Daisy and I arranged a Monday off, in part because “that’s quite often what we do these days”, but this one in particular because I fancied this lunchtime concert at “The Wiggy”.
It turned out to be a fortuitous choice of date, as it coincided with Pady Jalali’s unexpected but delightful visit, which I shall report once I have finished this short piece; a link to which should appear, as if by magic, as a ping-back on this one once it is done. (Clever stuff, this WordPress blogging).
Pady toyed with the idea of joining us for the concert, but the train times from Manchester didn’t really work sensibly for that, so just Daisy and I enjoyed the concert, from our front row mafia vantage point.
There was a lyric sheet available for 50p which I avoided. Not for the matter of 50p, you understand, but because making it too obvious that the lyrics were mostly about shepherds, shepherdesses, the merry month of May and a fa-la-la-la-la… would not have added to Daisy’s enjoyment. Worse, me singing along would not have added to anyone’s enjoyment.
The ensemble entered wearing straw hats and carrying a hamper, an old badminton racket etc. The idea was to give the feeling of a spring picnic; an idea that worked better live than on radio, I’d suggest.
There were three examples of modern madrigal in our concert too – the running order is archived here – but for the encore I Fagiolini returned to the safer ground of traditional month of May-type material; Now is the Month of Maying by Thomas Morley. Plenty of fa-la-las to send us on our way.
Twee? Yes. But it was a lovely concert which set us up very nicely indeed for a relaxing afternoon and evening with friends.
What a wonderful way to end the working week; a concert of beautiful early music. We’ve seen Stile Antico before at the Wigmore Hall; they are a truly inspirational vocal ensemble.
We ran into Eric Rhode and his wife, Maria at this concert, as often we do. He is no doubt at the Wigmore Hall even as I write, as I know there is early music on there right now, a couple of weeks’ after the Stile Antico event.
Revisiting this article in May 2020 during Covid-19 lockdown, I am glad to see that, in 2015, Stile Antico showed off their skills by singing Renaissance pieces that were designed for 12 voices. Lockdown has strangely enabled the group to multiply virtually, producing the following delicious 40 part performance of Tallis’s Spem In Alium:
But in truth, the concert we heard that might would have looked and sounded more like the following recording from 2013 of William Byrd’s Ave Verum Corpus at The Wig itself:
Below is a vid of Stile Antico, singing Ego flos campi by Jacobus Clemens non papa, which was the second piece they sang to us and which gives a very good sense of their glorious sound:
Coincidentally, the above recording was made at the Old Royal Naval College which I shall be visiting in a few day’s time (as I write in January 2018), although not for music purposes.
For those who are not blessed with Latin scholarship, “Ego flos campi” means, “I maintain my oral hygiene when I go camping”…
…although those words are occasionally mistranslated by so-called experts as, “I am the flower of the field”.
It’s not easy to get Janie up into town on a Wednesday evening. But this opportunity to hear a harpsichord recital by Trevor Pinnock was too good to miss.
And boy was it good.
A fascinating programme for the evening, starting in the 16th century and working deep into the 18th.
For those who don’t click, it is music by Antonio de Cabezón, William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, John Bull, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Domenico Scarlatti and Antonio Soler.
Many and varied.
Below is a YouTube sound piece of the Antonio de Cabezón we heard:
Below is an interview with Pinnock about his “Journey” project:
He talks so sensibly and knowledgeably in that interview, as indeed he did when explaining the recital to us on the night.
Anyway, that concert in October 2013 was a delicious as well as interesting listen and such an honour to see Trevor Pinnock perform those works up close.
In the four years inbetween, Esfahani had become a real name in the early music world and here was an opportunity for us to see a recital of interesting stuff at very close quarters.
All Byrd in the first half – absolutely enchanting. The second half captivated us a little less – mostly familiar material from Bach’s Musical Offering (played beautifully) – we didn’t really see how the Ligeti fitted in with the Byrd and Bach. We love Hungarian folk music; the style just didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the programme, which was so relaxing. But that’s just us.
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.
Rather a different feel, this one, as the conceit of the concert was to mix early music with some contemporary compositions influenced by those earlier periods.
Central to the concert was Purcell, whose 350th birthday was that year and who therefore featured a lot in 2009 concert programmes.
Here is the full listing for this 1 February gig:
In truth, Janie and I got a lot more out of the early music than the contemporary stuff, although I always enjoy Arvo Pärt more than I expect and the Shostakovich was interesting too.
But Purcell was the star of the show, as was Clare Wilkinson, who specialises in singing this Renaissance and Baroque stuff; often with Fretwork.
There is a good preview of this concert in The Cardinall’s Musick’s newsletter of February 2008 – click here. Apparently this concert was their first appearance at The Wig for quite a while. If I recall correctly, we had seen them before at St John’s Smith Square.
They really are a superb early music outfit. Andrew Carwood tries hard to explain the context of the work – perhaps he over-explains at times for our taste, but the music always sounds divine and the scholarship that underpins their work is evident for all to hear.
This type of concert is always a wonderful way to end the working week and I’m sure this occasion was no exception.
This is exactly what we heard – lovely.
We bought three CDs of The Cardinall’s Musick delivering their wonderful stuff. While I’m not 100% sure that we bought them on this occasion, I have a strong hunch that I did:
Sometimes people like me have a pivotal moment in their self-education about music. I discovered this week (writing in February 2018) that mine was on 31 October 1987.
You’ll need to roll with this one, dear reader, it is a somewhat convoluted tale but in the end it is riddled with strange coincidences twixt 2018 and 1987. I hope this piece has some interesting general insights too.
…and spotted that the William Byrd specific concert would include “Though Amaryllis Dance In Green”. I remembered that song fondly as one of the first Tudor period songs I had heard and liked. I could even recall the tune and many of the words. I sought and found a simplified transcription of the music for lute on-line and decided that it would be a good example for me to work on with Ian Pittaway to further transcribe for solo voice and Tudor guitar.
On the day of the Gresham lecture, my mind began to wander (during the journey home after work I hasten to add, not during the lecture or work) about that song. I knew I still had a recording of it and would have kept notes on who was performing it.
It is extraordinary what memory can do. My mind latched on to that late 1980’s period and I was pretty sure I heard the music while I was getting ready for some professional exams.
I enjoyed a Saturday morning Radio 3 programme back then which played new releases and gave some interesting background on the recordings. But I also wanted to get my homework out of the way, so I tended to spool the radio show onto the trusty reel-to-reel and listen to it later in the day.
One week there had been a morning dedicated to early music and I remembered that some of the music had blown me away…
…to such an extent that I had edited that spool and preserved the recordings…
…then digitised it some 20 years or more later.
In fact, the recording that had really blown me away from that morning’s show was Josquin Des Prez and my records tell me that it was the Hilliard Ensemble.
…and as I am promoting the material so flagrantly for the Hilliards…and have of course now bought a copy of the album for myself, assuaging my guilt for the home taping…I’ll guess they won’t mind that I have uploaded my rather worn-sounding track – the one that blew me away – Ave Maria:
It really is a lovely recording of the piece. I have heard several others since and (perhaps it’s me) but that Hilliard recording of it is something very special.
When I got home to find all this out, there was a really nice message waiting for me (us) on Facebook from Ros Elliot, an old friend of Janie’s who now lives in Turkey. I recalled that Ros’s brother Paul used to sing with the Hillard Ensemble and of course, it transpired with a little e-digging, is indeed singing on that very album of Josquin music.
Also on that same old tape of mine, as I expected, was Though Amaryllis…which was also a recording by the Hilliard Ensemble. The Byrd was released the same year as the Josquin; 1987. Now available as part of a double-album of Byrd and Dowland…yes of course I procured this one too. Only available in CD form for now – click here or below:
So, given that the Hilliards got a sale and an advert out of me for this album too, I’m going to guess that they’ll be OK with the worn-sounding Though Amaryllis file going up for you to sample:
So then all I needed was my diary and the trusty BBC Genome project to resolve exactly when this introduction to Early Music happened.
…which yielded the next coincidence. The same broadcast had included Christopher Page with Gothic Voices singing, amongst other things, Ian Pittaway’s favorites Westron wynde and Hey nony nonyno. Clearly those didn’t make the cut on my edited tape. Perhaps I missed the start of the show…or perhaps those songs were too alien for my ears at that time.
…but dad did like the secular Josquin tracks very much; and the Byrd. Mum didn’t get early music at all. Chopin, Strauss (the waltz ones) and Tchaikovsky for her.
Momentous stuff in late 1987 – it really was the day that early music found me – and some wonderful coincidences in early 2018 while I found that momentous day again.
