Friday, October 24, 2008, 8:00 pm
First Church in Cambridge, Congregational
Blue Heron’s annual fall exploration of early 16th-century English music, featuring Robert Jones’s Magnificat, splendid votive antiphons (all given their first Blue Heron performances here) by Tallis, Taverner, and Aston, all from the Peterhouse partbooks (c. 1540); and a garland of secular songs by Fayrfax, Cornysh, Turges, and others, from two manuscripts, the Fayrfax manuscriptof c. 1505 and the so-called Henry VIII’s songbook of c. 1510–20.
Free pre-concert talk at 7:15 by Christopher Martin (Boston University) — sponsored by the Cambridge Society for Early Music
A specialist in 16th- and 17th-century English literature and the recipient of a NEH Distinguished Teaching Professorship (2005-08), Professor Martin will introduce us to the cultural world of the court of Henry VIII, focussing particularly on the secular lyrics.
