Sing Joyfully
The Renaissance Singers at 80
Renaissance Singers, The San Trovaso Consort, David Allinson
St. George’s Bloomsbury. 29 June 2024
Robert Fayrfax: Magnificat ‘Regale’ a5
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Super flumina Babylonis a4
Jacobus Clemens: Ego flos campi a7
Orlando Lassus: Missa Puisque j’ay perdu a4, Kyrie and Agnus Dei
Heinrich Isaac: Virgo Prudentissima a6
Thomas Luis de Victoria: Four Mairan Antiphons
Alma redemptoris mater a8; Ave regina caelorum a8; Salve regina a8; Ave Maria a8
Mikolaj Zielenski: Magnificat a12
In July 1944, a newly formed choir gave its first concert as V2 bombs fell on London. Founded by Michael Howard, The Renaissance Singers was seen as the performing wing of the Renaissance Society and were motivated by a love of Renaissance vocal music. They aimed to recover lost masterpieces and share them with new audiences. At the time, the repertoire was unfamiliar, and there were few if any performing additions. Early audience members included Ralph Vaughan William, who became their second President. Under its current Musical Director David Allinson it is now one of the UK’s leading amateur chamber choirs specialising in early music, pioneering neglected composers, bringing original programmes to new audiences, and collaborating with top-flight musicians in a year-round programme of concerts and workshops.
The Musicall Compass have undertaken some fascinating projects in the past, combining vocal music with, for example, dance in a memorable performance of Buxtehude’s Memba Jesu Nostri in Christ Church Spitalfields. On this occasion they interspersed the nine five-voice Lamentations of Orlando di Lasso with folk laments from Eastern Europe, sung by Moira Smiley. Written to be performed during the three days leading up to Easter, the Lamentations set verses from Jeremiah’s rather morbid reflections on the decline of Jerusalem: ‘How doth the city sit solitary .. she has become a widow’. Three settings are sung on each day, each finishing with the lament Ierusalem, Ierusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum (Jerusalem, Jerusalem, return unto the Lord thy God). 
The 31st St John’s, Smith Square Christmas Festival features most of the usual suspects, including regulars, The Cardinall’s Musick. As is typical of their concerts, the focus was on Catholic liturgical music from the Renaissance, on this occasion in honour of the Virgin Mary. In a ‘greatest hits’ line-up of Renaissance composers, the first half was built around Lassus’s Missa Osculeter me osculo oris sui alternating with motets by Victoria; the second centered on Byrd’s Propers for the Nativity of the Virgin Mary and concluded with Palestrina’s Magnificat primi toni a 8. 
Andrew Benson-Wilson : Early Music Reviews + 