Angel of Peace: The Sixteen's 25th Choral Pilgrimage moves from the 12th century to the present day but it is early Tudor polyphony that stays in the memory

Angel of Peace: Hildegard of Bingen,  Arvo Pärt, Will Todd, Anna Clyne, John Taverner; The Sixteen, Harry Christophers, Sarah Sexton; Church of St Martin in the Fields
Reviewed 5 September 2025

The Sixteen's 25th Choral Pilgrimage mixes the contemporary with music from the 12th century, along with two great Marian antiphons that celebrate the florid music of the early Tudor church

The Sixteen's 2025 Choral Pilgrimage, Angel of Peace, has been wending its way around the country since they debuted the programme at Croydon Minster on 17 March. There will be 23 performances in all, ending on 4 October at Chichester Cathedral, along with eight associated choral workshops. Earlier this year I chatted to Harry Christophers about his approach to the Choral Pilgrimage and this year's programme. Read more in my interview, 'Everyone in the group feels strongly it'.

On Friday 5 September 2025 we caught Harry Christophers and The Sixteen in Angel of Peace at St Martin-in-the-Fields. The programme combines Hildegard of Bingen's Ave, Generosa, John Taverner's Gaude plurimum and O splendor gloriae, and Arvo Pärt's Tribute to Caesar, Da pacem Domine and Magnificat, with two contemporary pieces for choir and violin (Sarah Sexton), Will Todd's I shall be an angel of peace (from 2021) and Anna Clyne's Orbits which was a new commission by The Sixteen.

Each half began with verses from Hildegard of Bingen's Ave, Generosa and ended with one of John Taverner's large-scale antiphons. Will Todd and Anna Clyne's pieces formed the centrepiece of each half, paired with Arvo Pärt.

As Genesis Sixteen enters its 15th year, 22 young singers and one conductor are welcomed as the latest cohort

Genesis Sixteen

Now entering its 15th year, Genesis Sixteen is set to welcome a new cohort for 2025/26 with 22 singers and one conductor joining  The Sixteen’s free young artists’ programme for 18-23-year-olds which aims to nurture the next generation of talented ensemble singers. Supported by by the Genesis Foundation, Genesis Sixteen is the UK’s first ever fully funded programme of its kind. 

The latest Genesis Sixteen cohort welcomes singers from across the UK and Northern Ireland, and this year introduces a singer who has been involved in The Sixteen’s Talent Development Pipeline project. The project, now in its third year, sees The Sixteen in partnership with Barnsley Youth Choirs, the Diocese of Leeds Schools Singing Programme, Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Voices and London Youth Choirs, offering young singers the opportunity to develop skills and discover pathways in the industry. The programme also aims to diversify the talent pipeline of singers entering young artists programmes, ensuring that singers from across the country have equal opportunities to take part in the world of choral music.

Over 300 singers have now been involved in the Genesis Sixteen programme, with alumni making waves in the UK and across the world. Matthew Quinn, conducting scholar from the eleventh cohort, now takes on the role of Chorus Director at ENO, in addition to being Principal Conductor of National Youth Choir (15-18 group). Three Genesis Sixteen alumni now also form part of The Sixteen: Elizabeth Paul (third cohort), Oscar Golden-Lee (seventh cohort), Edward McMullan  (first cohort). Jessica Cale, Bethany Horak-Hallett and Matthew McKinney, three singers from the third, fourth and seventh cohort respectively will form the three main roles in The Railway Children – a new opera by Mark Anthony Turnage to be staged at Glyndebourne this Autumn. 

Full details of the new cohort from The Sixteen's website.

Everyone in the group feels strongly about it: Harry Christophers introduces The Sixteen's 25th Choral Pilgrimage, Angel of Peace

Harry Christophers & The Sixteen in rehearsal - 2024 (Photo: Johnny Millar)

Harry Christophers and The Sixteen embark on their 25th Choral Pilgrimage, Angel of Peace, this month. Starting in Croydon Minster on Monday 17 March 2025, this sees them touring 21 venues across England, Scotland and Ireland including Dublin and Belfast, performing a programme that includes music by Hildegard of Bingen, John Taverner, Arvo Pärt, Will Todd and Anna Clyne. The tour takes its title from words by Cardinal Newman, set to music by Will Todd, ‘Let me be an angel of peace’.

Harry Christophers (Photo: Johnny Millar)

The Pilgrimage remains very much a Sixteen thing, the ensemble's own concerts across the breadth of the country, and when I chat to Harry Christophers about this year's tour he comments that everyone in the group feels strongly about it. After all, if they miss places off then some parts of the country lose out. But there is no doubt that it is getting economically harder; there is no problem with audiences, and they keep ticket prices low, but the other expenses such as hotels and travel have been increasing. And of course, the venues are UK cathedrals and churches, buildings that are often struggling economically and having to put up their prices. 

He describes the Choral Pilgrimage as a burden the group has taken on, but it is a good burden, and the Pilgrimage remains important to audiences all over. The tour is launched in Croydon Minster, which is a prime example of what the tour is about, a gorgeous venue yet in an area of London that deserves more arts coverage. This year they are visiting Edinburgh, Dublin and Belfast, but some venues have been lost due to sheer economics, but there is hope to reintroduce them in the future. But Harry emphasises that no-one is to blame, simply costs have risen, it is the state of the arts in general. He comments that whilst there has been a tendency to judge arts organisations on how they dealt with the pandemic, but it is the last few years that the group has found difficult. They are, however, lucky to have wonderful patrons though he then adds, with a smile, that like most arts organisations, they could do with more.

This year’s programme began with John Taverner's two large-scale Antiphons, Gaude plurimum and O splendor gloriae. Back in the days of LPs, Harry and the group recorded the Taverner, though at that time they followed the fashion of performing the music up a minor third. Now they are, as Harry describes it, grown up and plan to perform them at the correct pitch. Harry calls the two antiphons stonking pieces, each ten to fifteen minutes long, so he needed some very different music for contrast. Some years ago, they did a programme that mixed the music of Arvo Pärt with Renaissance music, which worked well so this year they are doing Arvo Pärt's Tribute to Caesar, Da pacem Domine and Magnificat, recognising his 90th birthday.

Everyone clearly enjoyed themselves and brought the house down: Harry Christophers & The Sixteen in Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 at Temple Church

Basilica of Santa Barbara at the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua
where Monteverdi was working when he wrote his Vespers of 1610

Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610; The Sixteen, Harry Christophers; Temple Music Foundation at Temple Church
Reviewed 8 October 2024

Technically assured and finely expressive performance that filled the Temple Church with extraordinary richness from bravura moments to intimate magic 

There is something rather tantalising about Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, so many questions. We tend to view it in the light of Monteverdi's subsequent appointment to St Mark's in Venice, but if we think about Monteverdi at the time of writing it (working in Mantua, keen to leave and with an eye on a job in Rome) it is less clear where it was written for. The work is full of questions like that, and prime amongst those of course is whether it is a 'work' at all. But what we cannot question is the extraordinary richness of the music, and all those questions mean that each music director is free to take their own view of the work, make their own decisions.

At Temple Church on 8 October 2024, Temple Music Foundation presented Harry Christophers and The Sixteen in Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610. Christophers took a large-scale, choral view of the work so we had a choir of 20 plus and instrumental ensemble of 18 with soloists Katy Hill and Charlotte Mobbs (soprano), Jeremy Budd and Mark Dobell (tenor), Ben Davies and Eamonn Dougan (bass) stepping out from the choir, though this should not disguise the extraordinary quality of the individual soloists. 

Using full choir to perform the large-scale psalm settings in the work means that you need technically adept choral singers, and The Sixteen had that in spades. This was one of those performances where you never needed to worry about the significant technical difficulties, all was superbly realised, even to the Magnificat which was performed at the high pitch (another one of those questions).

Investing in the magic of Purcell's music: The Fairy Queen from The Sixteen at Cadogan Hall

Dorset Garden Theatre in 1673 where Purcell's The Fairy Queen premiered

Purcell: The Fairy Queen; Antonia Christophers, Matthew Brook, Robin Blaze, Katy Hill, Alexandra Kidgell, Charlotte Mobbs, Mark Dobell, Oscar Golden Lee,, Ben Davies, The Sixteen, Harry Christophers; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed 25 September 2024

Focusing on the music, a stylish and engaging performance that drew us into Purcell's magical world, aided by a delightful narration

After the performance of Purcell's The Fairy Queen with Les Arts Florissants and Mourad Merzouki's Companie Käfig at the BBC Proms [see my review] where Purcell's music seemed to take second place to the virtuosic hip-hop-inspired dance, it was a pleasure to reencounter the work in an entirely different and more sympathetic musical context.

On Wednesday 25 September 2024, Harry Christophers and The Sixteen presented Purcell's The Fairy Queen at Cadogan Hall as part of Choral at Cadogan 2024. The soloists consisted of two visitors, countertenor Robin Blaze and baritone Matthew Brook, along with six members of the choir sopranos Katy Hill, Alexandra Kidgell, and Charlotte Mobbs, tenors Mark Dobell and Oscar Golden Lee, and baritone Ben Davies. The whole was drawn together using a narration by Jeremy Sams, performed by the actor Antonia Christophers, who is co-founder and co-artistic director of the theatre company, Box Tale Soup.

We had an orchestra of 21 and a choir of 18 (including those singing solo roles), so this was a generously proportioned performance. The choir remained stationery and for much of the 'action' the soloists simply stepped forward and retreated, but some episodes, notably the Drunken Poet (Matthew Brook with Charlotte Mobbs and Katy Hill), and Coridon and Mopsa (Matthew Brook and Robin Blaze), were more dramatised. What drew everything together was the delightful narrative. Antonia Christophers (who has in fact played Titania in the play) presented a slightly amused narrator cum Titania who repeatedly broke the fourth wall to mix descriptions of what should have been on stage with lamentations about the present lack of scenery, staging and actors. The result could have been horribly arch, but despite some rather false-sounding amplification, Antonia Christophers made the whole extremely engaging and helped to bind the disparate elements together.

Byrd and Biscuits: Tallulah Horton on being a member of Genesis Sixteen

Genesis Sixteen at St James's Piccadilly, 15 July 2023 (Photo: Douglas Jones/Twitter)

In May 2022, I received a very happy phone-call from The Sixteen’s wonderful Genesis Sixteen Manager offering me a place on their Genesis Sixteen Scheme, much to my surprise. This fully-funded, year long opportunity to work with Harry Christophers, Eamonn Dougan, and a handful of other long-standing Sixteen legends is a very special opportunity, and one which took approximately 0.4 seconds to prompt the exclamation “yes please!” with both shock and delight. Having been a chorister for most of my school years, imagining thirteen-year-old me having the chance to rehearse and perform with my choral heroes was, in short, absolute madness.

Tallulah Horton

The Genesis Sixteen Young Artists Programme is comprised of two weeklong courses at the start and end of the year, and two short weekend courses in November and February. The majority I spoke to on arrival in Oxford for our first course were visibly buzzing, but understandably a little nervous. Amongst the obvious challenges of starting a yearlong course not knowing anyone, I wasn’t sure what to expect of Harry and Eamonn’s rehearsal style, and how they would deal with 23 raucous young singers. Indeed, most musicians have had their fair share of abrasive experiences when working with highly demanding musical directors, conductors, and colleagues - but I soon realised I had nothing to worry about. When asked about my experience with Genesis Sixteen, the first thing that always springs to mind is how lovely, genuine, and approachable both conductors are. It soon becomes apparent that everyone at The Sixteen is genuinely interested in you and your singing and, despite all that knowledge and expertise, they want to learn from the group and chat to everyone as colleagues. Their highly talented regular singers are grounded and down to earth, and make you feel like you are absolutely meant to be there. Insecurities are left at the door, so singers can develop and flourish from the start of the very first rehearsal. Don’t get me wrong, the bar is set very high, but the atmosphere is such that the conductors’ performance goals feel achievable both as an individual singer and as an ensemble.

My singing has undoubtedly developed over the last year through the continued guidance and training offered by the scheme. As well as detailed ensemble rehearsals, each singer also has individual lessons with the legendary Julie Cooper and Charlotte Mobbs, giving everyone the opportunity to work on aspects of their solo singing. Everyone on the course is, rather unusually, recognised as an individual voice with the ability to form a cohesive choir, instead of being forced to “blend into the background”. This idea comes into its own, though, when working with consort leaders Sally Dunkley, Simon Berridge, Kim Porter, and Mark Dobell. Their expertise in guiding small groups of through complex polyphony has helped each singer enhance their individual line, whilst ensuring a cohesive performance overall by working intensely on our phrasing, intonation, blend, and balance as a consort.
 
Having learned so much from this array of tailored training, the idea of performing Spem in Alium one-to-a-part (something I once thought to be too terrifying for words!) is now hugely exciting. Singing Tallis’ infamous piece alongside David Bednall’s recent forty-part motet Lux orta est iusto presents the opportunity to use the skills gained through Genesis Sixteen to perform this complex, multi-choir close harmony with style…if no one forgets to count, though. (Here’s hoping a GCSE in maths will finally prove useful!)

Last but not least, one of the most crucial aspects I’ve learned from this wonderful group is how important chocolate hobnobs are to a happy choir (other brands are available) - any rehearsal without biscuits should be cancelled immediately, never to be mentioned again. That’s what has really kept us all coming back for more, I think: Byrd and Biscuits. 

Tallulah Horton

Genesis Sixteen performed in The Sixteen's Sounds Sublime Choral Festival on 15 July at St. James’s Piccadilly. On 16 July, Genesis Sixteen celebrated their 250-strong alumni with a performance of two forty-part motets: Tallis’ Spem in Alium and Bednall’s Lux orta est iutso with members of the current cohort and alumni of the programme at Kings Place.  

Tallulah Horton became a chorister aged nine, moving to Downside School at thirteen as a major music scholar to study with Rachel Bevan. Having completed her undergraduate degree in music at Durham University, she will soon be graduating with a masters in Musicology from St Hugh’s College, Oxford.

 

An engaging & ultimately touching evening: Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas at the Grange Festival

Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice - Caroline Blair, Heather Lowe - The Grange Festival (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice (Vienna version), Purcell: Dido and Aeneas; Heather Lowe, Alexandra Oomens, Caroline Blair, James Newby, Helen Charlston, director: Daniel Slater, The Sixteen, conductor: Harry Christophers; The Grange Festival
22 June 2023

Having collaborated with director Daniel Slater on The Grange Festival's production of Handel's Belshazzar in 2019 [see my review], Harry Christophers and The Sixteen returned to The Grange for Slater's intriguing double bill of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice (in the original 1762 Vienna version) and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. We caught the performance on 22 June 2023. Three roles were doubled, Heather Lowe was Orfeo and Dido with Alexandra Oomens as Euridice and Belinda, Caroline Blair as Amor and the Second Woman, plus James Newby as Aeneas, Helen Charlston as the Sorceress. The Grange Festival Chorus was joined by The Sixteen, with the Orchestra of the Sixteen in the pit. Designs for both operas were by Robert Innes Hopkins with choreography by Tim Claydon, lighting by Johanna Town and video by Nina Dunn for PixelLux.

The operas provide two classic arias of lament, whilst each takes a somewhat different musical approach to the sufferings of humankind at the hands of capricious gods. Both are also short, yet difficult to programme; neither was intended as a full evening in the theatre, both being entertainments - Orfeo ed Euridice was part of a wedding celebration, whilst Dido and Aeneas was probably intended as court entertainment for King Charles II.

Purcell: Dido and Aeneas - Helen Charlston - The Grange Festival (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Reflections on All the Ends of the World: violinist Lizzie Ball on her project with The Sixteen to highlight climate change and global warming

Image from Heather Britton's film for All the Ends of the World

All the Ends of the World is a collaboration between videographer Heather Britton, violinist Lizzie Ball and The Sixteen which combines plainchant, choral music, polyphony, free improvisation and stunning imagery. Created to demonstrate the long lasting and dramatic effects of climate change and global warming, the concert will explore our relationship with the planet we live on. Here, Lizzie Ball explains how the project developed.

All the Ends of the World came about after a pretty unique collaboration between The Sixteen, Harry Christophers and I (as both a performer and producer of Classical Kicks), almost 3 years ago to the day. In Nov 2019, (pre-armageddon), the richly atmospheric walls of the one and only Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club hosted the likes of plainchant, polyphony and Purcell for the very first time thanks to an invitation from Club owner and supporter of The Sixteen, Michael Watt. The club warmly welcomed The Sixteen together with me and an all-star line-up, including: the club’s Artistic Director and co -curator of the event James Pearson, accordion superstar Martynas Levickis, rapper and artist Isatta Sheriff, percussionist James Turner, and bass player Tim Thornton. Woven within the world of choral perfection were re-imaginings of Oscar Peterson’s Hymn to Freedom, bluegrass medleys, and even some Mexican boleros! Such has always been the flavour of any Classical Kicks event; it has always been wide in its musical offering and aims to be striking in its quality and impact.  

The comfort of the familiar mixed with the intriguing, the lesser known and the downright unfamiliar: The Sixteen at Christmas

Harry Christophers & The Sixteen

The Sixteen at Christmas: The Holly and the Ivy; The Sixteen, Harry Christophers; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 16 December 2021 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Bob Chilcott's Advent Antiphons and Magnificats from Victoria and Arvo Pärt anchor a programme that mixed the familiar and the unfamiliar, the serious and the popularly traditional

We caught the second of the two performances of Harry Christophers and The Sixteen's Christmas programme, The Holly and the Ivy at Cadogan Hall on Thursday 16 December 2021. The programme mixed traditional carols with music by Victoria, Guerrero, Howells, Dom Gregory Murray and Alec Roth, plus Bob Chilcott's Advent Antiphons and Arvo Pärt's Magnificat.

The programme, themed around a message of hope in renewal, had perhaps a slightly more serious cast to it than some years, with the whole anchored around Bob Chilcott's settings of the seven great O Antiphons based on the seven plainchant antiphons used as Magnificat antiphons at the end of Advent. Chilcott's settings were written in 2004 for Reykjavik Cathedral.

Satisfyingly concentrated: Harry Christophers & The Sixteen's The Call of Rome at Kings Place

Harry Christophers, The Sixteen - Kings Place (Photo Monika S Jakubowska/Kings Place)

The Call of Rome - plainchant, Josquin, Anerio, Victoria, Allegri; The Sixteen, Harry Christophers; Kings Place
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 1 July 2021 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
This year's Choral Pilgrimage reaches Kings Place with very satisfying programme of music by composers working in Rome

Harry Christophers and The Sixteen's 2021 Choral Pilgrimage features a programme entitled The Call of Rome with music by four composers who worked in Rome, particularly with the Papal Choir, Josquin Desprez (1450/55-1521), Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611), Felice Anerio (1560-1614) and Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652), and I caught up with them at Kings Place on Thursday 1 July 2021. The choir is presenting two versions of the programme, for the Summer concerts in June and July there is one lasting an hour whilst during the Autumn they will be performing a longer version.

Both programmes explore music written for the Papal Choir or music in the Papal Choir's library. We heard three of the Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday by Victoria who worked in Rome for 20 years but was not a member of the Papal Choir, though an early version of the music is held by the Papal Choir's Library. Josquin was a member of the choir for five years, and we heard his motets Gaude virgo mater Christ and Illibata Dei virgo. Felice Anerio trained as a choir boy at St Peter's Basilica under Palestrina, before going on to take Palestrina's place as composer to the Papal Choir after Palestrina died. We heard his motet Regina caeli laetare a8. 

Harry Christophers, The Sixteen - Kings Place (Photo Monika S Jakubowska/Kings Place)

The final composer was Gregorio Allegri, who worked with the Papal Choir for 23 years and whose Miserere was a great feature of the Holy Week celebrations. Except, as the extensive programme notes explained, what made the Miserere exceptional was not so much Allegri's music as the ornamentation, the abellimenti, that the singers brought to it. So we heard the version of the Miserere created by Harry Christophers and Ben Byram-Wigfield which, in each ornamented verse, moves from the earliest known manuscript right through to the 20th century version with the top C which is in fact a mistake in transcription! To bring things up to date for this tour, Christophers had commissioned Roxanna Panufnik, Gabriel Jackson and Bob Chilcott to write their own ornamentations. We heard the version by Bob Chilcott who, it turns out, was a boy treble at Kings College, Cambridge where he did indeed sing that top C.

Meditation and Prayer: new commissions from Sir James MacMillan and Will Todd in an evening themed on the writings of Cardinal Newman

John Henry Newman
by George Richmond (1844)

Cardinal Newman: Meditation and Prayer - Sir James MacMillan, Will Todd; The Sixteen, Harry Christophers, Alexander Armstrong; Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street (via live-stream)
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 10 June 2021
Two wonderful new commissions at the centre of this programme of words and music themed on the writings of John Henry Newman

Cardinal Newman is a somewhat complex figure who is known to musicians mainly through Elgar's use of his words for The Dream of Gerontius (and the hymns derived therefrom), but the hinterland of Newman's thought and theology remains largely unexplored in music.

Last night (Thursday 10 June 2021, the Genesis Foundation and Classic FM presented Cardinal Newman: Meditation and Prayer at the live at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, with a small invited audience, and live-streamed (I watched the latter). The centrepiece of the evening was the world premiere of two settings of one of Newman's meditations by Sir James MacMillan and by Will Todd, performed by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen. Also in the programme was sacred music by Parsons, Laloux, Tye and Harris, plus readings from Newman and John Donne by Alexander Armstrong.

The Sixteen were at full strength, 18 singers in four ranks taking full advantage of the depth of the church's chancel.

Both new commissions set text from the same Newman passage, A meditation on trust in God (written in 1848, four years after the portrait above and three years after his reception into the Roman Catholic Church), which Alexander Armstrong also read. The impetus behind the writing had remarkable prescience to the modern day but for the average secular person Newman's writing does require you to get behind the language somehow. Luckily, the responses of the two composers were wonderfully direct and approachable.

Music and architecture combined in The Sixteen's A Choral Odyssey

This time of year we are usually looking forward to The Sixteen's forthcoming Choral Pilgrimage, the choir's annual tour round cathedrals and churches of the UK, usually performing music that was originally written for the spaces and often including contemporary works. Inevitably, whatever plans the group had for a Choral Pilgrimage in 2020/2021 have had to be shelved.

Instead, The Sixteen are presenting A Choral Odyssey, an on-line series of five-programmes which will combine music and architecture. Presented by Simon Russell Beale, each will take an in-depth look at a wide-ranging selection of choral music in locations that are relevant to the music and which inform the theme and choice of repertoire. Starting on 18 November 2020, episodes will be released every Wednesday, all available to watch on demand until 31 January 2021. The series will culminate in an ‘as live’ stream of The Sixteen’s Christmas at Cadogan concert (23 December). 

The series begins at  Magdalen College, Oxford with music by two late 15th/early 16th century composers, Richard Davy and John Sheppard, who both held the post of Informator Choristarum at Magdalen College. Then we move to the Roman Catholic church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St. Gregory in Soho, built 1789-90 on the site of a Catholic chapel (originally part of the Portuguese Embassy and subsequently the Bavarian Embassy) pillaged during the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780, and here we have a programme of music by Spanish Renaissance composer Francisco Guerrero.

At the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe we have music by Henry Purcell, and at Hatfield House there is music by William Byrd (contemporaneous with the house) and by another Roman Catholic in difficult circumstances, Arvo Pärt. Hatfield House is also the home of the Marquess of Salisbury who is patron of The Sixteen.

At Penshurst Place in Kent, which King Henry VIII used as a hunting lodge and it is believed that he may well have spent Christmas there one year, we hear a programme of early and traditional carols including one by Henry himself (only the chorus survives so Cecilia McDowall has written new verses), and music by William Walton. Finally, The Sixteen's annual Christmas concert is being live-streamed from Cadogan Hall.

Full details from The Sixteen's website.

Applications open for the Genesis Sixteen Conducting Scholar 2021

More choral conducting training news, this time The Sixteen.  Applications for the Genesis Sixteen Conducting Scholar 2021 are now open. The successful candidate will work with Harry Christophers, conductor of The Sixteen, associate conductor Eamonn Dougan and the members of the 2021 Genesis Sixteen course, thus giving the opportunity to work with some of the best young ensemble singers in the country. The scholar will have the chance to observe each course, sing with the choir, lead their own rehearsals and conduct several pieces throughout the year. 

Full details from The Sixteen website, applications close at 5pm, Friday 16 October 2020.

Returning Acis and Galatea to its origins: Harry Christophers and The Sixteen perform Handel's original 1718 pastoral

Cannons House, Middlesex, where Handel's Acis and Galatea was premiered

Handel's Acis and Galatea was premiered in 1718, though his involvement with the story of Acis, Galatea and Polyphemus dates back to 1708, and he would continue to produce versions of Acis and Galatea right up to 1741. It is one of the few works by Handel to remain consistently in the repertory, though the version that came down to us is based on Handel's later versions of the piece from the 1730s, using four soloists, chorus and orchestra, and it is only relatively recently that groups have started to consistently explore Handel's 1718 original, which uses five singers (soprano, three tenors and a bass, no chorus) and a minimum of seven instrumentalists.

Harry Christophers and The Sixteen have already performed and recorded the 1718 version, and this month they return to it with a short tour taking in London (Cadogan Hall, 11/2/2020), Chichester Cathedral (12/2/2020), Derby Cathedral (14/2/2020), Warwick (St Mary's Church, 15/2/2020), with Grace Davidson as Galatea, Jeremy Budd as Acis, Mark Dobell as Damon, Simon Berridge as Coridon and Stuart Young Polyphemus plus an instrumental ensemble of nine. Thus giving us a chance to hear the work close to what Handel originally intended.

During Handel's early years in London (he travelled there in 1710 and decided to stay in 1712) he was very dependent on aristocratic patronage, as he had been in Italy. Italian opera was slow to take off; there were five years when Handel wrote no opera and it was only with the forming of the Royal Academy of Music in 1719 that Handel was able to devote himself, again, to Italian opera.

During the period 1717 to 1718 Handel became the house composer for the Duke of Chandos, James Brydges who had made a fortune through his public offices, though his speculations led to the loss of much of his fortune in the South Sea Bubble crisis of 1720. His grand house at Cannons in Middlesex was built between 1713 and 1724, and it was there that Handel spent a profitable and highly creative period, writing the Chandos Anthems, Esther and Acis and Galatea.

Both Esther (a masque based on a Biblical story) and Acis and Galatea (a pastoral based on Ovid) were somewhat experimental pieces. Designed to be performed by the Duke's in-house musicians (hence the limited forces), they could both be seen as serenatas but Handel's later expansions of the works moved Esther closer to oratorio and Acis and Galatea towards opera.

The libretto of Acis and Galatea has its basis in work by John Gay, but there are probably other hands in it too. The piece is heavily influenced by the English masque and pastoral tradition. The big difference between it and Continental models is perhaps the significant role allocated to the chorus (at the 1718 performance, sung by the soloists). We don't know much about this first performance, though it is reputed to have taken place on the terrace at Cannons.

Handel had, in fact, written an Italian serenata Aci, Galatea e Polifemo in 1708 for performance at a wedding in Naples in 1708, but unusually for Handel the 1708 and the 1718 works have no music in common. After 1718, both Acis and Galatea and Esther languished; that the Duke lost a lot of money might have had something to do with it, and also the works were a long way from the Italian operas that Handel devoted the 1720s to.

But in 1731, someone put on a staged version of Acis and Galatea in London. Handel wasn't involved, clearly one of the others from the first performance had kept their score. Handel was enraged, and as there was no copyright protection his only recourse was to produce a new and improved version. So the 1732 version of Acis and Galatea was born, a polyglot piece which used Italian opera stars and wove in music from the 1708 Italian serenata. Handel would produce versions of this right through to 1741. But in 1739 he produced a two-act version of the English original and it is on this that most later performances are based.

Interestingly, Handel seems to have made no effort to stage it, despite the fact that the 1731 staging was very popular (more popular than Handel's subsequent re-working). The same is true of Handel's Semele which we now see as an English opera, but which Handel firmly placed in the oratorio category and gave in concert.

Full details of The Sixteen's tour of Handel's 1718 version of Acis and Galatea from The Sixteen's website.

The Sixteen at Christmas: A Ceremony of Carols

Harry Christophers, The Sixteen

Britten A Ceremony of Carols, William Walton, Elizabeth Poston, Gustav Holst, Matthew Martin, Jan Sandstrom, James Burton, Cecilia McDowall, Medieval carols; The Sixteen, Harry Christophers; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 5 November 2019 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
Britten's glorious carol sequence complemented by ancient and modern settings of related Medieval texts

A remarkable number of early English carols survive, giving us a window onto a form which underwent significant changes in the 19th century. And these texts have provided an endless source of inspiration to 20th century and contemporary composers as the contemporary carol has developed a lively new life. In fact, new carols were very much the thing in the first half of the 20th century, Peter Warlock's Bethlehem Down (from 1927) was published by the Daily Telegraph, and William Walton's Make we joy now in this fest (from 1931) by the Daily Despatch.

Benjamin Britten's A Ceremony of Carols (from 1942) had no such direct inception, it was inspired by a book of medieval carol texts which he bought in Nova Scotia on the journey back to wartime Britain from voluntary exile in America that he and Peter Pears made in 1942, uncertain of their reception on arriving. The work is a 20th century masterpiece, but what to programme with it?

For The Sixteen at Christmas: A Ceremony of Carols at Cadogan Hall on Monday 16 December 2019, Harry Christophers and The Sixteen performed a sequence of carols (some for Christmas, some for other times of the year) all based on Medieval texts, giving us surviving Medieval carols alongside carols to Medieval texts by 20th century composers, William Walton, Elizabeth Poston, Gustav Holst, and contemporary composers Matthew Martin, Jan Sandstrom, James Burton and Cecilia McDowall, all culminating in Britten's A Ceremony of Carols, performed with harpist Frances Kelly.

We started with Walton's 1931 Make we joy now in this fest, a setting of a macaronic text which was somewhat unfamiliar, and for all its liveliness has subtle moments too.

There followed a sequence of Medieval carols, the trick with these is how to present them. Christophers chose to give the carols quite plainly without too much additional arrangement, which made them all the more effective with their bold harmonies.

Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 from The Sixteen at Temple Church

Monteverdi Vespers of 1610; The Sixteen, Harry Christophers; Temple Church
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 19 November 2019 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
Moving fluidly between thrilling brilliance and intimacy, this was performance which really meant something

Harry Christophers and The Sixteen first toured their performances of Monteverdi's Vespers to cathedrals and major churches in 2014 (the first time the group had done a major UK tour with orchestra), and since then I have caught them performing the work in Cadogan Hall. But the chance to hear Monteverdi's Vespers in the lovely acoustic of Temple Church was not to be missed.

Harry Christophers conducted The Sixteen in Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 in Temple Church on Tuesday 19 November 2019 as part of Temple Music's season. The soloists, all singers in the choir, were Charlotte Dobbs, Katy Hill, Mark Dobell, Nicholas Mulroy, Eamonn Dougan, Ben Davies, and the trebles of Temple Church Choir sang the 'Sonata Sopra Santa Maria'.

We don't know a lot about Monteverdi's so-called Vespers. We don't know who or where the music was written for, we have little knowledge of performances directed by Monteverdi in his lifetime, and for much of the 20th century there was even disputes about the key some of the movements were supposed to be in!

When it was published in 1610, it was Monteverdi's first published sacred music. By then he had worked for the Duke of Mantua for 20 years, published five books of madrigals and written two major operas. Part of his responsibilities for the Duke included music for the Duke's chapel, but we know little about Monteverdi's liturgical music in detail. We have to assume that the Vespers, even if largely written in 1609/1610, were the product of long experience. And there is a good case to be made for the music being written for the public chapel of Santa Barbara in the palace at Mantua.

The publication of 1610 has the complex title of Sanctissimae Virgini Missa senis vocibus ad ecclesiarum choros, ac Vespere pluribus decantandae cum nonnullis sacris concentibus ad Sacella sive Principum Cubicula accommodata" (Mass for the Most Holy Virgin for six voices for church choirs, and vespers for several voices with some sacred songs, suitable for chapels and ducal chambers), though one of the part-books refers to it as Vespro della Beata Vergine da concerto composta sopra canti firmi" (Vesper for the Blessed Virgin for concertos, composed on cantus firmi. It was published as a sort of CV, a presentation work to show other employers what Monteverdi could to. He was angling for a post in Rome (the work is dedicated to the Pope), and it almost certainly helped to get him the post at St Mark's in Venice which he took in 1613.

It is not so much a single unified work as a kit for choir masters to use to construct services. Two Vespers services are possible, a long elaborate one and a shorter one with few instruments, the motets serve to dazzle and may have been used to replace the antiphons, or they may just be Monteverdi showing off. And, of course, no-one tacks the mass, which was also in the 1610 publication, onto performances of the Vespers!

Harry Christophers opts for minimal intervention and full grandeur. We get the more complex of the Magnificats (in the now unfashionable higher key which maximises the glittering brilliance of the piece), and full instrumental panoply, with strings, recorders, dulcian (a sort of early bassoon), cornetts, sackbutts, theorbo, harp and organ. In all 18 instrumentalists and 20 singers (not including the trebles).

Another year over: Genesis Sixteen showcases its current cohort and welcomes the new cohort

Members of Genesis Sixteen

The Sixteen recently announced the 2019/20 cohort of young singers for Genesis Sixteen. Over the course of a year members of Genesis Sixteen take part in a series of week-long and weekend courses led by key figures from The Sixteen, including founder and conductor Harry Christophers and Associate Conductor Eamonn Dougan. Participants receive group tuition, individual mentoring and masterclasses run by some of the world’s top vocal experts. Support from the Genesis Foundation means participants receive free tuition and a bursary to cover all additional costs. The scheme is now in its eighth year and has worked with over 150 participants.

There will be chance to hear the 2018/19 Genesis Sixteen in action on Saturday 20 July 2019 as part of the Sixteen's Sounds Sublime Festival at St Clement Dane's Church. Genesis Sixteen will be giving a lunchtime concert, the culmination of the year-long training programme, beforehand in the morning Genesis Sixteen alumni will be supporting Streetwise Opera in a performance responding to Eric Whitacre’s Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine, the culmination of a series of workshops with The Sixteen’s education department and Streetwise Opera.

Full details of the Sounds Sublime festival from The Sixteen website.

The Sixteen at Christmas - The Little Child

Harry Christophers and The Sixteen

The Little Child; The Sixteen, Harry Christophers; Cadogan Hall Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 18 December 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
A nicely rounded Christmas programme which combined more serious elements with the eternally popular

Harry Christophers and The Sixteen have been touring their 2018 Christmas programme and we caught up with them at Cadogan Hall on Tuesday 18 December 2018 as part of Choral at Cadogan. Under the title The Little Child, the programme presented an intriguing selection of music which explored aspects of the Christmas story centred around the Christ child but which included more serious elements such as the Holy Innocents, and gave a nicely rounded programme without excessive Christmas kitsch. So there was music by Sweelinck, Howells, Richard Rodney Bennett, William Walton, George Kirbye, Kenneth Leighton, William Byrd, Palestrina, Giaches de Wert, Joseph Phibbs, Cecilia McDowall, John Sheppard and Peter Warlock.

We started with a bright and brilliant account of Sweelinck's Hodie Christus natus est, followed by Howells in a more thoughtful vein in Sing lullaby. The next three all linked the Saviour's birth to his mission using medieval texts, with an urgent account Richard Rodney Bennett's Susanni and Walton's bright and rhythmic All this time separated by the traditional The Saviour's Work, a piece with which I was not familiar at all.

Purcell's Welcome Songs for King Charles II

Royal Welcome Songs for King Charles II; The Sixteen, Harry Christophers; Coro
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 28 May 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Fine music spiced with some 17th-century politics, Purcell's music for Charles II

Royal Welcome Songs for King Charles II, on the Coro label, is another of Harry Christophers and The Sixteen's discs to arise out of their residency at the Wigmore Hall, performing Purcell. This disc follows a concert given in March 2016 [see my review] and gives us a pair of Welcome Songs written for King Charles II, Welcome Viceregent of the mighty King and Fly, bold rebellion, both from the 1680s, plus a mixture of sacred and secular material from the same period including the catch Since the Duke is returned, the verse anthem Let mine eyes run down with tears, the song Sleep, Adam, sleep, and take thy rest, the motet Beati omnes qui timent Dominum, the verse anthem O sing unto the Lord, and the hymn Great, God and just.

Christophers uses a vocal ensemble of eight singers, with many of the smaller items performed one to a part, and the ensemble using one male alto, with three tenors one of whom sings the high tenor alto parts. The instrumental ensemble is 12 strings plus theorbo, harp and organ/harpsichord. This is certainly not a luxuriant lineup, after all, Purcell had the Twenty Four Violins of the King at his disposal for the Welcome Songs, and certainly, Robert King and the Kings Consort use bigger forces in their complete Purcell Odes and Welcome Songs.

But certainly, Christophers and his team do not sound undernourished, anything but. By using consort singers with solo experience we get a very vibrant yet intimate sound. Even at its biggest, this is more richly characterised vocal consort than a choir, and that suits the music very well indeed.

Purcell's Welcome Songs still tend to be a bit neglected, partly I think because the texts are frequently rather trivial (with couplets like 'Welcome, Viceregent of the mighty King / That made and governs everything') and the subject matter (the need to laud the reigning monarch) a bit difficult to stomach sometimes.

Sacred and Profane: The Sixteen's 2018 Choral Pilgrimage

Sacred and Profane - music by William Cornysh & Benjamin Britten; The Sixteen, Harry Christophers; St Albans Cathedral
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 14 April 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
The opening of The Sixteen's 2018 pilgrimage, pairing sacred and profane music by two English composers spanning over 400 years, William Cornysh and Benjamin Britten

The Sixteen, conductor Harry Christophers, launched their 2018 Choral Pilgrimage with a concert at St Albans Cathedral. Sacred and Profane pairs sacred and secular pieces by Benjamin Britten with music by 15th / 16th-century composer William Cornysh (there were two, both their relationship and the musical attributions are uncertain). Britten's music stretched across his career from Hymn to the Virgin written when he was a teenager to Sacred and Profane, written in 1974/75, and taking in A Hymn to St Cecilia and Advance Democracy. The music by Cornysh included two major sacred pieces, Salve Regina and Ave Maria, and three secular pieces, My Love she mourneth, Woefully Array'd and  Ah Robin, gentle Robin.

We opened with Britten's Hymn to the Virgin written when he was 17, an enormously confident and stylish work. Using a macaronic text, the main choir sang the English and the solo quartet (from the rear of the nave) sang the Latin, all giving a profoundly beautiful rendering of the music with finely shaped phrases and a lovely clarity of texture; a considered performance.

This was followed by William Cornysh's My love she mourn'th. The elder William Cornysh (who died in 1502 and who was a singer at Westminster Abbey) probably wrote the sacred pieces, notably the works like the Salve Regina from the Eton Choir Book. The younger William Cornysh (who died in 1523) was a singer with the Chapel Royal but also devised pageants, plays and other staged events. In the Fairfax Manuscript (copied in 1501) he is referred to as William Cornysh Junior, but we have little information beyond that. This is probably one of those occasions when it was so obvious to contemporaries which was which that they rarely if ever needed to write it down