The final volume in our series has now been recorded, for release next year.
The expanded Magdalena Consort this time included many of the brilliant singers who appeared on our first two CDs plus a few new ones. Triplex (soprano): Imogen Russel & Zoe Brookshaw with Aine Smith & Emily Evans (chorus). Mean (alto): Lissie Paul & Joy Sutcliffe. Contratenor (high tenor): Sam Boden, Hugo Hymas, Nick Madden & Toby Ward. Tenor (baritone): Simon Gallear & Joey Edwards. Bassus (bass): Jimmy Holliday & Peter Harvey (director). Accompanying them again were the incomparable Fretwork and His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts with Silas Wollston on the wondrous Tudor organ.
*******************
IN ADDITION TO GRANTS FROM ANGEL EARLY MUSIC AND THE CONTINUO FOUNDATION WE RECEIVED OTHERS FROM THE GOLSONCOTT FOUNDATION, THE RAINBOW DICKINSON TRUST, THE BISHOPSDOWN TRUST AND THE J & M BRITTON CHARITABLE TRUST. We also received generous donations from several of you who have supported our previous recordings as well aswell over100 who supported our crowdfunding, and for all of these we are truly grateful.
This project brings together many of the UK's most distinguished period performance specialists. Our final recording is taking place in the midst of a rich period of centenaries, celebrating some of the greatest composers who contributed to the wonderful and uniquely English idiom of the verse anthem. William Byrd and the hitherto little known Edmund Hooper, celebrated in our second CD, died in 1623 and 1621 respectively. Orlando Gibbons, to which our first was devoted, died in 1625. This third CD will contain two large verse anthems by Thomas Tomkins, whose great madrigal collection was published in 1622. Both anthems are incomplete. Know you not, was written for the funeral of Prince Henry in 1612, an event of national catastrophe that inspired countless artistic outpourings of lamentation, of which this is surely the most magnificent. The other, O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance, is the longest in the verse idiom so far unearthed – a highly emotional reaction to the horror and disruption of natural order wrought by the Civil War. It survives only in reduced manuscript parts and has been brought to life in a vituosic feat of reconstruction by John Milsom. Both are highly rhetorical and dramatic, revealing the true soul and purpose of the verse anthem form, that places it arguably amongst the finest artistic products of the English Reformation. Alongside these statuesque works, anthems on a more domestic scale such as John Amner’s Consider, all ye passers by and Richard Nicholson’s When Jesus sat at meat and others by composers scarcely known today, whose anthems are being heard for the first time in over 400 years.
Here are two snippets from our sessions last week:
1. The first verse and chorus of William Stonard's Hearken, all ye people. Elisabeth Paul (verse), Magdalena Consort & Fretwork.
2. End of the final chorus of John Ward's This is a joyful, happy holy day, an anthem for the creation of the Prince of Wales. Magdalena Consort (director Peter Harvey) with His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts and Silas Woolston (St Teilo Tudor organ).
The expanded Magdalena Consort this time included many of the brilliant singers who appeared on our first two CDs plus a few new ones. Triplex (soprano): Imogen Russel & Zoe Brookshaw with Aine Smith & Emily Evans (chorus). Mean (alto): Lissie Paul & Joy Sutcliffe. Contratenor (high tenor): Sam Boden, Hugo Hymas, Nick Madden & Toby Ward. Tenor (baritone): Simon Gallear & Joey Edwards. Bassus (bass): Jimmy Holliday & Peter Harvey (director). Accompanying them again were the incomparable Fretwork and His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts with Silas Wollston on the wondrous Tudor organ.
*******************
IN ADDITION TO GRANTS FROM ANGEL EARLY MUSIC AND THE CONTINUO FOUNDATION WE RECEIVED OTHERS FROM THE GOLSONCOTT FOUNDATION, THE RAINBOW DICKINSON TRUST, THE BISHOPSDOWN TRUST AND THE J & M BRITTON CHARITABLE TRUST. We also received generous donations from several of you who have supported our previous recordings as well aswell over100 who supported our crowdfunding, and for all of these we are truly grateful.
This project brings together many of the UK's most distinguished period performance specialists. Our final recording is taking place in the midst of a rich period of centenaries, celebrating some of the greatest composers who contributed to the wonderful and uniquely English idiom of the verse anthem. William Byrd and the hitherto little known Edmund Hooper, celebrated in our second CD, died in 1623 and 1621 respectively. Orlando Gibbons, to which our first was devoted, died in 1625. This third CD will contain two large verse anthems by Thomas Tomkins, whose great madrigal collection was published in 1622. Both anthems are incomplete. Know you not, was written for the funeral of Prince Henry in 1612, an event of national catastrophe that inspired countless artistic outpourings of lamentation, of which this is surely the most magnificent. The other, O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance, is the longest in the verse idiom so far unearthed – a highly emotional reaction to the horror and disruption of natural order wrought by the Civil War. It survives only in reduced manuscript parts and has been brought to life in a vituosic feat of reconstruction by John Milsom. Both are highly rhetorical and dramatic, revealing the true soul and purpose of the verse anthem form, that places it arguably amongst the finest artistic products of the English Reformation. Alongside these statuesque works, anthems on a more domestic scale such as John Amner’s Consider, all ye passers by and Richard Nicholson’s When Jesus sat at meat and others by composers scarcely known today, whose anthems are being heard for the first time in over 400 years.
Here are two snippets from our sessions last week:
1. The first verse and chorus of William Stonard's Hearken, all ye people. Elisabeth Paul (verse), Magdalena Consort & Fretwork.
2. End of the final chorus of John Ward's This is a joyful, happy holy day, an anthem for the creation of the Prince of Wales. Magdalena Consort (director Peter Harvey) with His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts and Silas Woolston (St Teilo Tudor organ).