Programme Highlights
J. Taverner: Leroy Kyrie
T. Tallis: Suscipe quaeso
W. Byrd: Tribue, Domine
T. Tomkins: Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom
H. Purcell: O God, thou art my God
Conductor: Peter Phillips
Over four decades of performance and a catalogue of award-winning recordings for Gimell, Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars have done more than any other group to establish sacred vocal music of the Renaissance as one of the great repertoires of Western classical music.
The concert programme is dedicated to English sacred music, written for unaccompanied voices roughly in the hundred years between 1550 and 1650. It has been put together as a chronological survey, starting with Taverner, moving through all the great masters of the renaissance, including Tallis and Byrd, and ending with Purcell.
In this format one can hear how early baroque master Purcell built on the achievements of his renaissance predecessors. Much of the music in the first half of the concert was written for the Catholic church, with Latin words, whereas the remaining for the reformed Anglican church, with English words. Purcell brought the two traditions together – English words, but the kind of part-writing (or polyphony) which he had learnt from Byrd and Tomkins. It is a pleasure to stop and focus on this golden age of English polyphony.
Duration: Approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes, no interval
Performed in Latin and English, with subtitles in Chinese and English
FIMM-tastic Music and Movie Night On Big Screen: English Renaissance Polyphony – a survey