Evening Canticles from the Second Service

ISBN-13: 9780193953819 / Angielski / Other / 2004

Opis

Intended for SATB unaccompanied, these settings are part of the series titled "Chapel Royal Canticles".

Recenzje

Magnus Williamson's excellent new editions of two particulary lovely Elizabethan settings of the Evening Canticles are welcome for myriad reasons, not least because he has selected a pitch one tone higher than the original, rather than the now 'old hat' minor third. Many choristers will appreciate this more pure look to the score, while some may be challenged by the lower range of the alto parts, and the resulting slightly darker sonority invites the choirmaster to explore a wider spectrum of interpretational colour. The practicality of these editions is admirable: both scores are lavishly laid out, easy to read and carefully thought through from the performers' point of view.

O autorze

John Sheppard (c.1515-c.1558) was an English composer, much of whose life is unknown. His birth date is estimated from Sheppard's own claim in 1554 that he had been composing for twenty years. Much of Sheppard's music has been lost, with his works mostly surviving in two partbooks at Christ Church, Oxford, copied in the 1570s. Sheppard's life spanned a turbulent period in England's political and religious history: his Latin compositions are datable from their style to the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary; his much smaller English output was likely composed during the reign of the Protestant King Edward VI, though his famous Second Service may date from the very start of Elizabeth I's reign. Sheppard is buried at St Margaret's Church, Westminster.