Chapelle du Roi is a mixed group of 10 young professional singers who have been working together for the past 4 years. They are directed by Alistair Dixon.
Having performed the Complete Works over a series of concerts in London to critical acclaim they are embarking on a complete recording the same Works of Thomas Tallis. They plan to record the series of 9 CDs over three years.
... the simplicities of Archbishop Parker's psalter tunes were delivered to stunning effect .... the flow of Tallis's music was counterbalanced by some of the best singing of plainsong I have ever heard. Shane Fletcher in Early Music Review
Chapelle du Roi will be an unfamiliar name to many people, but the quality of this disc will surely put these talented performers on the musical map. Kate Bolton in BBC Music Magazine
When you hear such natural unaffected music-making ...you realise that Chapelle du Roi is an ensemble finely honed and responsive, with vitalising clarity and diction and texture. Geoffrey Norris in The Daily Telegraph (arts and books)
They are also offering a subscription service:
The subscription of £36 UK gives you:
They are also pleased to offer copies of the first three CDs at a bargain price of £10.00 each to new subscribers provided that they are bought at the time the subscription is taken out. This offer is limited to one set per subscriber. Postage at cost will have to be added for subscribers living overseas.
Individual discs are also available but without the bonus items and postage will be charged for overseas orders.
The repertoire for the first three discs is as follows:
This disc, the first in the series, consists of music from the 1530s, written by the young Thomas Tallis when he was still in his early posts at Dover Priory and St Mary at Hill in London. In addition to the three votive antiphons, Ave Dei patris, Ave rosa and Salve Intemerata Tallis wrote a glorious parody mass setting based on the last of these - the mass Salve Intemerata. Also included are two small pieces which are settings of propers from the Lady mass; Alleluia: Ora pro nobis and Euge celi porta are both are delightful miniatures which are hardly known and which deserve wider exposure.
As the 1540s developed, the Reformation began to take hold and the style of music required from composers such as Tallis altered radically. The large-scale melismatic votive antiphons (for example those on disc 1) were no longer required; the emphasis moved away from Marian devotion to a more syllabic and compact style and, eventually, to settings of English rather than Latin texts. Disc 2 traces this development from the Jesus antiphon Sancte Deus, to the Mass for four voices, the three early English anthems including If ye love me, the Te Deum for meanes and the Elizabethan Magnificat and Nunc dimittis.
By 1549 it seemed that the Reformation was complete, but the political, economic and religious unrest in the Edwardine years meant that England was ready for a change and the death of Edward in 1553 made way for Queen Mary and the Catholic revival.
Disc 3 presents music from the reign of Queen Mary and includes the sumptuous mass in seven parts Puer natus est nobis, which may have been written to celebrate the supposed pregnancy of Mary in 1554. It has also been suggested that the motet Suscipae Quaeso, similarly for seven voices, was written in the same year for Cardinal Pole's absolution of England from protestant heresy. Certainly it seems likely that the giant votive antiphon Gaude gloriosa was written as an act of flattery to Mary on her accession to the throne."
The subscription service is being run by Lindum Records
e-mail - lindum@aldhund.demon.co.uk
Tel/Fax +44 (0)1522 527530
Credit cards are accepted.
Individual discs can be supplied at 12 UK pounds (plus overseas postage).
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