Premier British early music choral ensemble
Peter Phillips, conductor
{$30 General | $25 Senior 60+ | $5 Student}
Program
Robert White: Lamentations II
Robert White: Exaudiat te
Thomas Tallis: Lamentations II
Intermission
Robert Parsons: O bone Jesu
Robert Parsons: Ave Maria
Robert White: Regina caeli
William Byrd: All Saints Propers
Gaudeamus omnes
Timete Dominum
Justorum animae
Beati mundo corde
The journey behind this program is a familiar one: from darkness into light. Or, to put it in a more Christian way, from penitence into joy. This is an emotional journey, often associated with Lent and Easter, which has inspired some of the greatest sacred music ever written. Our first half is largely devoted to the mood of Lent, nowhere more beautifully captured than in the two English settings of the Lamentations, by White and Tallis. Both composers are masters at alternating the traditional words of lament with the greater reflection provided by the Hebrew letters, which punctuate the main text.
In the second half we join in worship of Jesus and Mary as they fulfill the Easter prophecy and lead us to heaven through the Saints: Jesus in Parsons's magnificent setting of O bone Jesu; Mary in the Ave Maria and Regina caeli settings. The message of these pieces is then summed up in the complete cycle of Byrd's Propers for All Saints - four motets which take us to stand, with the Saints, before God, who is the origin of light. The beautiful music of Justorum animae - one of Byrd's most performed motets - assures the righteous of their place in heaven, while the final Beati mundo corde affirms that the clean of heart 'shall see God'.
- Peter Phillips
The Tallis Scholars were founded in 1973 by their director, Peter Phillips. Through their recordings and concert performances, they have established themselves as the leading exponents of Renaissance sacred music throughout the world. Peter Phillips has worked with the ensemble to create the purity and clarity of sound which he feels best serves the Renaissance repertoire. It is the resulting beauty of sound for which The Tallis Scholars have become so widely renowned.
The Tallis Scholars perform in both sacred and secular venues, giving around 80 concerts each year. In 2013 the group celebrated their 40th anniversary with a World Tour, and now look ahead to their 50th anniversary in 2023. As of the beginning of the cancellations caused by the COVID-19 crisis, the Tallis Scholars had made 2,327 appearances, worldwide.
2022/23 season highlights include performances in Australia, New York and Boston, Amsterdam, Zurich, Paris, tours of Italy, a number of appearances in London as well as their usual touring schedule around the USA, Europe and the UK. In a monumental project to mark Josquin des Prez’ 500th anniversary celebrations The Tallis Scholars sang all eighteen of the composer’s masses over the course of 4 days at the Boulez Saal in Berlin in July 2022.
Recordings by The Tallis Scholars have attracted many awards throughout the world. The latest recording of Josquin masses including Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie was released in November 2020 and was winner of the BBC Music Magazine’s much coveted Recording of the Year Award in 2021 and the 2021 Gramophone Early Music Award. This disc was the last of nine albums in The Tallis Scholars' project to record and release all Josquin's masses before the 500th anniversary of the composer’s death in 2021.
Peter Phillips has dedicated his career to the research and performance of Renaissance polyphony, and to the perfecting of choral sound. He founded The Tallis Scholars in 1973, with whom he has now appeared in over 2,300 concerts and made over 60 discs, world-wide. As a result of this commitment Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars have done more than any other group to establish the sacred vocal music of the Renaissance as one of the great repertoires of Western classical music.
Peter Phillips also conducts other specialist ensembles. He is currently working with the BBC Singers, the Netherlands Chamber Choir, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Intrada (Moscow) and El Leon de Oro (Spain). He is Patron of the Chapel Choir of Merton College Oxford.
In addition to conducting, Peter Phillips is well-known as a writer. For 33 years he contributed a regular music column to The Spectator. In 1995 he became the publisher of The Musical Times, the oldest continuously published music journal in the world. His first book, English Sacred Music 1549-1649, was published by Gimell in 1991, while his second, What We Really Do, appeared in 2013. During 2018, BBC Radio 3 broadcast his view of Renaissance polyphony, in a series of six hour-long programmes, entitled The Glory of Polyphony.
In 2005 Peter Phillips was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture. In 2008 Peter helped to found the chapel choir of Merton College Oxford, where he is a Bodley Fellow; and in 2021 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford.