by Tim Ault | 18 February 2024 | Uncategorized
Tallis’s monumental setting of Gaude Gloriosa Mater Dei (Rejoice O glorious Mother of God) used to be thought to date from Queen Mary’s reign (1553 – 1558). Recent discoveries suggest it was probably written late in the reign of Henry VIII in the...
by Tim Ault | 18 October 2023 | Uncategorized
Sacred and Profane – Works by Britten and MacMillan – Saturday 21 October 2023 – Exeter College Chapel, Oxford Britten wrote his setting of ‘The Ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard’ in late 1943 to be performed by British...
by Tim Ault | 23 June 2023 | Uncategorized
Vivaldi’s Gloria received its first performance in modern times in September 1939 in Siena, Italy. After Vivaldi’s death in 1741 the work had been forgotten for 200 years. The performance took place as part of the first “Settimana Musicale Senese” (“Sienese musical...
by Tim Ault | 26 February 2023 | Uncategorized
We’re looking forward to performing three psalm settings by Felix Mendelssohn at our concert on 4 March 2023. This note gives some of the background as to how these pieces came to be written. In 1840 a new king came to the throne of Prussia … (At the time,...
