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.

Cardoso450 project

The complete works of Frei Manuel Cardoso have now been procured, allowing planning for the Choir’s enormous Cardoso450 project to begin in earnest. Cardoso’s works will be presented alongside those of his contemporaries, composers from the ‘golden age’ of Portuguese polyphony. Running throughout 2016 and 2017, the project is – to our knowledge – the largest and most wide-ranging celebration of Cardoso’s music in the world. Details of works and performance dates will be available soon.

World premiere in October

To mark the close of the year-long celebration of the 500th anniversary of the birth of St Teresa of Avila – for which the Choir sang at the Opening Mass, the Choir will be giving the world premiere of Colin Mawby’s O doctor optima in the presence of the composer at the 6.00pm sung Mass on October 15th. The work has been generously commissioned by former parishoner John Hughes.

Q3 music list published

The music for July-September has now been published. Lots of wonderful music and lots of new editions to be made. Highlights include music by Giovanni Paolo Cima, a contemporary of Monteverdi, performed with instruments (gamba, theorbo and harpsichord), and a performance of Robert Carver’s 10-part Missa Dum sacra mysterium, written when the Scottish monk and composer was just 23 years old.