As no cornetts or sackbuts have applied to take part in Michael Procter’s weekend workshop on Lassus in Kilburn next month he has decided to make it a singers only event. This means that there will be room for a few extra singers, provided that some more tenors apply. The situation at the moment is that there should be room for one or two more altos and basses, tenors permitting, but sopranos have to go on the waiting list until the balance improves even further. So come on, tenors - please book soon! Many thanks to those who have offered accommodation. There are still a few beds available if you need somewhere to stay.

Philip Thorby’s workshop for recorder players on 6^th October will be all about performing Italian baroque sonatas, with particular reference to Sammartini, Barsanti and Mancini and their different styles, and will be made up of a mixture of demonstrations, a short master class and ensemble playing.

Renewals are trickling in - nearly 20% of members have not returned their forms but this is entirely normal and I confidently expect the membership to return to around the 300 in a month or two.

As I write this I'm looking forward very much to the Brumel mass but there are plenty of exciting events coming up, including a Baroque Day in Oxford and a Lassus Mass in St Augustine's.
David

LALANDE, MICHEL RICHARD DE. Born in Paris in 1657 and died at Versailles in 1726, aged sixty-eight. In the time of Lully, and after, he was one of the musical favourites of Louis XIV, directing the musical education of his daughters and for a long period serving as Superintendent if music to the court. He wrote much church music (chiefly motets, which the king caused to be sumptuously printed) and also a good many ballets. Scholes, Percy A, ed. J O Ward (1970) The Oxford Companion to Music, Tenth Edition (Oxford, OUP).

No, it is to my eternal shame that I had not already heard of him. Andrew Benson-Wilson told me during the day that despite what appears to have been a successful career at court, he missed out on the job he coveted, that of organist to the French Chapel Royal. Strangely enough some of his orchestral music was broadcast on Radio 3 shortly after the above workshop, one piece announced as one of many written by Lalande to accompany the King’s dinner.

Possibly Philip Thorby had more of a dog’s dinner in mind after our first run through at the Unicorn School, Kew on Sunday 3 March. ‘Twas ever thus, and Philip set to with his flair and good humour to pull together the baroque strings and viols, recorders, flutes, oboes, bassoons, harpsichord and singers into a proper appreciation of this wonderful piece.

It is a setting of Psalm 130, and based on dance music in common with much French instrumental music of the 17^th century. It begins with a solemn introit for bass solo followed by a noble chorus, leading on to solo and ensemble sections interspersed with further choruses. At the end, a terrific chorus has the words of the Requiem Mass: "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: Et lux perpetua luceat eis". The various sections are brilliantly built up from relatively small motifs in both the sung and instrumental parts, altered and recombined as each section progresses. It was clear to everyone that Lalande was a composer of great talent: Philip helped in our appreciation of this, and introduced us to the contemporary French concept of ornament which was applied with strict rules though always deferring to the good taste of the performers. "Arpeggios are not in�gal" he stated, before taking the instrumentalists through a fascinating section where the lower strings were playing quavers in the slightly rocking in�gal method while the upper strings bounced through martial calls in strict time.

This was a fascinating glimpse of a little-known composer and of a considerable body of relatively unexplored vocal writing. It was all in all a very pleasant day, particularly given the opportunity to spread out onto the playground at break times. Some intrepid souls tried out the climbing frames while an impromptu game of football began at lunch. I hear that the violins were disqualified when it was discovered that they had twenty four players on the pitch.

Apparently there are around 70 grand motets in all. What riches must they contain!

The Chiltern West Gallery Choir is a group of around 20 singers and instrumentalists. We sing the distinctive psalms, hymns, anthems and carols that were sung in the west galleries of English country churches in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. We meet once a month in Welwyn Garden City and give occasional concerts, evensongs, lecture-recitals and carol-singing.
Most of our music is specially researched and has connections with our local area. New members are welcome: please contact Thomas Bending on 020 7834 7439.

Suitable instruments, both authentic and modern equivalent, are violin family, orchestral woodwinds, serpent, brass (learn to play in C!). Recorders? Very iffy, my son, but they may have used patent voice flutes.

There is a similar group meeting in central London: Peter Harris (01494 471161) could tell you more.

Chris Thorn

Dear Editor

"In science" wrote Percy Scholes "things are right or wrong. In the arts they are good or bad."

So far from decrying performances of early keyboard music by accomplished pianists, we should recognise that in their way they forward the cause of early music rather than retard it. Here is why.

A survey by the Associated Board in 1994 revealed that around 560,000 5/14-year-olds in Britain ‘played the piano’, with about half of that number taking lessons. Only a minuscule minority of these would have access to any early keyboard instrument. Virtually all would have to use the family piano to have hands-on experience of Bach and Purcell and Byrd and Farnaby, etc - or go without, which would be deplorable. Even if the teacher is an early keyboard devotee Paterfamilias will rarely be cajoled into buying young hopeful a harpsichord and keeping it in good order. But out of those thousands will come, in the fullness of time, increasing numbers of early music lovers. Children need to be encouraged by confidence that what they are working at is worthwhile; the last thing to tell them is that the piano is wrong, bad, inartistic - which is simply not true, anyhow. And they need the example of first-rate performances to know what they are aiming at. The concert pianists of today are better informed than those of a century ago, having (like other ‘establishment’ performers) learned very much from the early music revival. Too many enthusiasts are still fighting the battle for ‘early music’ - historical awareness - which has been won. Much promotional work is still called for, but it will be counter-productive if it ignores realities. I go along with Dart (1954):

"This music has been regularly, widely and lovingly performed on the piano for more than a century, and anyone who tries to build a fence round it will be no more successful at cuckoo-catching than were the Three Wise Men of Gotham."

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum
This fine body at Singleton, a few miles north of Chichester, are worth a visit any time, but especially on their early music afternoon on July 7 next. Janet and I expect to be winding our gurdies as usual, but their may be other opportunities for early music groups, costumed or not, to
play in the various old buildings. You could try asking Diane Walker at the museum, 01243 811475.