Michael Henderson suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value events

Click here for exclusive articles, offers, tasting notes and discussion

Crescendo of polyphony

Peter Phillips

Wednesday, 30th April 2008

Peter Phillips on a Zambian chamber choir which decided to perform Byrd, Tallis and Tippett

But the fascinating question to me is why Vox Zambezi, and many groups like them elsewhere in the world, feel it necessary to include renaissance items in their concerts at all. It is as if they feel the need to prove themselves in the currency of an international gold standard, before performing the music which is theirs and which everyone knows they can sing well (or, if they can’t, no one can). For me it is like hearing English spoken fluently among people who have their own language, but regularly choose not to use it. If I am representing the modern status of polyphony accurately here, it is an astonishing turnaround from the situation as I found it in 1973. Every music undergraduate then knew that Byrd was Number One Polyphonist; but we didn’t expect to be hearing him sung years later in all four corners of the globe by people for whom Latin is not only dead, but also never lived.

For information about Vox Zambezi’s UK tour, visit www.voxzambezi.net

Previous page 1 | 2 | 3

More articles from: Peter Phillips | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (1)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Paul Potts

May 6th, 2008 5:36am

Dear Peter Phillips

Do come to Swaziland, where choral singing, next only to football, is the major national sport. Frequesnt competitions, the winner of which will, if they can raise the money, go to an Eisteddford in Wales.

Indeed, in Urban South Africa, at least Johannesburg (="Gauteng" - the place of gold}, choral competitions have a unique format. The favourite repertoire is Bach, Handel and Verdi, what happens is that the "away" choir starts the proceedings. When one of the home crowd wants them to stop, he, or more often she, marches up to the stage and deposits a small some of money. The choir must then stop until someone else brings another, larger sum, and so on, until another away choir, or even the home choir gets on stage. During the day, the money raised can be quite large. It does not usually go to "charity", but to the funding of the singing of classical music, to the choirs themselves. You might call them "subscription concerts".

Paulo

Food for thought

Simon Hoggart

My favourite programme last week was France on a Plate (BBC4, Sunday) in which Dr Andrew Hussey investigated the link between gastronomy and la gloire; French glory and destiny.