Lucie Skeaping's guest is Peter Phillips, director of the Renaissance choral group the Tallis Scholars, which maintains its world wide popularity 40 years after it was founded. Over the years, many of their 60 or so CD recordings have reached iconic status and Peter will be choosing some of the highlights as he talks about the group's history, the important part it played in the early music revival during the 70s and 80s, and how they are now broadening their horizons by commissioning and performing works by contemporary composers. This programme will also launch the 2014 National Centre for Early Music's Composers' Competition in partnership with The Tallis Scholars and BBC Radio 3.
-
-
What is their definition of 'early music'? -
If you are referring to the completion, my understanding is that it is a piece of work that is suitable to be performed by the early music ensemble who is collaborating with the Centre that year. I think National Centre for Early Music's Composers' Competition may be clearer without the apostrophes: National Centre for Early Music Composer Competition
If you are talking about something completely different, please ignore this.Comment
-
The vital missing word is "young" - the NCEM Young Composers' Award - I doubt many early music composers will be entering - most are well into their well-earned retirement by now, I should think !
Comment
-
How DARE Peter Phillips say the Renaissance Singers used to sing with 'big, operatic' voices!Comment
-
All and all above issues including I enjoyed the music. However, I miss Catherine. It could be that because I have come to know her through the EMS and her stints at the York Early Music Festival I like her best. Alas, she is gone.Comment
-
When I was a student umpteen years ago "early music" (about 6 am?) was very trendy. I was bowled over by Musica Reservata in the Chapter House at Durham Cathedral with their shawms, rebecs, nakers etc and I can remember an excellent concert in Trevelyan College with The Early Music Consort (the lamented David Munrow with Hogwood and James Bowman et al)Comment
-
The great popularity of "Early Music" in the early 1970s, when Musica Reservata under Michael Morrow or John Becket and slightly later David Munrow and the Early Music Consort could easily fill the QEH, was a phenomenon largely confined to secular music; the instruments were the great attraction, and vocal items were usually solo songs.
However, there were already small groups attempting to perform early sacred music in an appropriate style, though to rather smaller audiences. It annoys me when Peter Phillips (and he's not the only one) claims that he was the first to do this.
That's not to detract from what he has achieved - and I did enjoy the programme.Comment
-
Totally agree, jean.Comment
-
Ditto. I think I went to almost every concert by both groups in London in the late 60s and was invariably entranced. That was when the early music revival really hit the scene big time - and it wasn't all entirely secular either. This was also when the Clerkes of Oxenford began - and that choir was the inspiration for both the Tallis Scholars and The Sixteen, both of which began by emulating the Clerkes.Originally posted by gurnemanz View PostComment
-
So, VH, it was a tad OTT for Mr Phillips to claim that the Tallis Scholars started it all?
For me, the Clerkes of Oxenford were a true revelation as was Munrow, and changed the entire direction of my singing / playing life.Comment
-
Well, I (ahem...) haven't listened to the programme, so I don't know whether Mr Phillips made the claim himself or whether it was made on his behalf, but no, he certainly didn't start it all - and, indeed, elsewhere he has acknowledged his debt to Wulstan and the Clerkes. The Clerkes were indeed wonderful and to my mind their interpretations of the Tudor repertoire are still unmatched. Their Gibbons recordings are a pure delight. Wulstan's pitch theory has now been superseded by a far more believable alternative, but it seemed to have a lot going for it at the time.Comment
-
Peter Phillips did acknowledge the importance of the Clerkes, and I should not have given the impression that he he didn't. In fact, there is at least one singer from the Clerkes who subsequently sang with both the Sixteen and the Tallis Scholars, and still does sing with the Sixteen.
What I was objecting to, though, was his claim that everyone else was singing with 'big, operatic' voices, and especially his placing the Renaissance Singers in this category. I sang with them from the late 60s onwards, and we did not make that sort of sound. The sound of other group he mentioned by name, Pro Cantione Antiqua, varied according to who was on the top line, and according to who was conducting them; they didn't have only one regular conductor But they probably made more use of professionals, and in those days I agree that could be a problem - but it wasn't always. And there were a number of other small groups too, mainly amateur, often composed of students, all of whom aimed to sing this repertoire with a straight, clear top line.
Apart from the quality of their singing, the Clerkes were remarkable for the 'stratospherically' (I quote from m any reviews of the time) high pitch at which they sang everything. Neither PP nor anyone else has persisted in that. They also had more voices per part than became the norm later. One of PP's most interesting innovations, in fact, was to show that if you choose your voices very carefully, you can get a good blend with two voices on a line; received wisdom before that time held that you could do this one voice or three (or more) to a part, but never with two.Comment
-
I think I know what you mean, but I also think the answer is "yes and no". Michael Howard did have a very distinctive style which I heard described, rightly or wrongly, as Italianate. I would call it dramatic rather than operatic. At any rate it was far from "smooth English Cathedral".Originally posted by jean View Post
The Clerkes were an amateur choir; The Tallis Scholars and The Sixteen are professionals. I may be wrong, but I suspect that the smaller number of singers in the latter two has more to do with economics than idealism. That said, there were Tudor choirs with as few singers.Originally posted by jean View PostComment
-
What an interesting discussion for us (erhem) youngsters. Thanks for these informative posts. This is what for3/forums does best IMV.
(take your pick)
OGComment
Comment