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Out of Egypt:Halfway to the Promised Land"God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life." |
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November 1, 2006
If you only buy one piece of music this year...
...buy Tallis: Spem in Alium, cond. by Jeremy Summerly, sung by the Oxford Camerata. I'm listening to it again, and again, as seems to happen every time I listen to it, I'm posting on it.
Sarah, have you written about Tallis, Spem in Alium (the 40-part motet), motets in general, or the story of church music in England in the reigns of Elizabeth, Mary, and then the Restoration Period? This is me saying you should :) The Summerly/Oxford Camerata recording of Tallis' works was just made this year, I believe; at least, I picked it up this year at the Blackwells Music Shop for £7.99 (or so). They were advertising it as if it were the biggest release in music this year. And it probably deserves to be; it's that good. The other pieces besides Spem are a bit slow, but, after all, they're just padding by comparison. Tallis is remembered, if at all, for Spem and for the melody to "All Praise to Thee My God This Night," which is simply called "Tallis' Canon" in the Trinity Hymnal.
Posted by donovan at 11:36 PM | Category:
It came out in 2005, but Naxos must be produced by Blackwells. I remember a significant portion of the Blackwells' music store being taken up by Naxos recordings.
Hmm...listening to early music, with the a capella "straight tone" affects me in the same way as listening to acoustic guitar with "whispery" vocals...there is some element of "purity" that really resonates with something in me. Now I need Linnea and her voice studies to tell me what this all means. (We were discussing "sexy voices" the other day.) I really need to go into linguistics. Who knew that it could be so applicable to music?
Posted by: funke at November 2, 2006 4:01 PM
Oh...and don't be all impressed like "wow, she knows recording dates by heart and everything" because I totally just looked it up.
Posted by: funke at November 2, 2006 4:06 PM
:)
Posted by: funke at November 2, 2006 4:16 PM
If I'm not mistaken...
there's no apostrophe in Blackwells.
You're never mistaken.
Posted by: funke at November 2, 2006 7:01 PM