CE Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban Oct 5th [R]

[Vox Humana]

For me, sounded like a concert skillfully put together.

I have to agree. Had it been broadcast as a concert it would have been fine and we would not be having this discussion. I might add that I did enjoy Magnus Williamson's stylish playing, especially his imrpovisations in the Ludford.

I wonder if there was some 'academic' decision to use a low pitch for everything? Nothing above a mezzo soprano, and plenty of low men's voices, tenors sometimes on what we now regard as an alto line.

Almost certainly. Current views on Tudor pitch derive from the Early English Organ Project and analysis of the three Dallam organ pipes of c.1630 (originally from Magdalen College, Oxford) surviving at Stanford-on-Avon, which are helpfully marked with their pitch names, togerther with some nineteenth century evidence about some other, now-lost, organ pipes at Durham which is consistent with Dallam. This places Tudor choir pitch about one and a third semitones higher than A=440. From the Eton Choirbook onwards there were five types of voice: treble, mean countertenor, tenor, bass. The treble and mean were boys' voices. At just over a semitone up, it transpires that the mean was basically a boy alto and the Ct T B voices must have been equivalent to our tenor, baritone and bass (hence Charles Butler's description of the tenor as 'an ordinary voice'). After Mary's death the treble voice was discontinued and the compass of the mean rose a bit as the two boys' voices were assimilated into one.

In the broadcast only one piece - Taverner's Alleluia - featured a treble voice, hence the generally low sound. IMO it didn't need to sound so muddy. That must have been down to the group's preferred style of voice production. However Tudor choirs originally sounded, I'm quite sure that they didn't sound like that. For clear, yet rich, performances at 'Tudor' pitch listen to NCO's CD of John Sheppard. Perhaps the best track for comparison is Judica me, Deus, which is scored for STTBarB. The problem for a choir such as NCO performing at this pitch is what to do with your falsettists. If I understand the liner notes correctly, Robert Quinney got them to join in the two tenor lines.