The Sixteen: Live on R3 Tonight 10 December

[doversoul1]

The Sixteen present a typically wide-ranging exploration of Christmas themes in music old and new
Traditional arr. Vaughan Williams: This is the truth sent from above

Josquin des Prez: Praeter rerum seriem
Traditional arr. Willcocks: Rocking
William Byrd: Lullaby, my sweet little baby
Herbert Howells: Sing Lullaby
Jean Mouton: Nesciens Mater
Thomas Ravenscroft: Remember, O thou man
Anonymous (1591): Coventry Carol
Arthur Oldham: Remember, O thou man
c 8.15: Interval music
Josquin des Prez: O Virgo prudentissima
Herbert Howells: A spotless rose
Anon (c1420): There is no rose
Kenneth Leighton: Coventry Carol
Traditional: Wexford Carol
Orlande Lassus: Magnificat Praeter rerum seriem

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p3nh6

[DracoM]

Ah! Beat me to it! I was just going to put this on The Choir thread!

[jean]

Interesting that they are topping and tailing this programme with the Josquin Praeter rerum seriem and the Lassus Magnificat based on it, which formed part of their most recent Choral Pilgrimage.

I was very disappointed indeed in their reading of the Josquin then, and I'll be interested to hear what they do with it tonight.

(The Renaissance Singers are combining the Josquin with another work based on it - the Mass by Cipriano de Rore - in a concert in London next Saturday.)

[BBMmk2]

Another programme to listen on iplayer!

[Simon]

Some good stuff there for sure. Thanks!

[DracoM]

Programme promised a feast. Actually we got a curate's egg.
Surely I didn't hear intonation problems, did I?
For me, this was deffo not a vintage Sixteen evening at all. Hmm. What's happened to them?

[doversoul1]

I’m glad to hear that it wasn’t just me. I thought it sounded like a very good choir singing Christmas carols.

Or was this a group of the young singers on their training scheme that Petroc mentioned?

[jean]

Or was this a group of the young singers on their training scheme that Petroc mentioned?

I wasn't clear about that, either.

But insofar as they sounded unsatisfactory, they didn't (to me) sound particularly young.

It was a very mixed programme in terms of the complexity of the music - transparently simple things like the Coventry carol and Remember O thou man as against the Josquin. Which I thought, again, they just made sound turgid.

It was as if they they were ploughing through Josquin's Praeter Rerum Seriem because they had to, because they wanted to do the Lassus. And it should be so much more than that, in its own right.

.

[Simon Biazeck]

Or was this a group of the young singers on their training scheme that Petroc mentioned?

No, this was not Genesis Sixteen.

[DracoM]

It was so OVER-produced and striving. Carols for the most part have 'artless' top lines, many rooted in folk traditions in one country or another, but all this polishing and arching and carefulness robbed them of that innocence and turned them, as jean said, into something turgid and as if being waded towards through thickening mud.

The warning signs were there as we churned through charmless renditions of the Howells pieces, but the Coventry carol sequence was awful. The piece surely It achieves its impact by straight delivery of the minor, the lament is in the way the simple melody unfolds over the muted sadness of the harmonies. All the overly singerly shaping just turned it into po-faced run-of-the-mill London pros doing what weary London pros do. And as for the wonderful Leighton setting - about as 'frightening' [Trelawny's gobblings] as a skinny latte.

I have recordings of The Sixteen that are simply light years away from what we heard last night, and made me very wary of buying them again.

[jean]

Carols for the most part have 'artless' top lines, many rooted in folk traditions in one country or another, but all this polishing and arching and carefulness robbed them of that innocence and turned them, as jean said, into something turgid...

But it was the Josquin I was talking about when I said that!

[DracoM]

I was using carols as an illustration of a questionable approach, jean.

I actually found the Josquin a bit lumpish and disconnected.