Tag: Thomas Tallis

Byrd: The Popish Organist, The Cardinall’s Musick, Wigmore Hall, 7 October 2011

Oy! Are You Looking At My Byrd?…

…was not the title of this concert by The Cardinall’s Musick…

…although Andrew Carwood does always give his concerts a title. Perhaps he’ll use my suggestion some time soon.

Still, this exceptional group of singers tends to fill the Wigmore Hall whenever it appears, for good reason.

Here is a link to the on-line programme of music for the evening.

We’d seen them perform before and had even previously seen one of their concerts at which Andrew Carwood explained the sectarian political backdrop to the music in those Tudor times…

…it must have been like the politics of Brexit but with capital punishment in place of the earhole bashing.

No wonder these Tudor composers took solus in lamentations and such Jeremiad material.

As usual with such concerts, it was fascinating to hear the contrast between the lesser and the better known composers; Tallis and especially Byrd being the better known and better represented composers on the night. The better known fellows deserve their status in my view; certainly for this type of music.

Here (click through for more details) and below is a vid taster of The Cardinalls Musick singing Tallis Lamentations and other such sacred works:

A wonderfully relaxing concert at the end of a busy week at work.

Sargent Cancer Care For Children Concert At The Wigmore Hall, 26 September 2000

Actually Julian Bream had to drop out of this concert at the last minute, so we got everyone else, but not him. We also got all the other pieces, but not the Bach Cello suite on the guitar.

I made no note about a replacement piece, so I suspect we had a shortened concert. This is what we heard:

  • Thomas Tallis – Loquebantur
  • John Taverner – Quemadmodum
  • William Byrd – Tribue, Domine 
  • Fryderyk Chopin – Ballade No 1 in G minor, op 23
  • Johannes Brahms – Intermezzo in A major, op 118 no 2 –
  • Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner – Isoldens Liebestod
  • Leos Janacek – String Quartet no 2

My only other log note is that we bumped into James Davidson, who was (or probably by then, had been) the Director of Finance at Cancer Research Campaign, one of my earliest Z/Yen clients in the mid 1990s. He lived nearby in Notting Hill Gate and used to address me (in the street or at CRC) as “Lord Harris”, because he said my fee rates were so high. When we asked him for a testimonial to put on our spanking new Z/Yen website, he said:

expensive, but worth it…

…which we thought at the time was as good as it gets.

I suspect that this Tuesday night charity concert was expensive but worth it too.

Sadly, Julian Bream never recorded his live party piece of playing the BWV1012 Cello Suite on the guitar, but here’s a recording of a fine guitarist, Paulo Martelli, who has recorded his playing of part of it live:

So there’s the stuff we didn’t see or hear.

Here’s a recording of the Tallis Scholars singing Loquebantur, which is wonderful:

Here’s the Gesualdo Six singing Taverner’s Quemadmodum

Back to The Tallis Scholars, as there is a vid of them singing The Byrd:

PHILLIPS: Hey, are you looking at my Byrd?

There’s not a lot of Martin Roscoe to be found on-line – but here is Krystian Zimerman playing the Chopin:

I don’t suppose the Janáček string quartet much pleased us. Here’s the Amphion String Quartet doing their level best with it:

The things we do for charity.