Christ Church Choir in Christ Church Cathedral
The Treasures of Christ Church

All the music in this concert has a Christ Church connection: the manuscript is in the library or the composer is associated with the college. It starts with Renaissance works (Taverner Christe Jesu, Tallis Salvator mundi, Parsons Ave Maria, Byrd O Lord make thy servant Elizabeth, Gibbons Great Lord of Lords, Weelkes Hosanna) and moves via the Baroque (Purcell O God thou art my God and Handel Zadok the Priest) into the twentieth century (Howells Like as the hart, Walton Set me as a seal and Jubilate). There are short organ interludes.
 

Gabrieli Consort in Keble College Chapel
Close Thou Thine Eyes

The Gabrieli Consort is renowned for devising a series of stunning a cappella programmes. On this occasion, with 22 singers, they draw on their acclaimed programme The Road to Paradise to create a programme of reflective music for the end of the day, with John Sheppard’s votive antiphon Media vita in morte sumus, William Byrd’s Christe qui lux es et dies, A Good-Night by Richard Rodney Bennett, Nunc dimittis by Gustav Holst and, by William Harris, organist at Christ Church and New College, Bring us, O Lord God.


Magdalen College Choir in Magdalen Chapel
Floreat Magdalena

Drawing on the wealth of music connected with Magdalen and previous holders of the post of Informator Choristarum, Daniel Hyde directs the choir in a programme entirely by Magdalen composers including works by John Sheppard (Libera nos, salva nos), Richard Nicholson (O pray for the peace of Jerusalem), Thomas Tomkins (My beloved spake), Daniel Purcell (Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis), John Stainer (I saw the Lord and Lead kindly light) and Bernard Rose.  


Merton College Choir in Merton College Chapel
The Golden Ages
Merton’s choristers begin their concert with motets by Tallis, Byrd and Weelkes, highlights of the Tudor and Stuart ages. They continue with the three major composers of the second Golden Age: from the Songs of Farewell by Sir Hubert Parry (Oxford Professor of Music 1900–08); Valiant for Truth and movements from Mass in G minor by Parry’s pupil, Ralph Vaughan Williams; the programme finishes with the lushly melancholic Take him, earth, for cherishing by Herbert Howells. 


New College Choir in New College Chapel
Festal Evensong

Evensong is an Anglican fusion of Vespers and Compline devised in the reign of Edward VI by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. This concert version, without a priest but with a cantor, includes an introit by Jonathan Dove, responses by Richard Ayleward, hymns by Tallis and Goss, Magnificat and Nunc dimittis by Howells and anthems by William Boyce and Samuel Sebastian Wesley. It begins and ends with organ voluntaries by J.S. Bach.


Phantasm in Magdalen College Chapel
A Pageant of English Viol Consorts

In the intimate surroundings of Magdalen Chapel, considered to possess one of the finest acoustics in Oxford, this recital presents some of the finest pieces for three, four or five viols from the Elizabethan Age to the Restoration. Composers include William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, John Jenkins, John Ward, Henry Purcell and William Lawes.


Stile Antico in New College Chapel
Festive Vespers

This programme juxtaposes late mediaeval Franco-Flemish composers with their English Tudor counterparts. Extraordinary musical brilliance has been lavished on this, the evening Office, most of all the Magnificat canticle (‘My soul doth magnify the Lord’). Two versions are included, by Robert White and Nicolas Gombert. There are two versions also of Nesciens mater, by Jean Mouton and Walter Lambe, and Ave maris stella is sung to a setting by Jacob Regnart. There are four interludes of chant, and the concert finishes with the – well –glorious Gaude gloriosa by Thomas Tallis.


The Tallis Scholars in Christ Church Cathedral
Taverner’s Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas

The outstanding composer of the early sixteenth century, John Taverner was for five years from 1526 the first organist and director of music (Informator Choristarum) at Cardinal College (later renamed Christ Church). It is likely that this, Taverner’s most celebrated example of his festal church music, was first heard in the church where it is performed in this festival. There are two insertions by Tallis, Lamentations I and Audivi vocem.


New College Choir and Charivari Agréable in the Sheldonian Theatre
Mozart at Salzburg Cathedral

The final concert consists of two of Mozart’s finest ecclesiastical works, both written shortly before he left episcopal employment at Salzburg for a freelance career in Vienna. The Coronation Mass K.317 is his most celebrated complete setting (epistle sonatas will be added), and Vesperae solennes de Dominica K.321 has a full set of five psalms and the Magnificat.

The Divine Office day

The central component of the festival is the performance of the complete Divine Office, within the span of a single day and at the appropriate times. There are eight Offices of the Hours; the first, Matins, begins at 1.00am and the eighth, Compline, finishes towards 10.00pm.

The principal features of the Offices are the chanting of psalms with their antiphons, the singing of hymns and canticles, and the chanting of readings from the Bible with sung responsories. The most spiritually charged musical tradition to have emerged from western civilization has, in essentials, changed little in nearly fifteen hundred years. Aspects may go back further: the roots of plainchant (‘Gregorian’ chant) may lie in Jewish or Pharaonic practice. 

Though this ‘performance’ of the Divine Office (they are concerts, not services) is basically an authentic rendering as might have been performed in England in the sixteenth century, there are some departures from liturgical correctness. It does not follow the texts prescribed for a particular day, and we err on the side of musical elaboration beyond what is canonically necessary. The polyphonic passages have been selected from among the finest ever composed, within an (hardly limiting) overarching Marian theme.

Five choirs take part, two of which, The Tallis Scholars and Westminster Cathedral Choir, have opted to participate in all eight Offices. There are two challenges facing contemporary choirs wishing to perform the complete Divine Office, apart from sleep deprivation: vocal stamina, and the quantity of plainchant whose singing is a specialist skill which is not easily mastered. Our solution is to engage two choirs for most of the Hours, one to perform the chant and the other the polyphony – formerly standard practice in the better endowed cathedrals and colleges.

Were you to attend all eight Hours, you would become one of an elite few among living souls who had done so, so rare is the opportunity now. Even were you to skip the less agreeably timed ones, you would be exposed to what may be the most potent spiritual and aesthetic experience available in the western world. Moreover it could be said, at the risk of divine wrath for extreme hubris, that, musically, this manifestation of the Divine Office will rank as the finest ever performed, it being perhaps unprecedented for so many first-rate choirs to participate. 

As the capacity of the chapels is limited, most of the Offices are performed in two chapels simultaneously. Each member of the audience is assigned to a particular set of Hours to ensure maximum variety of choirs and chapels.

We shall ask that there be no applause at any time during the day.

Matins, 1.00am
The liturgical day starts with the Night Office, potentially the longest of the Canonical Hours, though we are limiting it to 80 minutes. Musically it is also one of the most important of the Offices, including some of the most ancient chants and finishing with a Te Deum.

• Christ Church Cathedral: The Tallis Scholars (polyphony) and Sospiri (chant).
• New College Chapel: Stile Antico (polyphony) and the men of Westminster Cathedral Choir (chant).


Lauds, 4.00am
Also called Morning Prayer, Lauds, which in high summer might be at daybreak, is musically also one of the three most important Offices. It includes the canticle Beata es Maria.

• Magdalen College Chapel: the Academical Clerks of Magdalen Choir (the men but not the boys; polyphony) and the men of Westminster Cathedral Choir (chant).
• Keble College Chapel: The Tallis Scholars (polyphony) and Sospiri (chant).


Prime, 6.30am
A short service, the first of the ‘Little Hours’, we have timed this so that the congregations enter the chapels before dawn and leave in daylight.

• Keble College Chapel: The Tallis Scholars (polyphony) and Sospiri (chant).
• Magdalen College Chapel: the men of the Westminster Cathedral Choir (chant and polyphony).


Terce and Mass, 9.15am
The second of the ‘Little Hours’ is followed immediately by Morning Mass, the principal service of the Catholic Church. New College Chapel has the capacity to accommodate the whole audience so there is only one performance of this pair of services.

• New College Chapel: The Tallis Scholars (polyphony) and the men of Westminster Cathedral Choir (chant).


Sext, 12 noon
The third of the ‘Little Hours’ is at the hour which is the sixth, according to the system by which twelve hours are counted from dawn to sundown.

•  Magdalen College Chapel: Magdalen College Choir (with boys; polyphony) and the complete Westminster Cathedral Choir, including the choristers (chant).
• Christ Church Cathedral: The Tallis Scholars (polyphony) and Sospiri (chant).


None, 3.30pm
The last of the ‘Little Hours’, with a duration of about half an hour.
• Merton College Chapel: The Tallis Scholars (polyphony) and Sospiri (chant).
• Magdalen College Chapel: Magdalen College Choir (polyphony) and the men of Westminster Cathedral Choir (chant).


Vespers, 6.45pm
Vespers is musically the most significant of the Offices, being the first to admit polyphony and progressing to become the arena for some of the greatest music ever written. The Magnificat is the principal canticle. The boys again join the men of Westminster Cathedral Choir.

• New College Chapel: The Tallis Scholars and Westminster Cathedral Choir (including choristers).

Supper follows in either Trinity or Magdalen College Hall.

Compline, 9.15pm
The last Office of the day features the singing of the votive antiphon of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

• New College Chapel: Stile Antico (polyphony) and the men of Westminster Cathedral Choir (chant).
• Magdalen College Chapel: The Tallis Scholars (polyphony) and Sospiri (chant).

More about the concerts: practical information

Exclusive access. The concerts are private, being planned and administered by Martin Randall Travel exclusively for an audience consisting of those who have taken the full festival package.

Tickets for individual concerts may be put on sale from 3rd September, if any spare places remain, to those who have registered interest before this date.

Secular. All the performances are concerts rather than religious services. 
Duration. Most are a little less than an hour. Matins may be 80 minutes, while four of the Offices are about half an hour. None of the concerts has an interval.

Seats. Specific seats are not reserved. You may sit were you want or where there is space. Most seating is stalls or pews. 

Repeats. Only two of the five chapels used for this festival, New College and Keble College, can accommodate the whole audience with satisfactory acoustics and sightlines. Concerts in the other chapels are therefore repeated – or, for the Divine Office itself, there are two simultaneous performances.

You don’t have to attend them all! Seventeen concerts is a lot to absorb in five days. To conserve your energies it might be wise to omit one or two.

• Choirs, Musicians

• Chapels, Venues

• Chapel Walks

• Lectures

• Accommodation, Meals

• Prices

• Practicalities