Darkness to Light

A very special joint presentation with Christ Church Cathedral, featuring the pre-eminent interpreters of Renaissance polyphony on their triumphant 50^th Anniversary Tour.

The journey behind this program is an obvious one at this time of year. We proceed from the darkness associated with Lent to the hope and joy which is Easter in the Christian calendar. We start with the mood of Lent, beautifully captured in these two English settings of the Lamentations (White and Tallis), with their intense settings of the traditional words of complaint, offset by the greater reflection provided by the Hebrew letters which punctuate the text (Caph, Lamed and Mem in the White).

In the second half of the concert we join in worship of Jesus and Mary as they fulfill the Easter prophecy: Jesus in Parsons’s magnificent setting of O bone Jesu; Mary in the Ave Maria and Regina caeli settings. The message of these pieces is then summed up in the complete cycle of Byrd’s Propers for Easter Day – five motets which take us through the drama of the Crucifixion. Listen out for the fourth one, where in no more than a minute Byrd describes in music the shaking of the earth when Christ died – Terra tremuit.
– Peter Phillips

Program:

Robert White Lamentations II
Robert White Exaudiat te
Thomas Tallis Lamentations II

Intermission

Robert Parsons O bone Jesu
Robert Parsons Ave Maria
Robert White Regina caeli
William Byrd Easter Propers
Resurrexi
Haec dies
Victimae paschali
Terra tremuit
Pascha nostrum