Photo courtesy of Rémi Sourisse
Strictly Singing Renaissance Polyphony
‘Like a lily among the thorns, so is my love’
Where: Paris, France
When: June 20-23 2024
With whom: Dr. David Allinson
Program: Jean Mouton, Antoine Brumel, Dominique Phinot, Josquin des Prez…
For whom: experienced choral singers with good sight-reading skills.
Cost: 380 € per person. non-singers 90 €
Where better to sing of love and devotion than Paris? Strictly Singing’s summer 2024 workshop will explore a variety of Renaissance motets and songs with a distinctly French accent.
Renaissance music specialist David Allinson, currently Director of Music at University of Christ Church Canterbury, will lead singers through a programme offering a range of moods, challenges and rewards. Beginning and ending with the music of Josquin des Prez, the greatest composer of the early Renaissance, we will also sing motets by French composers Jean Mouton, Dominique Phinot and Antoine Brumel. Our programme will then take on a lighter mood, evoking the spirit of summer, the scent of gardens and amorous intentions with a range of motets in which the erotic poetry of the Song of Songs inspires composers (including Isaac, Guerrero and Ceballos) to lyrical heights.
We hope you can join us for this opportunity to immerse yourself in the best of Renaissance polyphony. Rehearsals will be held at the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris situated in the 14 th arrondissement, just opposite the beautiful Parc Montsouris. Our end of workshop concert will be held at the magnificent American Cathedral, located in the heart of Paris, just a stone’s throw from the Champs Elysées and the Arc de Triomphe.
A word from David Allinson
I am absolutely delighted that Madelaine has invited me to direct a course of Renaissance polyphony in Paris in early summer.
I have taken the opportunity to programme some favourite works – and to give the repertoire a French flavour. We will sing music by Jean Mouton (who worked for Anne of Brittany and then for Francis I) and Antoine Brumel, who was master of the choristers at Notre Dame before spreading his wings for Italy. And we have an exquisite communion motet by Pierre de la Rue, who came from Tournai (now in modern Belgium).
Dominique Phinot, who spent his career in Lyon and Italy, was hugely esteemed by contemporaries and deserves to be much better known today. He pioneered new techniques in expressive double choir writing; his O sacrum convivium is a masterpiece.
Elsewhere, our programme the mood lightens and takes on the spirit of summer, the scent of gardens and amorous intentions. We will sing a range of motets in which the erotic poetry of the Song of Songs inspires composers to lyrical heights, often intertwining with devotion to Mary, mother of Jesus – by Isaac, Guerrero, Ceballos and other Spaniards.
The music list is topped and tailed by Josquin des Prez, the greatest composer of the early Renaissance, who set the benchmark for quality in motet, mass and chanson. Like several of our Francophone composers, he spent his career serving aristocrats and the Catholic church in France, Italy and elsewhere, producing music of superlative quality.
Overall, I hope this musical programme will offer singers a range of moods, challenges and rewards for our time together and give us a pleasurable few days together.
David Allinson