All our concerts are unique sequences of words and sung music. Below are described the programmes which are being performed during 2008-9, followed by a historical list of sequences over the last 20 years. SEA PSALM 20-minute commission from Sally Beamish, new pieces by David Bednall and Sasha Johnson Manning, with works by Judith Bingham, spirituals, folk, chant, and music sung in Cornwall at Lifeboat and Fishing services. An integrated narrative text is drawn from a diary kept by deckhand George Quinn when working on the trawler Crimond out of Penzance and Newlyn in the early 1990s. linked with elements of the story of St Peter as fisherman; a lament from Synge’s Riders to the Sea, and an survivor’s account of the sinking of HMS Duchess off the Mull of Kyntyre in 1939. more
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS & THE GOLDEN AGE OF ENGLISH FOLK SONG COLLECTING - The Seeds of Love Folk-song arrangements by Vaughan Williams, and by Butterworth, Sharp, and Grainger, together with diaries, letters, and writings, evoke the wonder and excitement of these early twentieth-century collectors. This was an influential moment in English music. The story depicts their search of the countryside for singers of ‘genuine’ folk-song, with amusing and moving anecdotes of countrymen and women, of bicycles, notebooks, and phonographs. This most popular programme commences at the formation of the English Folk-Song Society in 1898 and ends with the death of Cecil Sharp in 1924.
THE ANGELS' SONG celebrates angels as invisible companions and guardians, as spiritual warriors, as muses of creativity and as messengers, heralds, warriors and healers of God. Music by Howard Skempton, Patrick Larley, Palestrina, Russian Orthodox chant, and a text from Spencer, Suso, Eliot, Traherne, Alcuin.
MEDIAEVAL CAROLS Fifteenth century English mediaeval carols with liturgical music by Josquin, Machault, and Cornysh. Narration from the Wakefield Mystery Plays.
FIGGY PUDDING Our celebrated Christmas Concert of traditional carols, songs, music hall, and stories. A rich variety of both unusual and well-known music together with poems and narratives from Hardy, Dickens, Herrick and Kipling make up a splendid Christmas entertainment, which concludes with a set of haunting arrangements of folk carols by Vaughan Williams.
PERFORMING GREGORIAN CHANT A lecture-recital on Gregorian Chant by John Rowlands-Pritchard and Opus Anglicanum, including some audience participation! Chant of the Western Christian church is our earliest significant body of music. The recital demonstrates different performance styles from the 9th c. onwards, and in addition how composers used the chant, decorating it with polyphony for special occasions. There is chant from 9th c. St Gall, the 13th c. Worcester Antiphoner as well as music by Perotin and the 11th c. Winchester cantor Wulfstan, and later chant-based music by Tallis and others. The audience has the chance to participate in Royal Acclamations first performed in Anglo-Saxon Worcester, in Christmas processional music from Salisbury, and in a concluding recitation of a short monastic Office.
HISTORICAL LIST OF PROGRAMMES
2007 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 2004 THE ISLAND BATTLES & BORDERS 2003 THE JOURNEY FISHERMAN PETER (St Peter in Chains) 2002 GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND 2001 THE SONG OF SONGS A reading (version 2) FIGGY PUDDING 2000 ANGELS & ARCHANGELS BEDE 1999 MOTHER OF LIFE, a meditation GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT Mediaeval midwinter 1998 THREE MEDITATIONS OF MOTHER JULIAN OF NORWICH THE PILGRIMS WAY The voyage of the soul THE PSALMS, Chant, Byrd, Lassus, Tallis THREE MEN IN A BOAT, Jerome K Jerome’s narrative 1996 REQUIEM FOR ST EDMUND OF ABINGDON The life 1995 PORTRAIT OF A MEDIAEVAL CATHEDRAL THE GARDEN: An anthology OUR WASSAIL BOWL, A Christmas Party 1994 THE SONG OF SONGS, (version 1) Palestrina, Hidegard of Bingen OFFICIUM PEREGRINORUM, liturgical drama the Pilgrims 1993 THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS, Chaucer’s Prologue 1992 VISITATIO SEPULCHRI, Liturgical drama THE SEEDS OF LOVE Collecting English Folksong OFFICIUM PASTORUM, Liturgical drama for Christmas 1991 CLAD ALL IN GLADNESS 1990 AN ENGLISH MANOR HOUSE 1989 THE TREE: A meditation in words and music THE MERRIE TALES OF SKELTON: Tudor Laureate ALL CREATION REJOICING: MEDIAEVAL CAROLS (revised annually)
