New year, new music list

The music list for January-March is now available here.

Our Cardoso450 project continues throughout most of 2017 and rather dominates this music list. We’ve only just celebrated Christmas, yet it seems only a matter of weeks before Lent is upon us once more. Lent/Easter marks the final period of concentrated activity on the project before it concludes in November. All of the Cardoso450 works are being newly edited and it is a continuing joy to discover these largely unknown works. (The sheer amount of music being edited and added to our library is extraordinary – in 2016 we sang 61 services and added 124 new editions to the library, including 101 for Cardoso450!)

Beyond Cardoso, two double-choir settings of the Marian antiphon Ave Regina cælorum particularly stand out: the setting by Joan Cererols is notable for the effortless conversing of the two choirs and for its stunning concluding English cadence; and Michael Haydn’s setting, written in the stile antico, which contains numerous harmonic twists and turns that make it a happy partner to Mendelssohn’s Mass for eight voices, an arrangement of his vernacular Lutheran settings.

2016 Q4 music list published

Music for the Sunday 11.00am Mass until the end of the year is now available here. Our Cardoso450 project enters its second period of more intense activity during Advent and Christmastide, the 3rd Sunday of Advent coinciding with the 450th anniversary of Cardoso's baptism. Mass that day will be offered for the repose of his soul. With the predominance of Portuguese polyphony, the non-Cardoso flavours are kept deliberately strong, with music by Mozart, Reger and Langlais. The Romantic luxuriousness of Rheinberger's popular Cantus Missæ is balanced by the opulence of the 8-part motets by Palestrina and Philips. The highlight, though, is our performance on 15th October of Francisco Valls Missa Scala aretina for 11 voices and instrumental ensemble. This famous but infrequently performed work – a true Baroque masterpiece – provides a fittingly grand accompaniment for the Solemnity of St Teresa of Avila. The Choir will also be singing on 1st October for the feast of St Thèrése as we continue to celebrate important Carmelite saints as well as, through our Cardoso450 project, discover and explore important Carmelite music.

2016 Q3 music list published

The latest music list is available here.

Cardoso Missa Miserere mihi, opening Kyrie

Another quarter, another music list. The weeks and months seem to fly by. Our monumental Cardoso450 project continues; a true highlight will be the Missa Miserere mihi, a sumptuous 6-part setting from the Liber primus missarum. Cardoso’s gently expressive chromaticism is evident throughout, but perhaps most unexpectly present at the very start where the tenor begins the Mass with a wholetone scale (see illustration). Cardoso would use the same rising scale in his Missa pro defunctis à6 in the same volume which we will be singing next year.

Away from Cardoso and all things Portuguese, we sing English music ancient and modern with settings by Taverner and Vaughan Williams, enjoy some rich lower voice music from Gabrieli, Crecquillon and Gombert, and let our hair down a bit with some cheerful Mozart, including his motet Venite populi for double chorus.

2016 Q2 music list published

The latest music list is available here.

Our Cardoso450 series continues, but, after the concentrated period of Lent and Easter, now features once or twice a month as far as Advent. The wonderful Sheppard Libera nos settings feature on Trinity Sunday, and Corpus Christi has a French flavour this year with the exuberance of Widor’s Messe and the quiet contemplation of Messiaen’s colourful O sacrum convivium. 

Q1 Music List 2016 published

The music list for January to March is now available.

This list concludes our focus on Tudor music during Advent and Christmastide with music by Byrd and Sheppard for the Epiphany. The Hassler O sacrum convivium is a firm favourite and we look forward to some works which are new to us - the Palestrina Ave Maria à8 from the Capella Giulia and Padilla’s Missa Ave Regina cælorum. The main focus of the list, however, is the commencement of our Cardoso450 project which runs through 2016/7. A brochure with information about Cardoso and his contemporaries, and a complete overview of all the repertoire to be performed will be available shortly. The project has periods of more intense activity through Lent/Easter and Advent/Christmas and then punctuates the Sundays during the rest of the year. With over 45 Masses and 120 Motets, the project will give a unique view of Cardoso’s works, programming them within a liturgical context and alongside works by other Portuguese composers.

Q4 Music List published

The Music List for October - December is now available.

October is vibrant with a rich selection of Marian music, as is traditional, and this selection extends to the celebration of two great Carmelite saints on 1st and 15th, St Thérèse of Lisieux and St Teresa of Avila. For the latter, the Choir will be joined by the Chamber Choir of St George’s College, Weybridge, and will be premiering a new composition written specially for the Choir by Colin Mawby and commissioned by former parishioner John Hughes. November sees Richafort’s beautiful Requiem added to the Choir’s repertoire, and the addition of strings for Mozart and Monteverdi for the feast of Christ the King.

The main highlight of this Music List, though, is our programme of Tudor music for Advent and Christmas. We combine undoubted masterpieces with comparatively unknown works as we continue to explore the enormous wealth of music from the period. By turns grandiose and intimate, joyous and melancholic, confident and troubled, the political and religious turmoil of the Tudor period created some of the most sublimely, sometimes almost agonisingly beautiful music we have.

Meanwhile, planning for our Cardoso450 project continues behind the scenes with the cataloguing of Masses and Motets by Cardoso and his contemporaries and the creation of the first batch of new editions to be used at the start of 2016 when the project launches.