I make no apology for putting this heads-up for Tomkins whose 450 anniversary was celebrated on Sunday's Early Music Show.
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The composer of one of my most favourite CDs, this - love Richard Wistreich’s accent, love Rose Consort
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Good to have a selection of performers in my view, and heavens he did write some "interesting" music, quite a challenge in some cases I would think?Comment
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Thank you ardcarp, I would have missed this. We only heard one example of a cathedral-type choir, in O God the proud are risen against me.. That 1989 recording from St George’s, Windsor (Christopher Robinson) is a classic. One of my favourite Tomkins anthems is on that disc, Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, replete with multiple false-relations at the words ‘of thy Son Jesus Christ’ and ending with one of the finest Amens of that age.
Bernard Rose was a great promoter and editor of Tomkins while at Magdalen College, Oxford, one of his earliest LPs being a 1966 Saga release ‘English polyphonic church music’ which also includes Almighty God…. Three years earlier, Dr Rose gave an illustrated talk on the composer on the wireless in which this anthem appears yet again, recorded live during the broadcast from Magdalen chapel. We have the wonderful Archive of Recorded Church Music to thank for its preservation and availability on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1UjQlG7Z0swComment
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This is one of my favourite go-to books to have in my bag for a short organ voluntary. They go well on the harpsichord too.
Mine's an older edition...the tercentenary edition! One of the pieces (the penultimate one I think) is so laden with English cadences it always makes me smile as I play it.
Mandryka. Thanks for the link to the Rose Consort/Wistreich CD. I'll see if I can get hold of a copy. (I've sung with Richard Wistreich a few times in the past. He's a very good small consort bass.)Comment
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