Exeter Summer Festival, Magnificats and Misereres: The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips (conductor) Exeter Cathedral, 20.6.2007 (BK)

and

Värttinä in Concert: Corn Exchange Theatre, Exeter 21.6.2007

The Tallis Scholars - Photo © Richard Haughton

Palestrina: Magnificat for Double Choir
Appleby: Magnificat
Byrd: Miserere mei
Tallis: Miserere nostri
Allegri: Miserere

Gombert: Magnificat III
Josquin: Miserere mei
H. Praetorius: Magnificat II
 

Exeter Cathedral's West Front

Not long back from  a strenuous tour of Japan, Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars provided Exeter Summer Festival's  traditional early music concert this year, following on from Harry Christophers and The Sixteen in 2006. The event is always well attended and takes place in Exeter's magnificent Cathedral Church of St. Peter.

The contrasts with last year were considerable, not only in terms of performance style but also in terms of  weather. But after 34 years of leading the field in Renaissance choral singing it takes a lot more  than  rain to put  dampeners on the Tallis Scholars. Renowned for their purity of tone, careful blending  between voice parts and accurate tuning, the group gave a concert consisting entirely of settings of the  Magnificat  -the 'Song of Mary' from St. Luke's gospel  and part of the daily evening service in the Anglican tradition -  and settings of Psalm 51 (Miserere mei, Deus) which is central to the Holy Week services immediately before Easter. All were from the Scholars' hallmark repertoire of 16th century a capella settings for single or double choir.

There is simply no denying Peter Phillips' mastery of this field. Everything he does is the result of careful scholarship and equally careful attention to detail in selecting singers whose voices blend consummately well together. The result was  that while four Magnificats and another four Misereres might seem risky programming, in fact the music revealed a great deal of  variety and it  sustained rapt attention from the audience throughout the whole concert. The inclusion of three relatively unfamiliar composers was a particular masterstroke, based on Peter Phillips' extensive researches  into the vocal music of the period. Those present  who were unfamiliar with music by Appleby, Gombert or  Hieronymus Praetorius (no relation to his contemporary Michael Praetorius, though the two are recorded as having met apparently) would  have been  encouraged to seek out more music by all of them.

If there are  minor criticisms to be made, they are  that the Palestrina Magnificat -  the first item in the concert - got off to a slightly shaky start with some extremely untypical lapses in ensemble and balance. Similarly, using the Cathedral's entire length for the Allegri Miserere (main choir in front of the Screen, men singing the plainchant behind the audience by the West door and the quartet of soloists far away at the east end of the nave) was probably an error, resulting in a slightly disjointed reading of this familiar work. Apart from these small  carps though, this engaging concert was yet another proof -if any were needed -  of the group's sustained and continuing pre-eminence in 16th century unaccompanied choral singing.

And now for something really 'completely different.' Anyone po-faced enough to  turn a nose up at  folk - rock,  should be forced to see Värttinä in concert, even travelling to Finland if need be and especially on a Midsummer's Eve. They're loud, they're raucous and  they're incomprehensible  (even to competent foreign Finnish speakers,  I gather) but my goodness don't  they just make music. For  a breakneck ninety minutes Värttinä enthralled their audience with some of the most  virtuosic playing and singing it has ever been my good fortune to hear. There were nine of them, six male instrumentalists and three women singing,  sometimes unaccompanied. Imagine Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares joining  Steeleye Span  and Pink Floyd for a start - and then send them to the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki for  seven or (maybe) eight years. Might  be good, do you think? Well, it was.

Bill Kenny