January: It’s traditional on this date to wish you a Happy New Year, but at the moment the portents don’t look at all promising. Perhaps we should just settle for the solace of music to take our minds off the ghastly things happening in so many parts of the world.
In July (the 14th to the 19th) we make our first post-covid return to Ludlow, a gem of a small town near the Welsh border, with its cathedral-like church of St Laurence in which the course will be held. The centrepiece of the repertoire will be Nicholas Ludford’s magnificent six-part Mass Videte miraculum, the only English mass with divided treble line until that of Vaughan Williams. Rory Wainwright Johnston will direct: “It will be an absolute pleasure to return to lead this course in Ludlow, with some of my favourite pieces from the early English repertory, as well as some ‘miracles’ for which the chance and time rarely arises to dig deep into their beautiful melodies and enticing part writing.”
Then in early September (the 2nd to the 8th) we head back to the Dalmatian coast for the Trogir Music Party with JanJoost van Elburg. This invited course will combine early music by Palestrina and Gombert with contemporary pieces by James MacMillan, Urmas Sisask and Arvo Pärt. We have again been invited to sing a mass (Palestrina’s Missa Fratres ego) in the cathedral on Sunday morning and during the week will take a short boat trip to sing in Diocletian’s palace in Split.
At the end of the month (the 22nd to the 27th) we will continue our ‘Polyphonies franco-flamandes’ in the town of Gourdon in the Lot in southwest France. Rory McCleery has devised another programme which celebrates the music of Josquin des Prez and the wonderful flourishing of French music around 1500. The town has given us a splendid gothic church with a vaulted stone ceiling, now deconsecrated and used as an arts centre. Our concert last summer was greatly appreciated by locals, who came to listen in large numbers. Gourdon is one of those mediaeval hill towns that dot la France profonde. You can drive there from the channel ports in a day and it has a railway station on the line from Paris to Toulouse.
Our year will end once again in another of our very happy recent discoveries, the town of Dartmouth in south Devon. Eamonn Dougan’s programme (from the 13th to the 18th of October) explores the music of the imperial Habsburg court in Vienna. Lassus visited from Munich and was astonished at the quality of music-making there. Philippe de Monte remains well-known but this course will be a chance to reassess his worthy but largely forgotten contemporaries such as Jacobus Vaet, Alexander Utendal and Jacob Regnart.
These courses make the year complete. The full programme is:
March: Granada, Pedro de Ruimonte Lamentations with Gabriel Díaz
April: Lyme Regis, Portuguese music with Patrick Craig
May: Tenby, invited course with Lionel Meunier
June: Monteconero, music in seven parts with Patrick Craig, followed by Song of Songs with Lucy Goddard
July: Ludlow, early Tudor music with Rory Wainwright Johnston
September: Trogir, Palestrina and others with JanJoost van Elburg, followed by
Gourdon en Quercy, more Josquin & Co. with Rory McCleery
October: Dartmouth, de Monte, Vaet and Utendal with Eamonn Dougan
All the details, including the exact dates are on the Lacock web site. Note that the web page for each course has two tabs, one with details of repertoire and director and the other with more mundane practicalities including fees – you just need to click on the second tab to see these. Most of the previously announced courses early in the year are now full, but there is the odd place available and inevitably people have to withdraw from time to time for one reason or another, so it’s always worth asking if you’re tempted to join any of these courses but haven’t yet applied.
Since I last wrote we had a memorable week in Trogir with Patrick Craig, with the climax a concert in the cathedral. In true Mediterranean style the promised lighting arrived one minute before we were due to perform. One afternoon we took the ferry to Split and had a session in the cathedral there. It was begun in the 3rd century and first served as Diocletian’s mausoleum – that makes the 11th century bell tower feel quite modern. Earlier in the year I had to arrange a meeting with Patrick and Vinko Buble, our very useful contact in Trogir, who was visiting London. I thought it would suit Patrick to meet near St Paul’s after a service in which he was singing. I wrote them both a text suggesting a meeting after the cathedral Eucharist. Luckily I checked it before pressing send – the auto correct had changed ‘Eucharist’ to ‘witchcraft’.
We ended the year with a week in Dartmouth with Bill Carslake. The centrepiece of the repertoire was Cipriano’s Praeter rerum Mass, with divided and very energetic bass parts. It’s rare for basses to be given such a starring role and my colleagues and I rose to the occasion (so I’m told). On the Saturday morning I managed to get Bill to Exeter station for his 8.26am train to Holyhead and then on to County Mayo in Ireland where he now lives, very grateful to Google Maps for navigating us through the Devon lanes harried by rain, darkness and nicotine-crazed commuters. Then on to London, passing not far from my old Lacock home. I stopped just after Stonehenge and asked for an espresso with a little extra water. “Espresso doesn’t have water in it” was the baffling reply. Very Wiltshire.
