Future Events
Tenebrae Service (link)
‘Service of the Shadows’
The Service of ‘Tenebrae’ is an ancient one dating from the 4th Century and traditionally marking Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Saturday. In this service, which through readings tells the story of Christ’s journey from the Mount of Olives to Golgotha, the Cross and the Tomb, the gradual extinguishing of the seven dark coloured candles takes us from the light of day to the near total darkness that engulfed Golgotha at the crucifixion.
Throughout the service the readings will be punctuated by the music of Fauré’s Requiem. Its ethereal beauty and poignancy bring us to Fauré’s own interpretation of the frailty of human life and the inevitability of human death – reducing each mortal being to its own shadow.
As the narrator tells us of Christ’s final moments, the Strepitus (the great noise), reminds us of the thunder and the earthquake that accompanied his death. The white candle, representing Christ, is hidden from view, symbolizing his burial in the tomb. Its ultimate reappearance, in turn, signifies the hope of his Resurrection and the return of Christ to this world.
Our community choir - The New Quay Singer, will be joined by Walter Love as narrator, Dr Joe McKee as organist and Mark Anderson, of the Ulster Scots Agency, with his Lambeg drum.
His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts
Friday 30th April 2010 @ 7.30pm
Tickets are available here.
Concert £15.00
Quintin Castle Reception £25.00
After the concert, Paul Neill of Quintin Castle, has again very kindly agreed to hold a reception at his home. Those who attended the reception last year were entranced particularly by the spectacular restoration of the gardens at the Castle. It will be of particular interest to see how they have progressed in the last year. Price includes transport from the concert to the reception and back as well as drinks, canapés and dessert.
Saturday 1st May 2010 @ 10am
Brass Workshop
This workshop is open to all brass players. Please bring your own instruments.
Workshop £5.00.
Lunch is available at £5.00.
Email here to register.
‘His Majesty's Sagbutts & Cornetts’ (HMSC) gave its debut concert in London in 1982. The group’s illustrious sounding name is taken from Matthew Locke’s “five-part tthings for His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts” that were probably played during the coronation celebrations for King Charles II in 1661. This is essentially a recital group comprising two cornets and three sackbuts:
- Cornett: Jeremy West and Jamie Sava
- Alto and Tenor Sackbutt: Abigail Newman and Adam Woolf
- Keyboards: Gary Cooper.
Often the group joins with chamber organ or harpsichord, singers and string players and is frequently asked to take part in projects with choirs including John Eliot Gardiner’s Monteverdi Choir, the BBC Singers, and the choirs of Trinity and King’s College, Cambridge, as well as those of Westminster Abbey, St Paul's and Westminster Cathedral, London (and who can forget Westminster Cathedral’s incredible performance in Portaferry in 2009).
Activities over the group’s twenty-five year history have been as diverse as sound and vision recordings for the BBC comedy “The Two Ronnies”, to appearances in the Salzburg Festival, St. Mark’s, Venice and the Sydney Opera House.
Individual members of HMS&C teach at conservatoires and universities throughout the UK and the group is often invited to give masterclasses and workshops as a part of its educational activites. We are delighted that they will also do this during their visit to Portaferry.
His Majesty's Sagbutts & Cornetts has numerous recordings to its credit, among them a Bach Album which was named "recording of the year" in Gramophone Magazine, December 2002. 2007 saw the launch of the group’s own recording label ‘sfz music’, the first release winning a five star maximum award from Goldberg Magazine.
Recent highlights in the group’s 25 year career have included two performances in London’s Royal Albert Hall at the BBC Proms. Here the group joined The Tallis Scholars and The BBC Singers in Striggio’s reconstructed Mass in 60 parts; and, for the BBC’s unique and inspired “brass day”, HM appeared on stage with the Black Dyke Mills and Grimethorpe Colliery bands. At the South Bank Festival, His Majestys joined The Kings Singers in the Queen Elizabeth Hall for a truly memorable occasion - a musical encounter some five years in the planning.
HMSC’s basic ensemble consists of two cornetts and three sackbuts with chamber organ but essentially it is a group of virtuoso wind players who specialise in Renaissance and Baroque music, in historically appropriate styles, on original instruments. The noble sound of cornetts and sackbuts was among the most versatile instrumental colours available to composers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was heard in many musical contexts: in consort or in alternation with voices in the extravagant liturgy of the great Italian and Spanish churches - above all the Basilica of St Mark's in Venice; in aristocratic entertainments such as the intermedii of northern Italy or the masques of Jacobean England; and in the ceremonial and devotional music for the courts and free cities of Lutheran Germany.
In its heyday the cornett was one of the most favoured of wind instruments being employed by composers in courts and churches. Blown like a trumpet but fingered like a recorder, it is capable of both astonishing virtuosity and heart-rending vocal expression. In 1636 one writer compared its sound in a church to 'a ray of sunshine piercing the shadows'.
The sackbut is the direct forerunner of the modern trombone - indeed the Italians already called it trombone, or 'large trumpet' - but perfectly matches the vocal timbre of the cornett, thanks to its relatively narrow bore and shallow mouthpiece. Despite its slide mechanism, early composers often wrote for it in an amazingly florid manner and of course because of its slide mechanism, the sackbut was able to play more harmonically evolved music and was used by chamber music and church music composers across Europe until the middle of the 18th century.
His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts has played at, for, in, on or with all of the following (and many more) and the friends of Portaferry Presbyterian Church are flattered that they are to be added to this awe-inspiring list: Athens; BBC Radio, TV & Proms; Canterbury Cathedral; Deutsche Gramophon; Edinburgh; Festspielhaus Salzburg; Granada; Hong Kong; Israel; John Eliot Gardiner; King's College Cambridge; Lufthansa Festival London; Melbourne; Nigel Rogers; Oslo; Paris to Perth; Queen's University Belfast; Roger Norrington; Sydney Opera House; Taipei; Utrecht Early Music Festival; Venice St Mark’s; Westminster Abbey; EX Cathedra; York; Zaragoza.
Listen to HMSC here: http://www.hmsc.co.uk/hismajestyssagbl.html
