The Renaissance Happened

If you were dedicated enough to read the earlier post 'Cats in January' about the Tallis Scholars Summer School and just can't wait to know more, rest assured that a week full of Renaissance a cappella really happened from 18-25 Jan at St John's College within the Sydney University, and read on ...

Let's start at the end: how many concerts have you given on 40 degree C days? Maybe that's why they built these traditional churches so heavily; it was cooler inside. The final show was pretty good from the inside looking out, and audience reports were glowing. What more can one ask?

Actually, a little peace and quiet during the week would be good, too, so you can really hear the ethereal tones of the beautiful people that surround you in full harmony.

Did we get it? Well no, just have a look at this construction site within the compound. Note that a stone's throw would reach the far side of the new accommodation block (ours next year?), the near side being just outside the window of my spartan 1960s style dormitory (seen in photographic evidence for artistic verisimilitude, as G and S would say). No need for an alarm clock, anyway.

Never mind - on with the workshop. Warm-ups every morning, starting often by lying on the floor, progressing to vocal exercises but finishing with weird and wonderful dances to strong beat. That's some sort of broad hint to sing in time during rehearsals, always a trick in polyphonic syncopated parts and rarely achieved to Peter Phillips's satisfaction. 

A sneaky smile at the final chord at the end of a long hard session is about as good as it gets. Then again, Peter has been doing this with notable success all round the world for decades, so he knows how it should be done. No Cats in January and we got a few nods and beams, so there. 

Here, Peter(dark shirt) rounds us up in St John's chapel for a three-hour workout on several pieces for the final concert, the White Lamentations in 5 parts; or Sancte Deus by Thomas Tallis in only 4 parts but quite a tricky little number I assure you. This year we concentrated on a theme of English composers of the Renaissance, although small groups were often heard going hard at Victoria, Schutz or Palestrina. Peter explains that one of the distinctions from the earlier era of Flemish music, together with different style of harmony, is that the English generally favoured a basic structure of five parts minimum, going up from there. 

People were left to arrange small ensembles during the afternoons. The small groups like the one shown here, singing in a circle for clarity and contact, had one or two voices per part. This is a lovely sound, demanding close connection with each other - and rather leaving nowhere to hide if you get it wrong. The Tallis Scholars themselves almost invariably sing with two voices per part, as you may have observed if you have heard them at one of their concerts. We were left to choose our own music from a substantial library and all performed on Friday night for each other - a sort of peer review, albeit before a friendly audience.

The tutors shown here (Peter, Jan Coxwell and Patrick Craig) each had a group as well. Patrick sings alto and countertenor, and gives the start notes (around 600 so far) at TS concerts. 

For family readers I now indulge in a short listing of the works and small groups in which I performed at the sharing session. Groups' names were definitely tongue-in-cheek - I rather liked Shutz first, thinks later - or conveying an inside joke, which I may or may not explain. The reader who judges such detail superfluous should skip the bullets, go direct to the foot of the page and start composing laudatory comments and arranging a world tour for us.

• The Quakers sang one of William Byrd's shortest but most dramatic pieces, Terra Tremuit. This piece in 5 parts conveys the quaking of the earth at some dramatic moment in the church lectionary.
• The AAAs without valium rolled out a masterful version of O Lord in thy wrath by Orlando (I bet he got stick in primary school) Gibbons
• Six out of Eight was in fact an octet - I'm still trying to work out whether I may have been one of the two miscreants or not but actually, I thought we pulled it off in full 101% style. We sang a piece by Giovanni Gabrieli (good English name that one) for double quartet called O magnum mysterium. Yes, it was a great mystery how we got there given the wobbles in the final rehearsal.
• Chorus Maximus (we kept adding singers to bolster the sound) knocked off Byrd's Miserere mihi Dominus; I don't think anyone noticed my bum notes.
• Finally, though many groups brought a tear to our eyes, JaEd à 12 was the pièce de résistance for me, a superb rendition of Tomas Luis de Victoria's 12-part Agnus Dei from the Missa Laetatus Sum. This is for three quartets, sometimes all voices ensemble, sometimes just four. 

Not a dry seat in the house, to be sure.