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In his dedication to Edward Darcy, who became Groom of the Privy Chamber, Weelkes says pathetically, 'although poverty hath debarred them [musicians] their fellow arts-men's company, yet nature hath set their better part at liberty to delight them that love music. Weelkes' masterpiece came in two volumes he published in , the first with a dedication to Lord Windsor. Once more there is the defensive note: Run, run apace and meet them, And with your garlands greet them I hear some dancing And a nimble morris prancing, The bagpipe and the morris bells. The second set of , all composed for six voices, was dedicated to George Brooke, who fetched up on the scaffold three years later for conspiring with the Catholic Father Watson against James I 'the fox and his cubs'.
This set opens with the bellicose and descriptive, 'Like two proud armies marching in the field', and includes the wonderful 'Thule'. This virtually closed Weelkes' marvelous madrigal output, seventy compositions, some of them more contrapuntally elaborate than any other.
He moved on to Chichester and Church music. In there came a kind of coda, Airs or Fantastic Spirits for three voices. These are on a smaller scale, in a quite different vein: I swear that this tobacco It's perfect Trinidado Fill the pipe once more, My brains dance trenchmore. It is heady, I am giddy, Head and brains, Back and reins, joints and veins: From all pains It doth well purge and make clean. Some men desire spouses That come of noble houses.
And some would have in marriage Ladies of courtly carriage. But few desire, as I do The maidenhead of a widow.
They're like the Huns. Gertrude Stein notoriously refuted him. Turn away from bad and do good, Love peace and seek it out. Hora Chadera part 1 7. It was customary for English composers to conclude their madrigal prints with an elegy on the death of a famous person, and Weelkes' publications are no exception. I hear the cannon's raw! I think you have these qualities that you demand and when you meet a nice man you disqualify him for the smallest fault.
It was customary for English composers to conclude their madrigal prints with an elegy on the death of a famous person, and Weelkes' publications are no exception. Cease now delight commemorates the death in Ireland the previous year of Thomas Lord Borough. It begins in triple time, but soon changes to duple metre in an attempt to underscore the transition from delight to 'sorrow', a word which is accompanied by pungent dissonance.
Noel, adieu is dedicated to Sir Henry Noel, Elizabethan courtier and musical amateur, in whose memory Thomas Morley had earlier in composed an elegy. Death hath deprived me , written in remembrance of the death in of Morley himself, is a deeply-felt tribute, in which the 'grave' of the deceased is represented by a low D major chord, and the phrase 'until the world shall end' by a short descending figure.
Six seems to have been the usual number of dancers in the sixteenth century as at instrumental accompaniment: Hark, hark I hear some dancing And a nimble . Hither come, come to me, flowers! Wake from your sleep. Oh, hither come, hither come, flowers! Hear me calling, Wake from your sleep, O flowers! Hark! some.
Weelkes' highly original treatment of this idea, which is shot through the texture from bass to soprano and ends abruptly as if it were suspended in mid-air, led E. Fellows to believe it represented 'the crack of doom'. Both are richly scored for six voices, and the latter is one of the finest pieces in the repertory. Here, once again, Weelkes explores the depths of grief, and the music is outstanding for its striking textural contrasts, its wealth of ideas, its excellent contrapuntal technique, and its sheer expressive power.
This work even influenced later madrigal composers, such as John Ward and Thomas Tomkins , who both refer to Weelkes' final section in their own compositions. After Weelkes published no more madrigals. Instead, well versed in the polyphonic techniques of William Byrd , he apparently devoted his creative energies to the production of a large quantity of church music, probably for use at Chichester Cathedral. Unfortunately, the composer's relationship with the ecclesiastical authorities was not a happy one and from onwards he was often in trouble. At first negligence and absenteeism were the main problem.
But by he was 'noted and famed for a common drunkard and notorious swearer and blasphemer'; and in he had 'Very often come so disguised eyther from the Taverne or Ale house into the quire as is much to be lamented, for in these humoures he will bothe curse and sweare most dreadfully'. The programme will be repeated at St. Join us for a celebration in song of the Byzantine Bishop and those who followed in his footsteps, with a healthy helping of Christmas Armenian music and music associated with gift-giving. Choir joined by treble soprano, Matthew Leighton, and accompanied by traditional instruments.
Friday, March 9th, 7: Philip's Anglican, W. Music with a Celtic flare: Saturday, May 26th, 7: David Millard gives a short recital on the newly installed Casavant organ he inaugurated earlier this year. The choir's program will include Lauridsen's "Chanson des Roses" and some of the "St Nicholas" pieces they are preparing for their Christmas concert. Saturday, October 15th, 2: In Search of St.
Nicholas In the dark, a robed figure reaches up and drops a parcel through a window. The three purses of money in it give the three sisters in the house each a dowry and save them from a life of poverty - or worse. Thus runs the best-known story of Nicholas, the fourth century bishop of Myra who is thereby established as a protector of children and giver of gifts.
Whether he is called Father Christmas, Sinterklaas, or Santa, the Byzantine bishop still plies his trade today. Join the choir for music and readings in celebration of the original St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, whose deeds paved the way for the many legendary Christmas gift-givers who have followed in his footsteps as well as some special arrangements by David Millard of popular Christmas favourites. The choir will be presenting a capella and accompanied pieces by: Sunday, December 4th, 3: My Heart's in the Highlands Our final programme for this season takes audiences to the lands of the Celts - with traditional songs arranged by Artistic Director, David Millard as well as interspersings of music from Irish and Scottish composers of the 16th - 19th centuries.
Celtic harp played by Elisa Thorn and traditional Irish uilleann pipes played by Greg Schnider complete the offering of songs that drift from melodies more obscure to the blended refrains of the familiar. We offer this treat from the Highlands, where the heart lies. Sunday, June 17, 2 p. Christmas songs selected to complement the writings of Charles Dickens December 17, at 8: The revival of old Christmas songs, in the form of the publications of Gilbert and Sandys, predate Dickens by over twenty years.
While they record the apotheosis of the carol as folksong, their public reception prompted renewed interest in social singing and stimulated the creation of new Christmas songs to which the old term carol was newly applied. In the Church, they took the place of the metrical psalms and other hymns in the Christmas services. The old tradition of professional town musicians, or Waits, yielded to the less organized public carolling of impromptu groups who nevertheless styled themselves 'Waits', but who 'ma[d]e night hideous for three weeks before Christmas, with wretched performances of indifferent melodies' in the words of John Stainer.
The concert will include music of Dickens time, both popular and churchly including some dance tunes named by Dickens as well as music relevant to Dickens' 'social gospel' of Christmas. Added to this will be music drawn from other sources that either amplify Dickens' themes or reflect a Dickensian outlook on Christmas.
The Vivaldi Chamber Choir, with guests Matthew Leighton, boy soprano, and instrumentalists fiddle players and recorders present a program of songs and readings inspired by Dickens' famous Christmas story. Philip's Anglican Church, Vancouver. In its original form, the work is the epitome of a liturgical mass setting. Unlike in many major mass settings such as Beethoven's Missa Solemnis here the sections of the mass are not broken down into a series of choruses and arias, but are treated as organic wholes, with solos coming from within the choir.
Philip's Anglican Church is located at West 27th Ave. Paired with these are Brahms' celebration of love in his Liebeslieder Walzer.
Combining Daumer's 'volkisch' love poems with a series of dances for two pianists Brahms achieves a kind of 'urbane rusticity'. The programme is rounded out with some arrangements of Judeo-Spanish folk songs by the choir's director David Millard. In the annual spate of radio DJs offering up the current cost of sending all those leaping lords, milking maids, swimming swans and pear-treed partridges to one's true love, it is never asked 'which are the twelve days in question'.
The twelve days of Christmas run from December 25 to January 5, inclusive. Ten of those twelve days have specific designations in the Roman Church calendar, from the Nativity through Saints Stephen, John, Thomas and Sylvester, as well the feasts of the Innocents, the Circumcision and the Holy Name. In this concert we explore music assigned specifically to those holy days.
Paired with the twelve sacred pieces we offer twelve secular carols, matched as well as possible to one of the feast days. Friday, March 19 at St. Philip's Anglican Church West 27th Ave. The concert will begin at 7: The organist will be Michael Murray and we welcome the return of Esther Cannon who played for us in the Requiem and Racine concert in the Spring of In the early 17th century, Italy stood at the forefront of musical innovation which made it a must-see place for composers from all over Europe.
Seeking to restore the ethos of classical Greece and Rome, composers devised new means of expression that defied tradition and touched directly upon the emotions of their listeners. The principal innovation, solo voice with basso continuo accompaniment led directly to the creation of opera and oratorio. In our final concert of the season we offer up a taste of the 'Splendour of Italy' ranging from a literal musical banquet in the form of a cantata for a wedding feast through the veiled eroticism of the madrigal repertoire to the mature reflections of the masters Monteverdi and Carissimi in the service of the Church.
Joining the choir is an ensemble of strings, bassoon and keyboards as we present Monteverdi's setting of Confitebor tibi and Carissimi's Historia di Jonas, a musical retelling of the Biblical story of Jonah and the whale. The concert will be held at Trinity-St. Mark's on May 29th begining at 7: The Vivaldi Chamber Choir's annual excursion into the byways and garden paths of the Christmas repertoire.
Some old favourites will make a reappearance after several years in the file drawer. In addition to singing, members of the choir will try their hand at accompanying these carols with traditional instruments: This concert will celebrate English choral music from to , focussing on the work of these two giants. The feature work of this programme will be the anthem Let God Arise, written by Handel during his service to the Duke of Chandos.
This concert will presented in collaboration with the "Company of Instruments Baroque Orchestra" with soloists Julie Duerichen, soprano and Isaiah Bell, tenor. The choir will revisit its favourite works from the 19th and 20th centuries, featuring works by Bruckner, Stanford, Willan and Britten. Compositions and arrangements by Earle Peach and David Millard take centre stage, but be prepared for plenty of old favourites and new delights.
Marks, Larch Street, Vancouver. Click on the poster to the right for a larger image. Frozen feet and ague may have been the lot of the old-time travelling Yuletide musicians, but comfort and warmth awaited them in the halls where they were welcomed. The choir once again presents its eclectic mix of sacred and secular Christmas delights-taken from the sideboard rather than from the main table. Focussing on the rough and tumble of the folk carol tradition more than on the ethereal harmonies of the Church, this programme offers a trip down the byways of a holiday whose beloved tunes sometimes get over-played at the local mall.
Not that you won't hear some familiar favourites-they'll just be dressed in the clothing of a bygone era whose traditions have all but been lost in the modern world. As an added bonus, when these waits perform, they provide the cider and goodies too. Philip's Anglican Church, West 27th Ave. Written between and , Vivaldi's Gloria in D has become one of the most popular choral pieces of the Baroque era, and it certainly deserves its reputation. This extroverted work is scored for four-part choir and an instrumental ensemble comprising strings, oboe, and trumpet. With the Gloria the Vivaldi Chamber Choir will be presenting its namesake's less-known but equally delightful Credo in e minor.
Also featured on the program are two of Tchaikovsky's settings of the Cherubic Hymn and some shorter sacred works by the choir's conductor, David Millard.
Join the Vivaldi Chamber Choir with an ensemble of guest instrumentalists for an evening of Baroque splendour. The full programme is as follows: Tchaikovsky - Cherubic Hymn No. The following pieces in alphabetical order are in preparation for this concert: Seasonally apposite readings will be interspersed.