Mayfield XL

Mayfield XL (Extra Large) swells the Mayfield choral ranks to Biblical proportions. In 1561, Alessandro Striggio strapped the music for Ecce Beatam Lucem – his new 40-voice motet – to a donkey and toured it round Europe. This spurred Thomas Tallis to compose his own (even more impressive) 40-voice piece; the awe-inspiring Spem in Alium. In this performance, Oxford Camerata joins the Mayfield Consort to perform these XL (40)-part pieces ‘in the round’ (the manner in which they were written to be performed), as well as David Bednall’s 40- part Lux orta est iusto and a new commission by (very) young local composer Clemmie Dawson.

Programme

Ecce beatam lucem                                   Alessandro Striggio (1536/7 – 1592)

Missa Euge bone                                       Christopher Tye (c.1505 – before 1573)

Agnus Dei I – IV

Planctus Guillelmus                                 Anonymous (1087)

Voice and harp, Eloise Irving

Spem in alium                                            Thomas Tallis (c.1507 – 85)

                                                       –  INTERVAL  –

A Hymn to the Mother of God                  John Tavener (1944 – 2013)

O Euchari                                                     Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 1179)

Three British Folk Songs                            arr. Jeremy Summerly (born 1961)

Molly Malone

King Herod and the Cock

Bonny at morn

The Cloths of Heaven (première)             Clemmie Dawson (born 2008)

Lux orta est iusto                                        David Bednall (born 1979)