The Sixteen (and James MacMillan) Live tonight : 8.00pm

[doversoul1]

The Sixteen's 2013 Choral Pilgrimage - The Queen of Heaven - live from Ealing Abbey starting at 8pm.
Harry Christophers and his choir explore the musical evolution of Allegri's fabled Miserere, famously written out from memory by Mozart and also transcribed later by both Mendelssohn and Liszt. This once jealously-guarded preserve of the Sistine Chapel is juxtaposed with a setting of the same text from our own times by James MacMillan. And there's also music by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, the Roman master hailed in his lifetime as, 'The Prince of Music.'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03d813j

I’m not too sure about ‘juxtaposed with a setting of the same text from our own times by James MacMillan’ idea.

That's [sic] preceded at 7.30pm by a recent concert performance of Mendelssohn's Symphony No 4 'Italian' by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado

Didn’t we hear this only a few days ago? Or was it on TTN?

[Roehre]

How much I enjoy The Sixteen, the piece I am really waiting for is the Liszt during the interval.

I've seen announced the "Italian" recently too, but I cannot recall in which programme

[MrGongGong]

I’m not too sure about ‘juxtaposed with a setting of the same text from our own times by James MacMillan’ idea.

Surely that's a similar idea as having the 'original' followed by the Mendelssohn ?

[jean]

Surely that's a similar idea as having the 'original' followed by the Mendelssohn ?

I'm not too sure what that means!

I like treatments of the same texts/compositional ideas by composers of different periods -a couple of Stabat Maters by different composers, say; Josquin's Praeter Rerum Seriem and Lassus' Magnificat based on it (which the Sixteen did together a couple of years ago); a Spem in Alium by Tallis and a forty-part motet by Gabriel Jackson.

By all accounts, the account given here of the Allegri Miserere is not so much a reconstruction of the piece at any one period so much as account of the stages it went through to reach the version we're all familiar with.

(I'm going to have to wait until this evening to find out. As I knew I was going to be away when this Choral Pilgrimage came to Liverpool I was forced to go to Manchester to hear it, but the traffic was so dreadful because some nonentity called Robbie Williams was playing the Manchester Arena that night that we arrived more than an hour late and missed the entire first half.)

[Richard J.]

That's [sic] preceded at 7.30pm by a recent concert performance of Mendelssohn's Symphony No 4 'Italian' by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado

That seems to have been a late decision. The concert was advertised as starting on R3 at 7.30, and the announcer at 7.30 said it would start "later than advertised" at 8 pm. The "filler" of Mendelssohn's Italian symphony was quite the fastest performance of it that I have ever heard, the last movement sounding particularly rushed. I had visions of R3 desperately searching for a performance of the symphony that would fit the time available.

Apparently the audience at Ealing Abbey had a a pre-concert talk at 7.30, which might have made a better "filler".

[edashtav]

That seems to have been a late decision. The concert was advertised as starting on R3 at 7.30, and the announcer at 7.30 said it would start "later than advertised" at 8 pm. The "filler" of Mendelssohn's Italian symphony was quite the fastest performance of it that I have ever heard, the last movement sounding particularly rushed. I had visions of R3 desperately searching for a performance of the symphony that would fit the time available.

Yes, wasn't the Italian Symphony rushed,Richard! The Pilgrims sounded as if they were fitting their religious obligations into a few minutes in order to make the start of a European Football match.
But... the pair of horns later distinguished themselves, I thought.

[jean]

Surely not everyone turned off after the Mendelssohn?

[DracoM]

Ah, well, jean, perhaps some more nervous ones are still trying to work out if it was boys or women singing the top line.

[jean]

I've reassured myself by looking at the photo on the Sixteen's website.

Often when I hear a HIPP performance of something, I get a feeling of rightness as though this is what I have been waiting for even if I'd never imagined it in any detail. But I've never had this feeling about any reconstruction I've heard of the Allegri Miserere as Allegri might have expected to hear it. I suppose that's because it's impossible to suspend awareness of the version we all know perhaps rather too well.

The version the Sixteen are performing this year, which aims to trace the evolution of the work, does allow us some top Cs near the end. Hugh Keyte's version is here, and although he lets it become more elaborate as it goes on, he doesn't include any.

The interval Liszt was a very odd piece indeed.

[jean]

So's Giovanni Pierluigi but I didn't mention him either!

[jean]

How strange. That was a reply to a post taking me to task (I thought) for saying nothing about the MacMillan. But now it's gone.

Still, just as well I didn't trouble to write any more, since interest in the concert is clearly zero.