Summer School Reviews
Musica Transalpina - and two firsts
by Gillian Earl (from BKA Winter 2003 Newsletter)
At the final concert at this year's Summer School the main choir, under
David Vinden's direction, gave two notable first performances. One was of a
madrigal by Giovanni Croce, 'Cynthia, thy song and chaunting', from
the second of two anthologies of foreign madrigals published in London in
1597. The first collection was published in 1588 and both anthologies were
entitled, 'Musica Transalpina'. Their publication was said to have had a
profound affect on English Madrigal writing at that time. A facsimile was
published in the early 1970s but, so far as is known, no-one, until now, has
attempted to transcribe them into a form that is of practical use for modern
times. This David has done - a very considerable task for which we warmly
congratulate him. The performance of, 'Cynthia, thy song and chaunting',
gave rise to a unique sense of occasion in so far as this was possibly the
first performance for between three and four hundred years.
The first collection of fifty seven madrigals, keeping the fascinating original spelling, is available now from David Vinden. The second set of twenty four will follow soon.
The other 'first' was in fact a first
performance in this country of, 'Adoramus te, Christe', written in
2002 by one of Hungary's leading composers, Miklós Kocsár, (who, as many
readers will know, is Ildikó Herboly's husband). A most rewarding piece to
sing, it is published by Editio Musica Budapest.
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