CORO The Sixteen Edition CORO The Sixteen Edition Other Sixteen Edition recordings available on CORO Music from the Weihnachts Oratorium Victoria Requiem 1605 `The King's Musick´ Christmas Oratorio J. S. Bach cor16017 corsacd16033 recorded in 2005 Russell, Wyn-Rogers, Priest, scholar and singer, Padmore, George this remarkable Spaniard epitomised the emotion "Superlative, and fervour of Renaissance demonstrating all Europe. Victoria's lavish The Sixteen's familiar Requiem of 1605 became virtues." his most famous and bbc music magazine revered work. Esther Allegri Miserere G. F. Handel - 2 CDs cor16019 & Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli, Stabat Mater Lotti: Crucifixus Russell, Argenta, cor16014 Chance, Randle, Padmore, George "Christophers draws brilliant performances from "...a new golden his singers, both technically age of Handel assured and vividly interpretation." impassioned." classical music the guardian (canada) The Sixteen THE VOICES OF To find out more about The Sixteen, concert tours, and to buy CDs, visit www.thesixteen.com cor16041 HARRY CHRISTOPHERS Cover picture © Queen’s Printer and Controller of HMSO, 2006. UK Government Art Collection Music has always played a major role in the day-to-day The King's Musick Rebuilding the royal music was one of life of the monarchy and the existence of a Chapel Royal Charles’s top priorities. At the end of the Civil War his father’s musicians had been dates back many centuries. However, originally, it was n 29 May 1660 all London turned out scattered to the four winds – some had not so much a building or buildings but an establishment. to witness a revolution – or rather sought employment with wealthy families in Musicians, both singers and instrumentalists, were there Othe reversing of one: the Restoration. the provinces, others had gone abroad – but to serve the spiritual needs of the sovereign. The diarist John Evelyn saw Prince Charles reassembling them now was for the most Stuart, son of the king who had been deposed part straightforward. There was, though, a and put to death by the Puritans eleven years major problem affecting the Chapel Royal, Our profuse thanks go to Her Majesty the Queen and previously, ride into London to claim the the choir of thirty-two men and twelve His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales for allowing us throne, boys who sang daily services in the king’s to perform in the Chapel Royal two years ago, thereby with a triumph of above two hundred thousand household. The men, like those in the Private sowing the seeds of this recording. The Chapel Royal’s horse and foot, brandishing their swords and Music, returned with alacrity to their duties long musical history has always interested me, but it was shouting with unexpressable joy; the ways and privileges, but the boys were a different matter: all their voices had, of course, broken this concert which rekindled my enthusiasm. strewed with flowers, the bells ringing, the streets hung with tapestry, fountains running in the intervening years, and the tradition with wine; the Mayor, aldermen and all the of chorister training had everywhere been I have taken as my starting point ‘Captain’ Henry Cooke. It was largely through his efforts companies in their liveries, chains of gold, destroyed by the Puritans’ ban on any church that the choir of the Chapel Royal was successfully re-formed at the Restoration in 1660. banners, lords and nobles, everybody clad in music more elaborate than hymns and psalms. Its presence as a bastion of musical excellence has ensured that the English choral tradition cloth of silver, gold and velvet; the windows The new royal choirmaster would face an uphill task. not only survived but excelled. Two of Cooke’s finest anthems, which have never been and balconies all set with ladies; trumpets, music and myriads of people flocking the streets The man whom Charles appointed to that recorded, have been unearthed and expertly edited by Bruce Wood; these have been set and ways as far as Rochester, so as they were post was Henry Cooke. We know next to alongside works by his pupils, Pelham Humfrey and John Blow, thus showing how they seven hours in passing the City, even from two nothing of his origins and early life save that, enhanced the reputation of the Chapel even further. in the afternoon till nine at night. in the words of that old gossip Anthony Wood, he was “bred up in the Chapel” of Charles I, Flaunting the pomp of royalty was a shrewd presumably as a chorister. But certainly he This recording is a testament to that musical excellence and to our many patrons, without move on Charles’s part, and he showed the scratched his name on a pane of glass in the whom this intriguing project would not have been possible. same grasp of its value as he set about restoring Jerusalem Chamber in Westminster Abbey, institutions of state which the Puritans had adding the date 1642. That may well have destroyed. Most notable among these was been when he joined the royalist forces in the royal household itself – once a centre the Civil War, quickly rising to the rank of of English cultural life, enriched by painting, captain, by which he was known even after poetry and drama, and of course music. returning to civilian life. Described on the 2 3 title-page of John Playford’s A Musical Banquet vacancies, he reinstated the ancient system feigned voices [falsettists], there not being one in 1660 Pepys even contrived somehow to of 1651 as being among the “excellent and able of the royal warrant – personally travelling lad, for all that time, capable of singing his infiltrate the chapel choir, and “did sing my masters” of the voice and viol in London, he on horseback around the English choral part readily”. part along with another [a duet in a verse was a bass singer specializing in the Italianate foundations, and conscripting their ablest There were also problems of a different anthem, presumably] before the King – and declamatory style, which was fashionable boys. His eye for talent was so formidable kind. Besides training the choirboys, Cooke with much ease”. (Such chutzpah would be in mid-century England, and which he that he rapidly assembled the most brilliant was responsible for their general musical unimaginable nowadays, but Pepys repeated would, after the Restoration, introduce to group of choristers ever to sing together in one education, including instrumental tuition, his coup a year later, this time with the choir the hitherto conservative Chapel Royal. He choir: of that first dozen boys, fully half were and for their boarding, feeding and clothing of Westminster Abbey.) He also knew Cooke was also skilled at accompanying himself destined for professional prominence, and two – but, like most of the employees of a king socially, dining with him on occasion in 1660 on the theorbo, doing so on one occasion in for eminence. who was permanently mired in financial and 1661, and noting after one convivial 1654 to entertain a party that included an Choral services in the royal chapel were embarrassment, he had great difficulty getting evening in a tavern that “without doubt, he appreciative John Evelyn. We next encounter restored in astonishingly short order. Samuel money out of the Treasury. In 1668, and hath the best manner of singing in the world”. him two years later, in company with other Pepys, that tireless observer of Restoration again two years later, he deliberately caused a A few years later, though, his enthusiasm for leading musicians, taking part in a series of England, noted in his diary on 8 July 1660 scandal, by keeping the boys from attending Cooke had cooled markedly, at least on the London stage shows which cunningly evaded that he had “heard very good music, the first the chapel because their clothes were in rags; personal level: “a vain coxcomb I perceive he the Puritan ban on theatre by being all-sung time that I remember ever to have heard the but despite indignant royal orders to the is, though he sings and composes so well”. (a possibility that had never occurred to organs and singing-men in surplices in my officials responsible, payments remained in The “anthem with symphonies between” the apparatchiks who drafted the repressive life”. A month or so later he reported “a brave arrears, and at his death Cooke was owed the which Pepys heard on 7 September 1662 must legislation) – and which, in the process, quite anthem of Captain Cooke’s, which he himself astonishing sum of over £1600 – more than have been one punctuated with interludes fortuitously, laid the foundations of English sung” (presumably a solo anthem, ending with twenty times the annual salary of a Gentleman on the organ, for a week later he describes opera. Cooke featured both as a singer and as a short passage for the full choir), and on 7 of the Chapel. “Captain Cooke’s new music; this the first one of several contributing composers. October “a poor dry sermon; but a very good Pepys, a frequent Sunday worshipper at day of having viols and other instruments At the Restoration the very first entry in anthem of Captain Cooke’s afterwards”. But Whitehall Chapel (from 1662 he even, as to play a symphony between every verse of the Lord Chamberlain’s records marks Cooke’s things did not always go so smoothly: the Clerk of the Privy Seal, had his own pew the anthem … and very fine it is”. In 17th- appointment as a singer in the King’s Private following Sunday the anthem was “ill sung, there) gives us numerous glimpses of Cooke century England the word “music” implied Music. He soon acquired further posts, which made the King laugh”. In the early at work: twice in one day on 18 May 1662 something specifically instrumental; what as a performer on the lute, and also – yet days that must have been an occupational – “an excellent anthem … brave music”; Pepys heard, however, was not viols, as he another of his skills – on the virginals. A hazard: according to one of Cooke’s on 7 September that year “a most excellent supposed, but a consort drawn from the royal month after the Restoration he was appointed colleagues, (who admittedly anthem with symphonies between, sung by band, the famous Twenty-Four Violins, which master of the boys in the Private Music, and had a disputatious streak, and may have been Captain Cooke”; and on 21 December 1663, included not only trebles (the instruments we those two or three lads probably formed a exaggerating), “a year after the opening of his after the service, “Captain Cooke and his two still term violins nowadays) but also tenors nucleus for the Children of the Chapel Royal, Majesty’s chapel, the orderers of the music boys did sing some Italian songs, which … (violas) and bass violins (a little larger than the of whom he was now appointed master. there were necessitated to supply the superior was fully the best music that I ever yet heard cello, and tuned a tone lower). In Whitehall Lacking suitable candidates for the nine or ten parts of their music with cornetts and men’s in all my life”. On one memorable occasion Chapel, which was tiny – less than seventy- 4 5 five feet by thirty – there was probably only enthusiasm for the new order of things. John rebuke, and the engaging penultimate duet in range: church music, court odes, solo songs one player per part, and even that would Evelyn wrote scathingly in December 1662 O Lord, thou hast searched me out, do much and theatre music. As it happened, nothing have been a squeeze in the “music room”, a of having heard, “instead of the ancient, to explain why Pepys and others so admired came of his scheming against Grabu (though partitioned-off section of a narrow gallery on grave and solemn wind music, … a consort Cooke’s music. that unfortunate man was eventually squeezed one side of the building. At all events, Pepys of violins … after the French fantastical light Pelham Humfrey, one of the “forwardest & out, not by musical hostility but by anti- seems to have witnessed the birth of a new way, better suiting a tavern or play-house brightest” Chapel boys mentioned by Tudway, Catholic legislation), and he took good care to musical genre, the Restoration anthem with than a church”. But the violin consort did not was probably a native Londoner, though stay on the right side of other royal musicians, strings, which would flourish for only thirty immediately displace the traditional ensemble evidence as to his origins is scanty. He already especially his old teacher: when Cooke died years but to which Pelham Humfrey, John of cornetts and sackbuts: as late as 1668 Pepys had several anthems to his credit while he in 1672, Humfrey not only succeeded to the Blow and the young would all went to Chapel “expecting wind-music”. In was still a chorister, and when his voice broke post of royal choirmaster but also, around contribute masterpieces – with the specific any case Cooke was interested primarily in in 1664 he was sent to study in France. On the same time, married Cooke’s daughter. He encouragement of the king. Thomas Tudway, vocal composition, and his instrumental his return three years later he had become, must have felt just then that the world was at another of that brilliant first generation of writing, whether for strings or for wind, is according to a disgusted Pepys, his feet; but he was destined to live for only Chapel choristers at the Restoration, and later undifferentiated in style. Even his vocal music two more years. Even so, well before his early an absolute monsieur, … full of form and Professor of Music at Cambridge, tells us that displays a good deal of technical awkwardness: death he had brought the English baroque to confidence and vanity, and disparages the word-setting is often pedestrian or even a belated coming-of-age, creating a powerful his Majesty, who was a brisk & airy prince, everything and everybody’s skill but his clumsy – a defect surprising in a singer; synthesis of Italianate vocal idioms and the coming to the crown in the flower & vigour of own. The truth is, everybody says he is very the harmonic direction and key structure up-to-the-minute techniques of string writing his age, was soon … tired with the grave and able; but to hear how he laughs at all the are not always clear; and the part-writing is he had learned in Paris, and devising coherent solemn way, and ordered the composers of his King’s music here … that they cannot keep occasionally quite primitive, with consecutive structures in which vocal and instrumental chapel to add symphonies &c with instruments time nor tune nor understand anything, and fifths and octaves (those sins against the Holy movements are organically linked, not just to their anthems; and thereupon established that Grebus [Louis Grabu] the Frenchman, Grail of counterpoint!) creeping in unnoticed. tacked together. a select number of his private music, to play the King’s Master of the Music, how he But for all their flaws, his symphony anthems By the waters of Babylon and O Lord my the symphonies & ritornellos which he had understands nothing nor can play on any took an important lead in establishing the God are both among the finest of Humfrey’s appointed. … In about 4 or 5 years’ time, instrument and so cannot compose, and that new genre, and at their best they have simple fourteen symphony anthems. The term may some of the forwardest & brightest children he will give him a lift out of his place, and that dignity and moments of real expressiveness. appear slightly misleading here, in that neither of the chapel, as Mr Humfrey, Mr Blow, &c, he and the King are mighty great, and that Both those on the present disc probably belong piece opens, as was customary, with its main began to be masters of a faculty in composing. he hath already spoke to the King of Grebus, to the last few years of Cooke’s life: their symphony; instead, each has a shorter prelude, This his majesty greatly encouraged … so that would make a man piss … every month at least, & afterwards oftener, structure, buttressed by a central repeat of the with the longest instrumental movement, in they produced something new of this kind … opening symphony, marks a great advance on But the reports of Humfrey’s ability were a stately dance measure, placed towards the for otherwise it was in vain to hope to please the crude patchwork pieces he had written in accurate: this bumptious and obnoxious end. In O Lord my God the prelude is repeated his Majesty. 1661 for Charles’s coronation. And passages young man would quickly prove himself a half-way through, and the central chorus is such as the expressive opening solo and the master craftsman – admittedly within a sung again at the end, so that each half is Not everybody shared Pepys’s (and Charles’s) radiant concluding chorus of Put me not to modest output and a narrow compositional framed by the same pair of movements – a 6 7 telling and attractive symmetry. But what first Blow came to prominence Pepys had ceased clear, from their other music, is which of them strikes the listener is not the structure of either keeping a diary. wrote what. The vigorous opening section of work, but the sheer vividness of the musical I will hearken, composed in about 1680, the anthem is by Humfrey – the lion’s share The Sixteen language. Humfrey excelled at expressing is one of Blow’s two dozen Chapel Ro yal of it, as befitted the eldest member of the SOPRANO Julie Cooper sombre and penitential moods, by means of symphony anthems. It avoids grand gestures trio, and beginning with a symphony in the Grace Davidson jagged lines, acute dissonances and drooping (unlike many of the others: one, for instance, king’s favourite dance measure (Pepys once Sally Dunkley chromaticism, and all these techniques abound requires three spatially separated groups noticed him in chapel tapping his foot to an Charlotte Mobbs in both anthems, as indeed they do in his four of soloists, plus full choir and strings), and anthem!); the short and rather bland bass solo Elin Manahan Thomas devotional songs, whose vocal lines are full of is contemplative and intimate in mood. that follows a repeat of the symphony is by ALTO Ian Aitkenhead poignant leaps and little spurts of madrigalian Strikingly, it takes Humfrey’s “prelude anthem” Turner, the youngest of the three; and Blow David Clegg colour. John Blow and the young Henry model to its logical conclusion, doing away contributed the remainder – an expressive William Missin Purcell learned a great deal from this eloquent altogether with the usual dance-like main solo for counter-tenor, a short verse passage, Christopher Royall music. symphony in favour of short ritornellos which and a final chorus which is full of close Originally a chorister at Newark Parish grow naturally out of the vocal material. It counterpoint, quite intricate if still slightly TENOR Simon Berridge Church, Blow – another of the “brightest & is far more elaborately scored than anything awkward. This style of writing, descended Mark Dobell forwardest” among Tudway’s Chapel Royal of Humfrey’s, the instruments not merely directly from the music of the English David Roy contemporaries – had been among five alternating with the voices but instead polyphonic masters of the previous century, William Unwin boys from Newark and Lincoln conscripted accompanying them for much of the time, to was beyond the powers of Humfrey or Turner, BASS Jonathan Arnold by Cooke in the summer of 1661. It was create a rich and seamless texture. and it points the way not only to Blow’s Eamonn Dougan Blow who, thirteen years later, succeeded The remaining piece on the present disc, adult technique but also to perhaps his most Timothy Jones Humfrey as Master of the Children of the I will always give thanks unto the Lord, is important future achievement: in later years Chapel Royal; in contrast to the brief tenure something of a curiosity in having not one he taught Purcell – the greatest composer Robert Macdonald of his predecessor, he was to occupy the but three composers: the young Humfrey and of the age, and a supreme contrapuntist. The post for nearly 35 years, and he combined Blow, and a fellow chorister of theirs, William public adulation showered on a pupil who so The Symphony of it – effortlessly, it appeared – with an Turner (1649-1708), who was to enjoy a solid obviously excelled his teacher did not mar enormous and varied output as a composer. if undistinguished career as a singer and their lifelong friendship – a fact which sheds Harmony and Invention As a musician he was altogether bigger and minor composer. It is not known when they a rare and welcome glimmer of light on Blow’s VIOLIN Walter Reiter, Miles Golding more versatile than Humfrey, but he remains wrote the piece, whose obvious immaturity character. Other crumbs of evidence also a frustratingly shadowy figure, little noticed is the only evidence as to its date. Nor is it suggest that, however elusive he may be to VIOLA Emma Alter by contemporary writers. Pepys, for instance, known why they did so, though a century posterity, to his fellows he was a decent and a BASS VIOLIN Richard Campbell mentions almost nothing of him save a brief later William Boyce suggested that the “Club” generous man. THEORBO David Miller, Arngeir Hauksson encounter in 1667, when he was amused by Anthem, as it has always been known, was the youth’s ungainly attempts to sing with a intended simply as a mark of their “fraternal © Bruce Wood 2006 ORGAN Alastair Ross newly broken voice; unfortunately, by the time esteem and friendship”. But what is entirely 8 9 MUSIC FOR THE CHAPEL ROYAL TEXTS 1 O Lord my God 10.13 Pelham Humfrey (1647-1674) 1 O Lord my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (verse: Simon Berridge, Mark Dobell, Jonathan Arnold) O Lord my God, why hast thou forsaken me: 2 Put me not to rebuke, O Lord 11.24 Henry Cooke (c1615-1672) and art so far from my health, and from the words of my complaint? (verse: Elin Manahan Thomas, Jonathan Arnold) I am poured out like water, all my bones are out of joint: 3 Lord I have sinned 2.32 my heart also in the midst of my body is even like melting wax. Pelham Humfrey (solo: Mark Dobell) For many dogs are come about me: 4 I will always give thanks (The 'Club' Anthem) 6.37 and the council of the wicked layeth siege against me. Pelham Humfrey, John Blow (1649-1708) & William Turner They pierced my hands and my feet; I may tell all my bones: (verse: Simon Berridge, Mark Dobell, Jonathan Arnold) they stand staring and looking upon me. 5 O the sad day 3.08 But be not thou far from me, O Lord: Pelham Humfrey (solo: Mark Dobell) thou art my succour, haste thee to help me. 6 By the waters of Babylon 11.03 They part my garments among them: Pelham Humfrey (verse: Simon Berridge, Mark Dobell, Jonathan Arnold) and cast lots upon my vesture. 7 Sleep downy sleep come close mine eyes 2.26 But be not thou far from me … Pelham Humfrey (solo: Simon Berridge) Ps. XXII, 1, 14, 16-19 8 O Lord, thou hast searched me out 10.29 Henry Cooke (verse: Julie Cooper, Simon Berridge, Robert Macdonald) 2 Put me not to rebuke, O Lord 9 Wilt thou forgive that sin (A Hymn to God the Father) 2.29 Pelham Humfrey (solo: Elin Manahan Thomas) Put me not to rebuke, O Lord, in thine anger: neither chasten me in thy heavy displeasure. bl I will hearken 6.38 John Blow (verse: Mark Dobell, Timothy Jones, Robert Macdonald) For thine arrows stick fast in me: and thy hand presseth me sore. Total playing time 68.00 10 11 There is no health in my flesh, because of thy displeasure: Yet since the balsam of thy blood, neither is there any rest in my bones, by reason of my sin. Although it can, will do no good For my wickednesses are gone over my head: Unless the wounds be cleansed with tears before, and are like a sore burden, too heavy for me to bear. Thou, in whose sweet but pensive face Laughter could never steal a place, I am brought into so great trouble and misery: that I go mourning all the day long. Teach but my heart and eyes to melt away, And then one drop of balsam will suffice. Lord, thou knowest my desire: my groaning is not hid from thee. Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) Forsake me not, O Lord my God: be not thou far from me. 4 I will always give thanks unto the Lord Haste thee to help me: O Lord God of my salvation. I will always give thanks unto the Lord: Ps. XXXVIII, 1-4, 6, 9, 21, 22 his praise shall be ever in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord: 3 Lord I have sinned the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. Lord, I have sinned, and the black number swells O praise the Lord with me: To such a dismal sum and let us magnify his Name together. That should my stony heart, and eyes, I sought the Lord, and he heard me: And this whole sinful trunk a flood become, yea, he delivered me out of all my fear. And run to tears, their drops could not suffice Lo, the poor crieth, and the Lord heareth him: To count my score, yea, and saveth him out of all his trouble. Much less to pay; Let thy merciful kindness, O Lord, be upon us: But thou, my God, hast blood in store, like as we do put our trust in thee. And art the Patron of the poor. Ps. XXXIV, 1-4, 6; XXIII, 21

12 13 5 O the sad day 6 By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept Oh the sad day, By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept: When friends shall shake their heads and say when we remembered thee, O Sion. Of miserable me, As for our harps, we hanged them up: Hark how he groans, look how he pants for breath, upon the trees that are therein. See how he struggles with the pangs of death! For they that led us away captive required of us a song, and melody in our heaviness: When they shall say of these poor eyes, sing us one of the songs of Sion. How hollow, and how dim they be! Mark how his breast does swell and rise How shall we sing the Lord’s song: in a strange land? Against his potent enemy! When some old friend shall step to my bedside, If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth: Touch my chill face, and thence shall gently slide, yea, if I prefer not Jerusalem in my mirth. And when his next companions say, Remember the children of Edom, O Lord, in the day of Jerusalem: How does he do? what hopes? shall turn away, how they said, Down with it, down with it to the ground. Answering only with a lift up hand, O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery: Who can his fate withstand? happy shall he be that taketh thy children and throweth them against the stones. Then shall a gasp or two do more Ps. CXXXVII, adapted Than e’er my rhetoric could before: Persuade the (peevish*) world to trouble me no more! Thomas Flatman (1637–1688) 7 Sleep downy sleep come close mine eyes Sleep, downy sleep, come close mine eyes, On thy soft bosom will I lie, *Humfrey omitted this word in his setting of this song Tired with beholding vanities; Forget the world and learn to die. Welcome, sweet sleep, that drives away O Israel's watchful Shepherd, spread The toils and follies of the day; Teams of angels round my bed.

14 15 Let not the spirits of the air, Clouds and thick darkness is thy throne, If I take the wings of the morning: Whilst I slumber, me ensnare. Thy wonderful pavilion: and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea; But guard thy suppliant free from harms, O dart from thence a shining ray, Even there also shall thy hand lead me: Clasped in thy everlasting arms. And then my midnight shall be day. and thy right hand shall hold me. Thus, when the morn in crimson drest Ps. CXXXV, 1-9 Breaks through the windows of the east, My hymns of thankful praises shall arise 9 Wilt thou forgive that sin (A hymn to God the Father) Like incense, or the morning sacrifice. Author unknown Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun, Which is my sin, though it were done before? 8 O Lord, thou hast searched me out and known me Wilt thou forgive those sins through which I run, And do run* still, though still I do deplore? O Lord, thou hast searched me out and known me: thou knowest my down-sitting When thou hast done, thou hast not done, and mine up-rising, thou understandest my thoughts long before. For I have more. Thou art about my path, and about my bed: Wilt thou forgive that sin by which I’ve won and spiest out all my ways. Others to sin, and made my sin their door? For lo, there is not a word in my tongue: Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun but thou, O Lord, knowest it altogether. A year or two, but wallowed in a score? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, Thou hast fashioned me behind and before: For I have more. and laid thy hand upon me. I have a sin of fear, that when I’have spun Such knowledge is too wonderful and excellent for me: My last thread, I shall perish on the shore. I cannot attain unto it. Swear by thy self, that at my death thy Son Whither shall I go then from thy Spirit: Shall shine as he** shines now, and heretofore; or whither shall I go then from thy presence? And having done that, thou hast done: I fear† no more. If I climb up into heaven, thou art there: if I go down to hell, thou art there also. original text by (1573–1631) has *them, **it, †have 16 17 bl I will hearken what the Lord God will say The Sixteen HARRY CHRISTOPHERS I will hearken what the Lord God will say concerning me: for he shall speak peace unto his people, and to his saints, that they turn not again. he Sixteen is recognised as one of the world’s greatest vocal ensembles. Its special reputation for For his salvation is nigh them that fear him: Tperforming early English polyphony, masterpieces that glory may dwell in our land. of the Renaissance and a diversity of 20th century music Mercy and truth are met together: is drawn from the passions of conductor and founder, Harry Christophers. Over ninety recordings reflect The righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Sixteen’s quality in a range of work spanning the music Truth shall flourish out of the earth: of five hundred years, winning many awards including and righteousness hath looked down from heaven. Grand Prix du Disque for Handel’s Messiah, numerous Schallplattenkritik, the coveted Gramophone Award Yea, the Lord shall shew loving kindness: for Early Music for the Eton Choirbook, and most and our land shall give her increase. Alleluia. recently the prestigious Classical Brit Award 2005 for ‘Renaissance’. Ps. LXXXV, 8-12  The Sixteen tours throughout Europe, Japan, Recording Producer: Mark Brown Australia and the Americas and has given regular Recording Engineer: Mike Hatch (Floating Earth Ltd) Recorded at St Giles’ Church, Cripplegate, London 2006 performances at major concert halls and festivals THIS RECORDING IS MADE POSSIBLE THROUGH THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF worldwide, including the Barbican Centre, Queen Cover image: The Old Palace of Whitehall by Mr & Mrs George Anson John & Jane Cullinane The Zvi & Ofra Meitar Family Fund Elizabeth Hall, Sydney Opera House, and Vienna Hendrick Danckerts © Queen’s Printer and Controller of HMSO, 2006. UK Government Art Collection David Barnet Mr & Mrs Melville Haggard Lady Jill Parker Musikverein; also the BBC Proms, and the festivals of Photograph of The Sixteen: Mark Harrison Elisabeth & Bob Boas Robin Holland-Martin Mr & Mrs Timothy Sanderson Salzburg, Granada, Lucerne and Istanbul. The group Design: RBDA and Andrew Giles The Hon John W B Butterworth Mark & Liza Loveday David & Stella Weatherall promotes The Choral Pilgrimage in some of the UK's 2006 The Sixteen Productions Ltd. Peter & Diana Cawdron Sir Thomas & Lady MacPherson Mr & Mrs A Willoughby finest cathedrals, bringing music back to the buildings © 2006 The Sixteen Productions Ltd. for which it was written. The Sixteen also promotes For further information about The Sixteen recordings the annual Handel in Oxford Festival, a weekend of on CORO or live performances and tours, Editions Organ concerts and events dedicated to the life of this great call +44 (0) 1865 793 999 Cooke: Bruce Wood Three-stop Cabinet Continuo organ composer. or email [email protected] Blow: Bruce Wood (Stainer and Bell) built and tuned by The Sixteen are Associate Artists of London’s South www.thesixteen.com Humfrey anthems: Peter Dennison (Stainer and Bell) Vincent Woodstock Bank Centre and also well known as the “The Voices of THE VOICES OF Humfrey songs: Peter Dennison (Novello) Pitch: 440Hz Classic f M”. The Sixteen’s own CD label CORO now Club anthem: Peter Dennison (Stainer and Bell) Temperament: Valotti. releases most of the group’s recordings. N 18