The Tallis Scholars
I attended two concerts last week, on Thursday at St David’s Hall I saw a performance by the Tallis Scholars with Cardiff Metropolitan Cathedral Choir and on Friday at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, a performance by a jazz ensemble lead by pianist Dave Stapleton, which also featured the Brodowski String Quartet.
The Tallis Scholar’s programme featured works by English renaissance composers Thomas Tallis (c1505-1585), William Byrd (1543-1623) and John Sheppard (1515-1558). The main work, performed at the beginning and end of the programme was Tallis’s 40-part Spem in Alium, in conjunction with The Cardiff Metropolitan Cathedral Choir. This is an amazing work with sections of the choir, Tallis divided the choir into eight sections of five, joining in one part at the time, with different material for the first twenty voices from the material used by the second twenty voices.
The work comes to a climax in the middle section and towards the end of the work when all forty parts are heard in harmony. Each section joins in a canonical manner, with the material then sung in inversion. This is my first live experience of this type of music and it was an amazing piece of music.
The programme continued with Loquebantur Variis Linguis sung by members of the Tallis Scholars lead by Peter Philips. Different combinations of the Scholars were used for various works according to the combination of voices the works were written for. The next work, also by Tallis was the only English text, all the other works being set to Latin texts. Nine Tunes for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter, reflected Tallis’s servitude to the new Anglican faith, despite his own Roman Catholic beliefs. Part of this work was the basis for Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme from Thomas Tallis.
The next work was the first non-Tallis composition of the night, with John Sheppard’s In Manus Tuas III. This work was a little different from the other works featured on this programme with a softer texture and dynamic, and was quite different from the other work featured by Sheppard. The first half was concluded by a work from Tallis’s collaborator, colleague in the Royal Chapel, and probably pupil, William Byrd’s Tribune Domine.
Following the interval the Tallis Scholars continued in varied formats with Byrd’s Laudibus in Sanctis, Sheppard’s eight-part work, Sacris Solemniis and completed the programme with three more works by Tallis, Lamentation I, Miscerere Nostri and finally the second performance of the wondrous Spem in Alium, once again with the full compliment joined by The Cardiff Metropolitan Cathedral Choir.
This was both an interesting and enjoyable concert and it was good to witness first hand the working’s of a choir in this field of early music, with a connection to impressionism through modal harmonies.
Dave Stapleton
On Friday, I attended a very interesting jazz concert featuring a Quartet lead by pianist Dave Stapleton coupled with the Brodowski String Quartet. The juxtaposition of the string quartet as a kind of soloist with the jazz quartet was very interesting and worked well. The quartet played the opening to some numbers, but not all, before the jazz members took over each playing solo passages, with the jazz part and string quartet part in harmony in other passages.
Saxophonist Marius Neset, played very well, with some great solos on both tenor and soprano saxophones, whilst drummer/percussionist Olavi Louhivuori also played with passion, varying the role of the traditional jazz drummer with some moments of orchestral style percussion, including using a small tam-tam (this is my definition, and it may have been another, similar instrument), which at one stage ended up being dropped on the floor and sliding a few yards during one frenetic passage. I’m not sure if this was planned or was an accident, but it worked anyway.
The highlight for me was their final number, which opened with a good cello solo, followed by the other parts of the string quartet before the jazzmen took over with bassist, Dave Kane having the first solo followed by Marius Neset on tenor building up to a high tempo bebop style passage with all of the quartet trading solos before the piece being bought back down to a level pace as the quartet once again joined. I didn’t have details of the names of the pieces performed, but may listen to the broadcast of this concert on Radio Three’s Jazz on Three, on May 21st.
One thing of note concerning my studying from this concert was a lady in front of me who took notes throughout. I have always felt shy about taking notes during a performance and usually write my reviews from memory, but in future I might take a notebook and try and write a few notes during a performance, or at least during the interval. I do always regret that I cannot remember all the details I would like to when I come to write my entry in this log.
Bibliography
Black, David; Gerou, Tom (1998). Essential Dictionary of Orchestration. USA: Alfred Publishing Company.
Couglan, Alexandra (2012), The Tallis Scholars programme notes. Cardiff: St Davids Hall.
Kennedy, Michael & Joyce Bourne (Ed.)(2007). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, 5th edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.