Stile Antico Choir – ‘A Garden of Delights’

“An ensemble of breathtaking freshness & vitality” according to recent reviews, Stile Antico deliver fresh, vibrant and moving performances of Renaissance polyphony. They are regular performers at Wigmore Hall and other prominent venues and are frequently heard on national radio.

Tonight’s concert brings together music depicting the delights of gardens both earthly and heavenly, real and imagined. We explore the heady poetry of the biblical Song of Songs, abounding in flowers, fruits, and lush foliage, and the world of the madrigal, where we find gardens full of nymphs and shepherds, insects and birds. But the true theme of our concert is love, for which these verdant gardens furnish both the ideal setting and the perfect metaphor.

The Song of Songs is a book of Old Testament love poetry, attributed to King Solomon. Its sensual verses tell of the relationship between a lover – by tradition Solomon himself – and his beloved. The poem speaks in frank and colourful terms of their love and desire for each another, and the delights and sorrows of their relationship. The inclusion of such a risqué text in the Bible has long exercised the interpretative powers of theologians, but it evidently delighted Renaissance composers: only the book of Psalms was more frequently mined by Continental polyphonists.

Programme

Surge propera, amica mea – Palestrina, Song of Songs 2:10-13

Ego flos campi – Clemens non Papa, Song of Songs 2:1-2, 4:15

Sicut lilium inter spinas – Leonora d’Este, Song of Songs, 2:2

This sweet and merry month of May – William Byrd

The Lady Oriana – John Wilbye

As Vesta was from Latmos hill descending – Thomas Weelkes

Veni, dilecte mi – Sebastián de Vivanco, Song of Songs 7:11-13

Veni in hortum meum – Orlande de Lassus, Song of Songs 5:1

Tota pulchra es – Hieronymous Praetorius, Song of Songs 4:7, 11, 2:13

INTERVAL

Draw on, sweet night – John Wilbye

Ecco mormorar l’onde – Claudio Monteverdi

Hortus conclusus – Rodrigo de Ceballos, Song of Songs 4:12, 5:2, 2:14, 4:11, 4:8

Osculetur me – Claudio Monteverdi, Song of Songs 1:1-2

Surge propera, amica mea – Francisco Guerrero, Song of Songs 2:10-13

All creatures now are merry minded – John Bennett

Vagh’ amorosi augelli – Maddalena Casulana

El grillo è buon cantore – Josquin des Prez

Quel Augellin che canta – Claudio Monteverdi

The Phoenix and the Turtle – Huw Watkins, William Shakespeare