Choral Vespers - Chapel Royal of Hampton Court Palace Wed, 30th March 2016

[DracoM]

Choral Vespers - Chapel Royal of Hampton Court Palace
Wed, 30th March
Choral Vespers according to the Latin Rite


Order of Service:


Leroy Kyrie (John Taverner)
Hymn: Glory to thee, my God, this night (Tallis's Canon)
Psalms 122, 127 (plainsong)
Canticle: Ephesians 1: 3-10 (plainsong)
Homily: The Dean of Her Majesty's Chapels Royal
Magnificat for Five Voices (Tallis)
Intercessions and Collects
Motet: Salve Regina (William Cornysh)
Concluding Rite
National Anthem



The Sixteen
Organist: Matthew Martin
Director of Music: Harry Christophers

[jean]

Also discussed here:

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?14707-Vespers-at-Hampton-Court

[ardcarp]

I am really looking forward to this. Lovely repertoire sung by a great choir. I hope lots of members will listen to this and post in with their thoughts about the music and its performance. In fact, let's make this a model thread by avoiding all the usual old contentions (such as Anglican CE cf RC Vespers, all-male cf mixed choirs) and by treating other members' views with respect.

Here endeth my lesson.

[DracoM]

YES!!

[Vox Humana]

Cornysh is IMO one of the greatest of all English composers - to judge from the rather patchy survival of his works. At any rate he was the first English composer to shape his melodic lines for expressive effect. This is particularly evident in the wonderfully eloquent lines of his ever-popular Ave Maria, but you can also detect this in his Salve regina and indeed in everything else he wrote. A true Renaissance man - and for this reason I remain unconvinced about the currently received opinion that assigns the Latin music to the father and the secular music to the son.

I can't for the life of me understand why we don't hear Cornysh's wonderful, virtuosic Latin Magnificat more. The Clerkes of Oxenford broadcast this more than once in the 70s to thrilling effect (once memorably with a stop and a restart that wasn't edited out). A couple of choirs have committed worthy performances of it to CD, but I've never heard it with the perfect balance of élan and depth that the Clerkes gave it.

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 3.30 pm.

[ardcarp]

Cornysh is IMO one of the greatest of all English composers - to judge from the rather patchy survival of his works. At any rate he was the first English composer to shape his melodic lines for expressive effect. This is particularly evident in the wonderfully eloquent lines of his ever-popular Ave Maria, but you can also detect this in his Salve regina and indeed in everything else he wrote. A true Renaissance man - and for this reason I remain unconvinced about the currently received opinion that assigns the Latin music to the father and the secular music to the son.

I can't for the life of me understand why we don't hear Cornysh's wonderful, virtuosic Latin Magnificat more. The Clerkes of Oxenford broadcast this more than once in the 70s to thrilling effect (once memorably with a stop and a restart that wasn't edited out). A couple of choirs have committed worthy performances of it to CD, but I've never heard it with the perfect balance of élan and depth that the Clerkes gave it.

Amen to all that. (As you say there were two Cornyshes.) When, years ago, I sang Woefully Arrayed for the first time, I thought it the most astonishing piece for its day, and extraordinarily moving. I still do.

[jean]

...When, years ago, I sang Woefully Arrayed for the first time, I thought it the most astonishing piece for its day, and extraordinarily moving. I still do.

I agaree that it's a wonderful piece, but I don't think it's especially out of its time.

Cornysh..was the first English composer to shape his melodic lines for expressive effect...

What about Dunstable?

...I can't for the life of me understand why we don't hear Cornysh's wonderful, virtuosic Latin Magnificat more...

Because it's diifficult, as his vernacular works like Woefully Arrayed are not.

Though come to think of it, we don't hear that enough, either!

[DracoM]

Christ Church Oxford / Darlington have fairly recently recorded Cornysh Salve Regina in their trek through parts of the Eton Choir Book. Worth seeking out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkUbKk5GpWY

And the recording makes it abundantly clear that this is a very searching test piece for any choir.

Must say that if the men and boys of the period of writing could get through this, they must have been highly skilled. But, then, composers do not usually write for ensembles that cannot get heads, heart and tongues round the music on the page.
I would imagine that few if any cathedral choirs would attempt this live and / or on air these days, would they? Nowhere to hide.

[Magnificat]

I am really looking forward to this. Lovely repertoire sung by a great choir. I hope lots of members will listen to this and post in with their thoughts about the music and its performance. In fact, let's make this a model thread by avoiding all the usual old contentions (such as Anglican CE cf RC Vespers, all-male cf mixed choirs) and by treating other members' views with respect.

Here endeth my lesson.

ardcarp

Yes, of course, but as I said on the other recent thread about this service. It does seem rather strange to me that they didn't use boys and men which would have been authentic for the period. Westminster Cathedral should have been able to provide a suitable ensemble to accompany their archbishop to the Chapel Royal surely. This would have been very suitably ecumenical too.

VCC

[Miles Coverdale]

Cornysh … was the first English composer to shape his melodic lines for expressive effect.

A slightly sweeping statement, if I may say so. I'd have thought that John Browne would have an equally valid claim to that title.

[Nevilevelis]

Christ Church Oxford / Darlington have fairly recently recorded Cornysh Salve Regina in their trek through parts of the Eton Choir Book. Worth seeking out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkUbKk5GpWY

And the recording makes it abundantly clear that this is a very searching test piece for any choir.

Must say that if the men and boys of the period of writing could get through this, they must have been highly skilled. But, then, composers do not usually write for ensembles that cannot get heads, heart and tongues round the music on the page.
I would imagine that few if any cathedral choirs would attempt this live and / or on air these days, would they? Nowhere to hide.

Post no. 21 http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...Scholars/page3 has answered your previous questions along these lines.

[jean]

...I'd have thought that John Browne would have an equally valid claim to that title.

Certainly John Browne's tunes are astonishingly...tuneful - especially in the Stabat Mater!

I suppose it could be argued that they don't particularly express the words they set.

[Miles Coverdale]

Certainly John Browne's tunes are astonishingly...tuneful - especially in the Stabat Mater!

I suppose it could be argued that they don't particularly express the words they set.

Perhaps not, but nor do Cornysh's, really. Pieces like his Salve regina achieve their effect through harmony, not melody.

[Vox Humana]

What about Dunstable?

A slightly sweeping statement, if I may say so. I'd have thought that John Browne would have an equally valid claim to that title.

Great composers, both, but to my ears they are both still quintessentially medieval. When it comes to shapeliness, Dunstable is no match for Dufay, or even Binchois. I don't find in either Dunstable or Browne the overall sense of shape from beginning to end of a long melodic phrase that I find in Cornyshe. Take, for example, the top part of the duet mundi imperatrix inferni in his Ave Maria, with it's gradual rise from F to top D and gentle, shapely fall to end an octave lower - all over about eight bars. This sense of architecture you just don't find in earlier English composers. I think it's likely that Cornyshe was influenced by Continental music and it is this sort of shapeliness that marks him out for me. He is not so Renaissance that he interprets the texts musically, but nor did Taverner, or indeed anyone else before Tallis. The Crucifige in Browne's Stabat mater is such a unique blip for its time that I wonder whether it was intentional. This is still the only piece of his to have become generally popular (although plenty have now been recorded). I don't think that's accidental. Stabat stands apart, Otherwise, one piece of Browne sounds very much like another to me - but maybe that's my failing.