Masters of the early keyboard meet: the young virtuosos of Tasto Solo immersed themselves into the repertoire of Hugh Ashton, William Cornysh and colleague virginalists, emerging with musical surprises of great quality.
Although Queen Elizabeth was not a virtuoso (“not ignorant nor excellent”, as one of her courtiers put it), even so she proved her mettle dancing and playing the lute, the Polyphant and the keyboard. “I might hear the Queen play on the Virginals … I entered within the Chamber, and stood a pretty space hearing her play excellently well”, ambassador Melville recalled in 1564, having caught Elizabeth I unawares behind her beloved virginal. Admittedly a connection between the ‘Virgin Queen’ and the term’virginal’ has never been proven, but all the same there is no doubt that keyboard music held pride of place in the musical landscape of early Renaissance England.
The young Spaniards of Tasto Solo have already shown several times that knowledge of sources and period instruments can be hand in glove with technical virtuosity and an outspoken interpretation. As always Guillermo Pérez combines the best works from the oeuvre of the most iconic keyboard composers with pearls from lesser known gods. For this festival edition he got steeped in the compositions of Hugh Ashton and William Cornysh, whose instrumental music has been passed down to us only in small quantities, but nevertheless shows great artistic daring and innovative vision, far ahead of continental music practice.
 

Philippe Pierlot and Carlos Mena concurrently on the same stage? Artistic sparks and musical top-notch performances guaranteed! On the music stand: The Tears and Lamentations of a Sorrowful Soul, a collection of songs by William Byrd, Thomas Weelkes and other luminaries of Elizabeth’s Chapel Royal.
Sir William Leighton is one of those protagonists of Elizabethan music life to whom history has not been kind, despite the fact that his volume of semi-religious poems The Tears and Lamentations of a Sorrowful Soul met with great acclaim when it was published in 1612/1613.  
The following year a collection of 55 musical settings of these texts appeared, authored by 21 composers: Leighton himself, William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, John Dowland – in short: the cream of the crop of the contemporary music scene. The design of the score is similar to the format of Dowland’s lute songs: it is a table-book, the opened pages presenting themselves to be read and performed by a company of musicians gathered around the table. The music belongs to the same family as the consort lessons and consort songs, now demanding rich instrumental colours, then again a transparent a cappella execution. With a key role for the male alto the Ricercar Consort invited for this repertoire Carlos Mena – the Spanish countertenor who has already proven  how perfectly he fits into the acoustics of St Augustine’s church.
 

Paul Van Nevel and his Huelgas Ensemble have taken out a patent on nocturnal performances at St Paul’s church with plenty of moments that give you goose flesh. A must in the 2013 festival edition: their interpretation of the lamentations of Robert White and Alfonso Ferrabosco!
Holy Week has from times immemorial been one of the pillars of the catholic liturgical year. And for ages this period of mourning, meditation and hopeful looking for redemption has been connected to suitable music – often in the form of lamentations, quoting the words of the unsettled prophet Jeremiah. In the Elizabethan repertoire too, many examples can be found, e.g. in the oeuvre of Robert White and Alfonso Ferrabosco.
Robert White, once choirmaster at Westminster Abbey, left behind after his death in 1574 an oeuvre in which two series of lamentations reach a peak: they are generally considered crown jewels of Elizabethan choral music. Alfonso Ferrabosco, an Italian composer who managed to become Elizabeth’s musical confidant, four times set texts of Jeremiah’s lamentation to music. Huelgas Ensemble, with its crystal-clear sound and its articulate vision, is the guide of choice throughout this repertoire, in a nocturnal performance that will undoubtedly get under your skin in this festival edition as well.
 

Elizabeth’s favourite composers and their best works for purposes of diversion and consolation of the spirit: this was the focus chosen by Owen Rees and the singers of Contrapunctus for their evocation of the Chapel Royal.
The English monarch was in a position to call on the Chapel Royal for the organisation and execution of church services: a well-oiled machinery of clerics and musicians who lined up whenever the liturgical calendar or the monarch needed their good offices. This court chapel, though primarily inspired by religion, reached under Elizabeth I an indisputable peak of excellence: composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Mundy, Robert White and William Byrd provided the foundation for the Golden Age that music at Elizabeth’s court was heading for.
The Chapel Royal was not only in charge of the divine services that were attended by the monarch, but also of the musical performances during journeys and longer residences away from the court. Under Elizabeth de court flourished in an unprecedented way: never before was the choir so large and outstanding, an evolution that was also due to the generous increments for singers and musicians. Practically every important composer of religious music from the Renaissance belonged at one point or another to Elizabeth’s Chapel. With a selection from the oeuvre of her favourites the choristers of Contrapunctus pay the ultimate homage to the exquisite taste and the unerring musical judgment of the Queen.
 

Which musical traditions were inherited by Elizabeth I upon her accession in 1558? Psallentes decided to oblige you by finding this out! With Gregorian repertoire and polyphonic compositions by John Sheppard and John Taverner they sketch the musical canvas of early Renaissance England.
With their long-standing expertise in Gregorian repertoires, both native and foreign, Psallentes is the best guide for an impression of the monodic liturgical music that was passed down to Elizabethan England by previous generations. However, where monodic melodies are being stacked, there is also polyphony. Therefore Psallentes immersed itself in early sixteenth-century polyphonic settings of religious/liturgical texts as well.
John Sheppard spent formative years at Magdalen College, Oxford, but graduated to a position at the royal chapel of Edward VI and Elizabeth I, dying in the year of her accession to the throne. He mostly composed religious music in English and Latin: a strong repertoire in terms of quality, showing evidence of the favourable artistic base that was already there at the eve of the musical  boom under Elizabeth I. John Taverner is the senior in the company: his royal connections belonged to reign of Henry VIII, when he broadened the religious repertoire: with Taverner’s settings of diverse liturgical texts he founded a tradition as the enabling condition for Sheppard and the Tallis generation to reach rarefied summits.  A unique mix of the English ‘florid style’ and continental influences, between tradition and innovation, but always and foremost exceedingly refined.