This gives me an idea.
We all know how bad MTV is in promoting the Culture of Death.
Why don't we make an SMTV---SACRED Music Television!
I'm there. How do we make this happen?
excellent music and video, excellent idea as well! and we replaced this with guitar music?!! who needs instruments?
I saw them in concert in Baltimore a few weeks ago... Magnificent doesn't cut it...
The Tallis Scholars have been around in the UK for years. They have many CD's to their name. Peter Phillips is a well known and recognised Conductor. The first time I heard the Thomas Tallis 40 part motet "Spem in Alium" it was the Tallis Scholars singing it, and that was a very long time ago!
Another recording to get is the Live at St Mary Major in Rome.
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I guess those of us in the Boston area have been spoiled. The Tallis Scholars have made annual appearances here for years and always perform in sacred venues (the soon to be closed Jesuiut Urban Center, the Anglo-Catholic Church of the Advent, and St. Paul Parish in Cambrdige). Though their concerts are always sold-out, it would be a mistake to assume there is some local impact on Catholic liturgical culture. Rank and file Catholics (including most liturgical musicians) usually don't attend these kind of concerts. I would speculate as well that most attendees are not church goers in any traditional sense. One local group, The Seraphim Singers,which has a similar mission though presents a more historically varied repertoire, probably has made greater inroads in challenging Boston's woeful Catholic music culture.
I have heard that the Tallis Scholars are completely secular and have zero interest in Christ or His Church. How sad, because there are some excellent singers in their group, and some of their recordings certainly are in a class of their own.
Byrd's Vigilate! One of my favourite renaissance anthems, and certainly my favourite Advent one. I particularly like the "in gallicantu" and "repente" bits. How exciting and spiritually uplifting this music is!
While I do not think that 'secular' groups such as the Tallis Scholars have "zero" interest in the Church, I sometimes wish they could be heard singing in Church services as well as in concert halls...!
Their great performances are inspiring nonetheless, and their musical apostolate is in this way extremely valid and important. Long may good English choirs perform great English music to this high standard!
Although I liked the music, those tailcoats were out of place in a sacred space. Cassocks and cottas for men, head veils for the ladies! :)
I have attended several Tallis concerts and own many of their CDs. They are in many ways the "gold standard" of polyphonic music. Nevertheless, they approach the music as a performance art or a museum piece. In a pre-concert Q&A I attended, I was struck by Phillips' off hand remark to the effect that, indeed, they do not have great interest in the spiritual/religious nature of the works. I think he may have even said that he is not a believer. While the performance perfection the Tallis Scholars achieve is something to aspire towards, they should not be compared to a choir whose purpose is liturgical.
Peter Phillips is as an atheist. However, I think one or two of them sing in the choir of Westminster Cathedral.
What?! Peter Phillips is an atheist? You've gotta be kiddin' me!
Regarding the white-tie and tails, while it would be better, I think to have choir dress, don't forget that for papal coronations the congregation always wore evening dress!
But I still can't believe that Peter Phillips is an atheist.
How on earth can anyone who is as immersed in that kind of music, and who performs it better than anyone else, not believe that God exists?! Even before I was Catholic, I always viewed music as one of the proofs of the existence of a superme being.
It just makes no sense...
I used to consider the Tallis Scholars to be the epitome of style and authenticity, but after I realised they have a tendency to transpose music into higher keys to show off their sopranos, that opinion has changed somewhat. Exhibit A - Josquin's Missa Pange Lingua, originally for ATTB, when sung at that pitch, is sombre and sensuous. When sung a minor third or a fourth up, it sounds quite different.
Oh, when I wrote 'Peter Phillips is as an atheist' obviously the 'as' is not meant to be there. It should read "Peter Phillips is an atheist".
I have had the pleasure of working with and/or singing under Peter Phillips on half a dozen occasions, and have read his biography of the Tallis Scholars, "What We Do." While I agree he is ambivalent toward the ecclesial context of the music they sing, he is by no means indifferent to its liturgical ethos, nor its spiritual impact. He has never claimed to be a churchman; on the other hand, I have never heard him declare himself an atheist. A very heavy accusation, that. I have a feeling his more provocative statements on the subject are something of a canard designed to forward his polyphony-in-the-concert-hall agenda. By introducing concert-goers to this repertoire, many of whom share his ambivalence toward the Church, he has proved himself a better evangelist than many, many churchmen.
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