BaL 31.03.18 - Tallis: Lamentations of Jeremiah

[jean]

I still don't get it...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I still don't get it...

"Pitch Collections"???

[BBMmk2]

"Pitch Collections"???

I was just thinking in whether the low pitch were the de rigeur, rather than say high pitch as with choirs like The Sixteen, or The Tallis Scholars

[Dave2002]

I'm guessing that a few round here (arcarp, fhg) actually know the work(s), and found the comparisons of different styles/ways of performing them interesting. For me I find the music sufficiently strange that I'd like to have been given more of a clue as to why I should be looking for recordings of it.

Who would it be interesting for? Why should "we" be wanting recordings, or to become familiar with that music?

OK - I'm probably in the wrong, but it seems to me a presentational failing. The first thing for any presentation is surely to decide who "the audience" is going to be, and I thought that BaL was primarily aimed at people who didn't have a great knowledge of the works being discussed.

This is not the case with many other BaLs. I have heard other BaLs with "strange" music which I didn't know, which somehow managed to draw me in better. This one didn't.

[jean]

This is Radio 3's big difficulty, of course -who is Radio 3 for? Is BAL really for people who have no prior knowledge of the music being discussed? Is Tallis so very 'strange' to most listeners?

Perhaps we should have more sympathy with their dilemma.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

That's a very interesting point, Dave - and shows further the gap in R3 programming. In addition to an Interpretations on Record-type programme illustrating the recording history of a work, there's also a need for a Listening To ... -type series (like the one from the early '90s presented by the late and deeply lamented Michael Hall) in which "less familiar" repertoire is introduced to listeners who are encountering it for the first time.

Would I be correct in presuming that the "'strange' music that you didn't know" in those other BaLs were at least in an idiom with which you were familiar?

[jean]

...there's also a need for a Listening To ... -type series (like the one from the early '90s presented by the late and deeply lamented Michael Hall) in which "less familiar" repertoire is introduced to listeners who are encountering it for the first time.

We are going to get a series by Peter Philips on polyphony, aren't we? It will be interesting to see how that works.

[Dave2002]

This is Radio 3's big difficulty, of course -who is Radio 3 for? Is BAL really for people who have no prior knowledge of the music being discussed? Is Tallis so very 'strange' to most listeners?

Perhaps we should have more sympathy with their dilemma.

One which I remember which seemed very good to me was about the Roman de Fauval - a work which I had never heard of or heard before. That was excellent.

I do know some works by Tallis - but not many. Perhaps people who attend churches, or sing in choirs would be more familiar with the Lamentations, but others may not know them - even if they do know all the string quartets by Haydn, or be familiar with the most recent works by Mark-Anthony Turnage. Composer of the Week sometimes helps to get the background info, but some BaLs do better than others in addressing this issue.

[BBMmk2]

We are going to get a series by Peter Philips on polyphony, aren't we? It will be interesting to see how that works.

Really looking forward to that!

[Richard Tarleton]

I was just thinking in whether the low pitch were the de rigeur, rather than say high pitch as with choirs like The Sixteen, or The Tallis Scholars

All this talk of pitch....I think I have reasonable relative pitch (one note in relation to another - is that a thing?) but don't have perfect or absolute pitch, and couldn't have told you which pitch The Sixteen and Tallis Scholars are using if heard in isolation....I can tell if I hear two excerpts juxtaposed if one is higher or lower than the other.... As it happens I have the Tallis Scholars' version of this, and have just searched the CD notes in vain for any mention of pitch....as a layman you sort of take it on trust that an outfit calling themselves The Tallis Scholars know what they're about.... (I've heard several of these groups live - Sixteen, Tallis Scolars, Hilliards, Cardinall's Music, but short of hearing them one after the other singing the same thing couldn't have told you if they were using different pitch).

Does this, as the much-missed Anna would have said, make me a bad person?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But you could tell if these performances were all-male or if women were singing, too?

(Ironically, the only score I have is an edition for mixed choir, edited by PC Buck!)

[DracoM]

Oh, for the Clerkes..............

[Richard Tarleton]

But you could tell if these performances were all-male or if women were singing, too?

(Ironically, the only score I have is an edition for mixed choir, edited by PC Buck!)

Oh yes, and if they were one voice per part or several....it's just the pitch thing.

[jean]

Oh, for the Clerkes..............

Why?

Their signature stratospheric pitch isn't usually what's wanted here, is it?

[doversoul1]

One which I remember which seemed very good to me was about the Roman de Fauval - a work which I had never heard of or heard before. That was excellent.

Are you sure it was a BaL and not this Early Music Show*?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01bs9dg

(ed.) *it was VERY GOOD indeed.