‘O great mystery…’. The wonder of Christ’s birth, death and resurrection and the miracles of his life are captured in a programme of music spanning four and a half centuries.
From his humble birth, with the animals looking on, to curing a girl possessed by a demon and the calming of the waves in a raging storm, the music re-telling of biblical stories are linked by the sublime sound of the Tallis Scholars, renowned for their luminous accounts of Renaissance choral music, every detail clearly etched, and the natural beauty of each individual vocal line burnished and pure. These qualities are nowhere better demonstrated than in Allegri’s justly famous Miserere – music of rapture and wonder, solace and supplication. This concert will be recorded for BBC Radio 3 to be featured on the Early Music Show.
The concert will feature the premiere of the two award-winning pieces from the National Centre for Early Music’s Young Composers Award 2024, run in collaboration with BBC Radio 3. Ryan Collis and Charlotte Robertson composed their choral pieces specifically for The Tallis Scholars, responding to the sixteenth-century poem Mirable mysterium by Jacob Gallus.