The Cambridge Taverner Choir

It's just a month to go now until the second of our Gabrieli concerts, From Venice to Dresden, on Sunday 18th March, performed by the Cambridge Taverner Choir with a fabulous group of Baroque instrumentalists.

The choir recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, with a concert in the Cambridge Summer Festival. The picture shows the them rehearsing for a performance of Monteverdi's Vespers, in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 2008. Thanks to the devoted librarianship of its Secretary, every performance the choir has given can be reviewed online in the choir archive.

A founding principle of the Cambridge Taverner Choir has been to apply academic rigour and historical context to all performances. The very first concert took place in Tattershall church in Lincolnshire, and featured a reconstruction of a complete mass with the Missa Gloria Tibi Trinitas by John Taverner, who was a member of the college at Tattershall in the early sixteenth century.

The choir's director, Dr Owen Rees, is now Fellow and Director of Music at The Queen’s College, Oxford.  Together, he and the choir have released four recordings. A further CD, of music by Monteverdi, will come out later this year.

Gabrieli in the snow

The first flakes of the promised snow fell as the choir and instrumentalists made their way into church for last night's concert. Thankfully, not too many people seemed to have opted to stay at home, and the church was full with an expectant and enthusiastic audience!

Many thanks to Charles Vignoles, the Temenos Chamber Choir, and the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble for a vigorous and joyful rendition of one, two, three and four-choir motets, madrigals and instrumental canzonas to celebrate Gabrieli. The choir has many years' experience of singing early music, which was evident in the confidence and intelligence of their performance.

In the slightly dated copies of one of the motets, the editor Denis Stevens, writing in 1970, noted that "problems of balance inevitably occur when modern brass instruments are substituted for the composer's cornetti and trombones, which in his day and age had a relatively soft and soothing tone". Thankfully, nowadays it is not necessary to follow Stevens' recommendation of deploying oboes instead! The English Sackbut and Cornett Ensemble are one of the country's foremost exponents of early Baroque music, and they brought with them a full band - cornetts, a 'lizard' (a longer, alto cornett, so called because of its double-curved shape), alto, tenor and bass sackbuts (trombones), violin and viola, curtal (a precursor to the bassoon) and organ, which was played magnificently by Duncan Aspden.

An ensemble of much the same instruments will be present for the second of our Gabrieli concerts, on 18 March, From Venice to Dresden. They will accompany the Cambridge Taverner Choir in music by Gabrieli and Schütz. If you attended or missed the first concert, we are delighted to offer you a second chance to be immersed in the music of this glorious period. Discounts are available for early booking.

Gabrieli 400

The 400th anniversary of the death of Giovanni Gabrieli falls in 2012, and we are hosting two concerts in celebration.

Celebrating Gabrieli on Saturday 4th February
From Venice to Dresden on Sunday 18th March

As organist at St Mark's Basilica in Venice, Gabrieli had at his disposal vocal and instrumental resources on a grand scale. This was, after all, one of the richest churches in Christendom, and significant feast days were an opportunity for a great deal of civic celebration and ostentation.

Much of Gabrieli's music makes use of cori spezzati (spaced choirs), and it's likely that groups of performers were sometimes placed some distance apart. At King Charles church we can reflect this practice, albeit dimly, with the use of the opposing galleries.

On the other hand, cornetts and sackbuts were particularly favoured for sacred music at the time because of their ability to blend with the human voice, and they would certainly have been used in amongst the choir, doubling or replacing vocal lines depending on the music or on the availability of singers. So a homegeneous and blended sound would have been prized just as much as the drama of antiphony.

In February's concert, there's a rare chance to hear live one of Gabrieli's most famous motets, the 15-part In Ecclesiis. We hope to see you there!
 

From Venice to Dresden

From Venice to Dresden; Masterworks of the Colossal Baroque

Music by Giovanni Gabrieli and Heinrich Schütz

Cambridge Taverner Choir, directed by Owen Rees

Sunday 18th March, 7:30pm

In 1609-12 the young Heinrich Schütz stayed in Venice to study with one of Europe's most famous musicians, Giovanni Gabrieli, and to learn the modern Italian styles of composition with him. Schütz went on to become the principal composer of sacred music in these expressive Baroque styles in northern Europe.

For this concert, the choir will be joined by I Musici Della Contessa, a small instrumental ensemble comprising cornetts, sackbuts and continuo.

Tickets: £12 (£10 if booked in advance)

available from Hall's Bookshop, Chapel Place (from February)

or email kcmconcerts@blueyonder.co.uk

Celebrating Gabrieli

The English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, and the Temenos Chamber Choir, directed by Charles Vignoles

Saturday 4th February 2012, 7:30pm

G Gabrieli: O magnum mysterium

G Gabrieli: Omnes gentes, plaudite manibus

G Gabrieli: Domine exaudi orationem meam

G Gabrieli: In ecclesiis

A Gabrieli: Magnificat for three choirs

A Willaert: Quasi unus de paradisi

with canzonas and madrigals

Tickets: £12.50 (£6 students) available from Hall's Bookshop, Chapel Place, Tunbridge Wells

or Sevenoaks Bookshop, High St, Sevenoaks
or on the door
or telephone 01959 522302

Further details from 01732 810063 or www.temenos-chamberchoir.org.uk

Welcome to Music at King Charles

 

With its oak galleries, famous plaster ceiling, modest proportions and clear acoustic, the parish church of King Charles the Martyr provides the perfect venue for chamber music.

For many years, the church has hosted high quality concerts, and, thanks to the continuing support of the present vicar and PCC, in recent years we have welcomed international musicians of the highest calibre, including Richard Egarr, Raphael Wallfisch, Steven Devine, Cantabile and Ken Aiso.

I have been running the series since 2005, and it has been a pleasure to explore the chamber music repertoire in particular. High points for me have included several performances by the Aiso Quartet, a concert by the Barbirolli Quartet early in their now blossoming career, and a superb evening with the entire cello section of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

We host concerts for other organisations such as TWIYCA (Tunbridge Wells International Young Concert Artists), the John Kerr Award for English Song, and our friends at the Tunbridge Wells International Music Festival.

We also do our best to encourage local performers, including those in our parish, and especially the young. We have started to hold an annual Young Performers' Showcase concert each Autumn, which celebrates the amazing talent of students in the area, and is an invaluable opportunity for young people thinking of music as a career to gain some genuine performance practice.

If you live in or near to Tunbridge Wells, then I hope you will take an opportunity to visit the church, which is a rare and beautiful building, and come to our concerts. I think you will come away understanding why every performer who sings or plays here finds it a rewarding and happy experience.

Rupert Preston Bell, Director of Music, King Charles the Martyr