2** · 19-06-13, 19:53

Thanks for that, CB! i will be catching up on iplayer(again!).

**ardcarp** · 22-06-13, 13:09

A lovely programme presented by Lucie today, ably assisted by perfrormoing musician and scholar David Skinner. What RIII may have heard and known is entirely conjectural, be we surely had a good flavour of the times today. I did not know that Davy (of Eton Choirbook fame) was buried in Fotheringhay church.

**DracoM** · 22-06-13, 14:12

My only slightest wry smile was Mr Skinner's enthusiastic discussion about the evolution of late 15th cent church music - eg boy trebles singing very high lines, alto, tenor baritone and bass [ mod. nomenclature], very English he called it. Did we get an example of that in this prog? No. Ahem. Given that the exemplary CCC/Darlington CDs are widely available all with exactly the ingredients/formula Mr Skinner brightly outlined, I was mildly puzzled. Otherwise, fascinating programme.

**BBMmk2** · 22-06-13, 14:24

Originally posted by DracoM View Post

My only slightest wry smile was Mr Skinner's enthusiastic discussion about the evolution of late 15th cent church music - eg boy trebles singing very high lines, alto, tenor baritone and bass [ mod. nomenclature], very English he called it. Did we get an example of that in this prog? No. Ahem. Given that the exemplary CCC/Darlington CDs are widely available all with exactly the ingredients/formula Mr Skinner brightly outlined, I was mildly puzzled. Otherwise, fascinating programme.

CCC? In my ignorance?

**vinteuil** · 22-06-13, 14:50

Originally posted by Brassbandmaestro View Post

CCC? In my ignorance?

... I suspect he means Christ Church Cathedral Choir (CCCC)

Cathedral Choir | Christ Church, Oxford University

https://www.chchchoir.org

rather than Corpus Christi College (CCC)

Home | Corpus Christi College Oxford

https://www.ccc.ox.ac.uk

(But it has to be admitted that there are quite a few choices :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCC‎ )

.

I think we should avoid abbreviations. I know many people on these Boards use them often...

**DracoM** · 22-06-13, 16:40

Sorry - I thought the 'Darlington' addition would have targeted it. I stand corrected.

**BBMmk2** · 22-06-13, 17:36

Thank you guys!!

I am not overtly all that familar with the music of this period, so be quite interesting.

**ardcarp** · 22-06-13, 21:38

Did we get an example of that in this prog? No.

The piece he played after making that remark did not, as you say, illustrate his point. Strange. But Davy's Domine caeli terraeque which came a little later was pretty much of that ilk, if not the highest nor most soaring.

I like the expressions 'the English countenance' and 'the sweet sound' used to describe English music of the time. DS did not mention that Dunstable's music was widely known on the continent. It is probably controversial to say that he was better-known abroad than any other English composer of any era! Comments, anyone?

**ferneyhoughgeliebte** · 22-06-13, 22:04

Originally posted by ardcarp View Post

It is probably controversial to say that he was better-known abroad than any other English composer of any era! Comments, anyone?

Not that controversial, ardy; the only Musicians from England to have made such an impact, changing the way people in the rest of the world think about Music are The Beatles and Brian Ferneyhough. Which is not to say that we haven't produced any other Great Composers, (I wouldn't know how to begin to argue against the idea that there is no finer composer than Byrd, or Dowland, or Birtwistle) but that their influence on the subsequent course of Music History is not as seismic as was, say, Shakespeare's on Literature, or Turner's on Painting.

Of all the "underrated/neglected" British composers, I think Dunstable is still the most overlooked by the general "Classical Music"-loving public; his astonishing achievement still isn't seen (let alone "heard") for what it is - the Musical equivalent of the works of Shakespeare and Turner (and Newton and and Darwin and whoever you care to mention).

**Miles Coverdale** · 23-06-13, 13:36

I think it would be true to say that Dunstable was better known abroad than any other named English composer at that time (bearing in mind that a lot of the music of that time has survived anonymously), although I don't think that obtained for a particularly long time. If, for example, you could ask an Italian musician in the middle of the seventeenth century who the most famous English composer was, I'd be pretty surprised if they were to say Dunstable. Certainly the influence of English composers of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries on their Continental contemporaries was far greater than the other way round. Indeed, a significant proportion of English music of that time survives only in Continental manuscripts. Continental music influenced English music relatively little until the influence of Josquin on Taverner was heard in the 1530s/1540s.

As for putting Brian Ferneyhough in same bracket as the Beatles in terms of their influence on music in general, I think that's stretching a point, to put it mildly.

**ferneyhoughgeliebte** · 23-06-13, 15:17

Originally posted by Miles Coverdale View Post

I think it would be true to say that Dunstable was better known abroad than any other named English composer at that time (bearing in mind that a lot of the music of that time has survived anonymously), although I don't think that obtained for a particularly long time. If, for example, you could ask an Italian musician in the middle of the seventeenth century who the most famous English composer was, I'd be pretty surprised if they were to say Dunstable. Certainly the influence of English composers of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries on their Continental contemporaries was far greater than the other way round. Indeed, a significant proportion of English music of that time survives only in Continental manuscripts. Continental music influenced English music relatively little until the influence of Josquin on Taverner was heard in the 1530s/1540s.

I agree entirely.

As for putting Brian Ferneyhough in same bracket as the Beatles in terms of their influence on music in general, I think that's stretching a point, to put it mildly.

Quite true; which is why I didn't. Ferneyhough is the only British composer in the Western "Classical" Tradition since Dunstable to have actually changed the way younger generations of composers also working within that Tradition think about how and what Music can be. He has also been more widely performed and appreciated by Musicians from the Continent and outside the UK (there are two studies of his Music in German, one in French and one in Italian - the first English-language study of his Music [written by the Frenchman, Fabrice Fitch] is to be published in December).

Many other British composers have been appreciated and admired by composers, performers and audiences outside the UK, but none between Dunstable and Ferneyhough have created such new ways of making Music that changed the course of the larger Tradition to which they both belong.