Tallis Scholars: Tintinnabuli

Named for a minimalist style of composition practiced by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, the programme draws together some of the most contemplative music from the Renaissance and the twentieth-century alike. Peter Philips directs.
Arvo Pärt pioneered ‘holy minimalism’, a style that fuses Gregorian chant with the structures and asperity of contemporary American music. The four pieces performed here – Tribute to Caesar (1997), The Woman with the Alabaster Box (1997), Which was the son of… (2000) and the expansive, long-form Triodion (1998) – show him at his most enchantingly sombre, with a deeply spiritual momentum.
Pärt, who turns 80 this year, will be joined by the Libera nos, salva nos of Tudor composer John Sheppard, born 500 years ago. Written for the compline, the final church service of the working day, they are gentle, meditative and breathtakingly beautiful. The evening will be bolstered further with works from the ensemble’s namesake Thomas Tallis - the supreme exponent of English polyphony – and Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere, one of the most sacred artworks of the Roman Catholic church.
Philips, then an organ scholar at St. John’s Oxford, founded the Tallis Scholars in 1973. After a decade as an amateur group drawn from the college choirs of Oxford and Cambridge, they turned professional in the 1980s, and have since become one of the world’s leading early vocal music ensembles. The likes of Mark Padmore, James Gilchrist and Michael Chance have all passed through, and today they number ten. The group have recorded around sixty CDs, all released through their own label Gimell Records, and have won several Grammaphone Record of the Year awards. Their recordings of Tallis, Allegri and Josquin are particularly acclaimed. In recent years they have branched out into contemporary works from Eric Whitacre and the late John Tavener.