Celebrating William Byrd, 1–5 July 2023

CELEBRATING WILLIAM BYRD

ENGLAND’S GREATEST COMPOSER

William Byrd is perhaps the greatest of English composers, and certainly one of the most important European composers of his time. This festival commemorates the quatercentenary of his death in 1623 in spectacular fashion.

Across nine concerts and a special Evensong you will hear much of his finest music alongside works by other Renaissance masters and polyphonic pieces of later ages.

While enjoying the patronage of royalty and magnates, there was a secret at the heart of Byrd’s life which even today adds a frisson to his music. He was a Catholic, revealed by some of his sacred compositions, including several settings of the Latin Mass. This apostasy could have cost him his life.

THE FINEST MUSICIANS

We have engaged a stellar line-up of ensembles: The Tallis Scholars leads with four appearances, and Tenebrae, The Gesualdo Six and Lincoln Cathedral Choir each perform twice. The Rose Consort of Viols, Fretwork and Recordare complete the roster.

THE PLACE

Byrd was a member of the Chapel Royal for much of his professional life, a peripatetic institution that performed wherever the monarch took up residence. The single place with which he is most closely associated, however, is Lincoln Cathedral, where he was organist and choir director for nine years.

The cathedral, among the most magnificent of Gothic buildings, sits atop an isolated outcrop which rises from low-lying farming country and dominates the scene for many miles around.

Streets and alleys curve and climb, lined with a picturesque jumble of vernacular and formal architecture spanning 800 years. Independent shops, cafés and restaurants abound. Among the sights are the castle, a copy of Magna Carta, the art gallery and various museums.

THE CONCERTS

On the day of the 400th anniversary, 4th July 2023, a plaque will be unveiled on the spot where Byrd would have stood to direct the choir. This will be during a commemorative Choral Evensong to which participants on this festival are invited.

There are four other concerts in Lincoln, including another in the cathedral and one in the chapter house. The other five take place nearby in some of the loveliest and grandest parish churches in eastern England.

ACCOMMODATION

You choose where to stay and in what sort of room from the three hotels we have selected. All are in the heart of the hilltop cathedral quarter and are only a few minutes on foot from the concert and lecture venues and the restaurants.

All four dinners are included, and participants will be in a different restaurant each evening. No need to choose them – just follow the dates and destinations we assign you.

THE PACKAGE

Access to the concerts is exclusive to those who take a package which includes a choice of hotel, dinners, a lunch, coach travel, lectures, an informative programme book and the help of festival staff.

MARTIN RANDALL & OUR FESTIVALS

This festival has been devised and planned by Martin Randall, Creative Director. It follows the format that he established nearly 30 years ago with our first Danube Music Festival. Since then we have organised festivals along the Rhine, Loire and Seine rivers, in Suffolk, York, Oxford, the Cotswolds and the West Country, to Seville, Toledo, Burgos, Santiago, Venice, Rome, Bologna, Sicily, the Veneto, to St Petersburg, through Thuringia, and most recently to the Alentejo.

It is hard to articulate the joy they bring: amazing musicians playing wonderful music; glorious historic halls, many of which are not normally accessible; a curated sequence of concerts each of which enlarges upon the previous ones; logistics taken care of with apparent ease by MRT staff. The whole is far more than the sum of its parts.

Illustration top: Lincoln, etching by Wilfred Ball, 1906. Photograph: Peter Phillips conducting The Tallis Scholars, ©Bill Knight.

THE PROGRAMME

Day 1 Saturday 1st July

At 2.00pm coaches leave Lincoln and Grantham for the first concert at Heckington – from Lincoln for those who have made their way there independently, and Grantham for those who want to travel by train.

(Trains from London King’s Cross to Grantham are frequent, with an average journey time of 70 minutes. There are trains to Lincoln, but none direct at weekends.)

The journey to Heckington from both places is about 40 minutes.

You could of course make your own way to Heckington by car.

3.15pm: concert 1

St Andrew’s Church in Heckington Tenebrae

Nigel Short director

Heckington is a village in a very agricultural part of Lincolnshire. The church is a stunner – of impressive scale, largely early 14th-century, lavishly encrusted with stone carvings and sporting magnificent window tracery of the Decorated period.

Here is the first of two concerts with Tenebrae, the brilliant choral ensemble directed by Nigel Short. Described as ‘phenomenal’ ( The Times) and ‘devastatingly beautiful’ (Gramophone), award-winning choir Tenebrae is one of the world’s leading vocal ensembles, renowned for its passion and precision.

Programme. Lobo: Versa est in luctum, Byrd: Ave verum corpus, Byrd: Laudibus in sanctis, Byrd: Vigilate, Padilla: Missa Ego flos campi, Bruckner: Virga Jesse, Bruckner: Os

justi, Bruckner: Christus actus est, Brahms: Fest- und Gedenksprüche.

After the concert, continue by coach (or your own car) to Lincoln (18 miles), where you have time to settle into your hotel before dinner. Participants will have been allocated a different restaurant for each of the four evenings.

9.00pm: concert 2

Lincoln Cathedral Chapter House Tenebrae

Nigel Short director

Begun in the 1190s, the chapter house of Lincoln Cathedral ranks among the most inspiring non-church spaces created in the Middle Ages. Free-standing and polygonal, the beautiful vault is supported in the centre on a single pillar. Fine carving abounds.

Programme. Byrd: O Lord, make thy servant Elizabeth, Byrd: Mass for 4 Voices, De Monte: Super flumina Babylonis, Byrd: Ne irascaris Domine, James MacMillan: Miserere.

The earlier part of the morning is free, an opportunity to relax or begin to explore the cultural riches of Lincoln. The Castle and the Magna Carta display should be at the top of your list.

At 11.45, Professor Magnus Williamson gives the first of two talks in the County Assembly Rooms. Situated in the heart of old Lincoln, the building is an impressive example of 18th-century civic architecture, a fascinating manifestation of the growth of ‘polite’ society nurtured by the rising sun of the Enlightenment.

The first of the two concerts this afternoon is in the small church at Brant Broughton. The audience divides and the concert is repeated.

Programme. Tallis: Te Deum ‘for meanes’, Tallis: In jejunio et fletu, Byrd: Tristitia et anxietas, Parsons: Ave Maria, Byrd: Benedictus (from the Great Service)

Each audience returns to Lincoln immediately after their concert.

5.30pm: concert 4

County Assembly Rooms

The Rose Consort, John Bryan director Martha McLorinan mezzo-soprano

Return to the Assembly Rooms for the late afternoon concert.

2.45 or 4.00pm:

concert 3 St Helen’s Church, Brant Broughton The Tallis Scholars Peter Phillips director

As at Heckington, the largely 14th-century church at Brant Broughton externally exhibits a profusion of sculpted stone and traceried windows. Internally, the interior is ablaze with colour and replete with medieval screens and woodwork, all sympathetically restored – indeed, enhanced – in the 1890s by G.F. Bodley.

This is the first of four appearances by The Tallis Scholars, the world’s finest exponents of Renaissance polyphony. We are privileged to welcome them back in their golden anniversary, Peter Phillips having founded the ensemble 50 years ago while he was a student.

Under the direction of musicologist and lecturer Professor John Bryan, The Rose Consort is a leading exponent of 16thand 17th-century music for viols. They are joined by mezzo-soprano Martha McLorinan, renowned for her purity of tone and expressiveness of delivery. Under the title ‘William Byrd in the Chamber’, they perform fantasia and dance music interspersed with songs both elegiac and rejoicing. John Bryan gives short talks during the performance.

Dinner at several restaurants in Lincoln.

9.30pm: concert 5

St Peter’s in Eastgate, Lincoln

‘Secret Byrd’ – an immersive staged Mass The Gesualdo Six & Fretwork Created and directed by Bill Barclay

Not far from the cathedral, St Peter’s in Eastgate is a Victorian Gothic church designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield with later contributions by G.F. Bodley and Temple Moore.

No ordinary concert, ‘Secret Byrd’ is a dramatized production of Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices theatrically interspersed with his virtuosic music for strings which will evoke the atmosphere in a recusant household while the sacrament was being celebrated. There was the ever-present danger of discovery by the authorities and the consequent loss of wealth, liberty and even life.

Illustration opposite: Lincoln Cathedral, wood engraving c. 1890. Photograph above: the Rose Consort of Viols, ©Ben Ealovega.

THE PROGRAMME

Day 3

Monday 3rd July Day 4 Tuesday 4th July

Drive to Louth, an exceptionally attractive market town to the east of Lincoln.

12.00 noon: concert 6:

Church of St James, Louth

The Gesualdo Six Owain Park director

Completed just before the Reformation, the spire of St James’s is the tallest adornment of a parish church in the country. The whole composition of spire and tower is superbly designed, while the interior is spacious and lucid Perpendicular.

The Gesualdo Six perform for you again in a programme that mixes Renaissance with contemporary.

Programme. Gabriel Jackson: Ite missa est, William Byrd: Lamentations, Judith Bingham: Watch with me, William Byrd: Miserere Mei, Deus, Tomás Luis de Victoria: Tenebrae Responsories, i. Una hora, ii. Tenebrae factae sunt, iii. Aestimatus sum, Cheryl Frances-Hoad: In the Crypt of the Wood.

Free time and independent lunch in Louth.

4.00pm: concert 7

Church

of St Botolph, Boston

The Tallis Scholars

Peter Phillips director

At times during the High Middle Ages Boston was second only to London for the tax receipts on traded goods. The wealth is evident from the stonking great parish church, by some measures the largest in England. In a neat pairing with Louth, the famous Boston Stump is the country’s tallest tower without a spire.

The composer John Taverner (c. 1490–1545) was a singer here, and he is buried under the tower – hence much of the programme.

Programme. Byrd: Laetentur caeli, Taverner: Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas (Gloria), Taverner: Audivi, Tallis: Audivi, Taverner: Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas (Credo), Byrd: Infelix ego, Taverner: Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas (Sanctus and Benedictus), Byrd: Ave verum, Taverner: Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas (Agnus). This concert is the only one with an interval.

Return to Lincoln after the concert (36 miles – the longest journey of the festival though less than an hour in duration).

Dinner in Lincoln.

Photograph: The Gesualdo Six ©Ash Mills.

William Byrd died on this day 400 years ago. The first concert of the day is in the historic town of Newark, Nottinghamshire.

11.00am: concert 8 Church of St Mary Magdalene, Newark-on-Trent Recordare

Harry Bradford director

The Church of St Mary Magdalen is a particularly fine specimen of a Gothic urban parish church, capacious, finely detailed, with thrilling vistas and largely unchanged since the Middle Ages.

Founded in 2018, Recordare is a choir to watch, a brilliant team with a young awardwinning director who is already in demand as a choir conductor in several European countries.

The programme is appropriately funerial: John Tavener: Funeral Ikos, Byrd: Emendemus in Melius, Byrd: Ye Sacred Muses (Tallis is Dead), Tallis: Salvator Mundi, Byrd: Memento Homo, Kerensa Briggs: Media Vita, Byrd: Tribue Domine, Tomkins: Funeral Sentences, Herbert Howells: Take Him Earth for Cherishing.

After the concert you have a choice: return to Lincoln for free time, or stay in Newark for a couple of hours for an independent lunch and sightseeing – castle ruins, Georgian architecture, Civil War museum.

5.30pm: COMMEMORATIVE EVENSONG

St Hugh’s Choir, Lincoln Cathedral Choir of Lincoln Cathedral

Aric Prentice director

The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips director

William Byrd will be celebrated throughout 2023, in Britain and overseas, but the essential event will be the unveiling of a memorial plaque on the floor of Lincoln Cathedral on the spot where the composer would have stood to conduct the choir. It takes place during a special Evensong, and festival participants will have seats in St Hugh’s Choir alongside the singers.

Begun in 1193, St Hugh’s Choir is an extraordinary piece of architecture, not without influence from elsewhere but highly original and restlessly experimental as it progressed upwards. The result is crazy, thrilling, and supremely beautiful.

The programme is all by Byrd: Prevent us, O Lord; Lincoln Preces for the Epiphanie and Responses; The short service; Domine quis habitabit (with The Tallis Scholars)

A rather rapid dinner follows.

8.30pm: concert 10

St Hugh’s Choir, Lincoln Cathedral Choir of Lincoln Cathedral

Aric Prentice director

The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips director

We return to the cathedral for the final concert. The Cathedral Choir and The Tallis Scholars again sing severally and collectively. All the music is by Byrd.

Lincoln Cathedral Choir is one of England’s oldest and finest church choirs, with choristers drawn from a number of schools in Lincoln and Lincolnshire and a dozen lay vicars and choral scholars. They have made a number of recordings. Aric Prentice has been Director of Music in Lincoln Cathedral and Lincoln Minster School since January 2003. Having been an instrumental exhibitioner and choral scholar at Jesus College, Cambridge, Aric is now regularly in demand as an accompanist, conductor and counter-tenor soloist.

Programme. Lincoln Cathedral Choir: Prevent us, O Lord; Teach me, O Lord; Arise, O Lord, why sleepest thou?; Ad Dominum cum tribularer. The Tallis Scholars: Easter Propers – Introit: Resurrexi, Sequence: Victimae paschali, Gradual: Haec dies, Offertory: Terra tremuit, Communion: Pascha nostrum. Both choirs together: Sing joyfully; Great Service Magnificat; Great Service Nunc dimittis.

Coaches drive to Grantham to meet specific trains. There is also the option of taking a train from Lincoln at other times.

Illustration above:

‘The Singers’, engraving c. 1840 after T. Rombouts. Photograph, centre: Lincoln Cathedral, ©Matthew Feeney.

SPEAKERS

Photograph opposite: Lincoln Cathedral, ©Craig Cooper.

Magnus Williamson. Professor of Early Music at Newcastle University, he read music at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was organ scholar. Still at Oxford, he was a lecturer at Somerville College and director of music at the University Church of St Mary until he moved to Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1997. Also active as a performer, he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, continues to give recitals in the UK and abroad and has won prizes as an improviser. His research and teaching focuses on the music of late-medieval and early modern Europe, especially Tudor polyphony, and he is the author of a large number studies and editions.

John Bryan. Emeritus professor of Music at the University of Huddersfield, and a practising musician, a member of the Rose Consort of Viols. An artistic adviser to York Early Music Festival, he founded the North East Early Music Forum, is chair of the Viola da Gamba Society and has been guest conductor of York Opera and The Academy of St Olave’s. His book Early English Viols: Instruments, Makers and Music was published in 2016. He has lectured on several previous Martin Randall Festivals; his talking here takes the form of short talks during the Rose Consort concert.

ACCOMMODATION & PRICES

CASTLE HOTEL

A well-managed modern boutique hotel in an old building which MRT has used regularly for many years. Several designers were engaged to produce décor which is unusually restrained and tasteful for this type of hotel. The restaurant is among the best in the city, and the staff are excellent. There are three two-bedroom apartments with a living area and their own ground-floor entrance which would suit couples travelling together. Being in an historic building, rooms vary in size – the hotel normally offers 13 different prices but we have consolidated into only three categories.

www.castlehotel.net

PRICES, PER PERSON

Two sharing

Executive double £2,530 Traditional double £2,650 Junior suite £2,870

Single occupancy

Executive double for sole use £2,760 Traditional double for sole use £2,900

THE LINCOLN HOTEL

Overlooking the north flank of the cathedral and chapterhouse, The Lincoln is a period piece – the period being the 1960s. The bright, colourful and playful modernism fully enjoyable again after careful restoration, though in the bedrooms there has been a happy compromise to meld with up-to-date comforts.

www.thelincolnhotel.com

PRICES, PER PERSON

Two sharing Standard double £1,940 Superior double £2,180 Deluxe double £2,290

Single occupancy Standard double for sole use £2,060 Superior double for sole use £2,390 Deluxe double for sole use £2,520

THE WHITE HART

Rooms are spacious and comfortable with modern facilities, and come as a surprise after passing through the traditional pub which occupies part of the ground floor. Also on this floor, the restaurant, Grille, adapts to the hillside site by spreading across several levels.

www.whitehart-lincoln.co.uk

PRICES, PER PERSON

Two sharing Standard double £2,130 Executive double £2,240 Suite £2,460 Four-poster suite £2,530

Single occupancy Standard double for sole use £2,340

Notes on the hotels

We have selected three hotels for this festival. The hotel, and to a lesser extent the restaurants, are the only determinants of the different prices for the festival package.

Located in the cathedral quarter, all three hotels are only a few minutes on foot from the cathedral and other venues and restaurants.

Please consider the option of arriving at the hotel a day or more before the festival or staying on afterwards – there is more to see in Lincoln than free time during the festival allows for.

Illustration, top: Early-18th-century copper engraving. Above right: wood engraving c. 1880.

All hotels have their own restaurant, but you will dine there only once as for each of the four dinners you will be in a different establishment.

WiFi. Complimentary at all hotels.

Despite its enormous charms, historical importance and current busy business and academic life, Lincoln remains off the beaten track. Fortunately, there is an adequate supply of hotels around the cathedral and we have chosen what we believe to be three which are the most satisfactory. But please don’t come with overly high expectations. It is fair to say that only one rises above a middling sort of standard.

Likewise with restaurants: some are very good, but please do not anticipate standards you would expect to find in larger cities.

FURTHER PRACTICALITIES

FITNESS FOR THE FESTIVAL

We must stress that it is essential to be able to cope with the walking and stairclimbing required to get to the concerts and other events. Within Lincoln the distances are not great, but some of the streets and walkways are roughly paved and on quite steeply sloping ground, and elsewhere there may be a walk of up to 15 minutes between the coach and the concert venue.

As an indication of fitness, you should be able to walk unaided for at least 30 minutes at a speed of about three miles per hour.

We ask that you take the simple fitness tests on the booking form before booking.

If you have a medical condition or a disability which may affect your holiday or necessitate special arrangements being made for you, please discuss these with us before booking – or, if the condition develops or changes subsequently, as soon as possible after the change.

FINDING YOUR WAY

We provide sufficient information to enable you to navigate the festival events without needing to be led. However, festival staff are also stationed around the events to direct you if needed.

If you bring your own car to the festival, you may of course drive to the venues outside Lincoln rather than taking the coach, which is fine, but good luck with navigating and parking. It would be wholly impracticable to drive between venues within Lincoln so this would not be a solution for those with mobility issues.

THE CONCERTS

Duration. The duration of most of the concerts is between 45 and 60 minutes; only one, in Boston, is nearly two hours and has an interval.

Seating. Seats are not numbered – you sit where you want, or where space is left. There are pews in some churches but most seating is shaped or upholstered chairs.

Private. All nine concert have been set up by Martin Randall Travel exclusively for those who buy the complete package which includes accommodation, dinners, talks etc. as well as access to the concerts. A few tickets may be sold locally in only two places, where the churches are exceptionally large. The concerts are effectively private events.

Photograph: The Tallis Scholars, ©Rodrigo Perez.

Combine the festival with another of our tours or events:

MUSIC ALONG THE RHINE , 23–30 June 2023

LINCOLNSHIRE CHURCHES , 27 June–1 July 2023

SAVONLINNA OPERA , 6–11 July 2023

Please contact us for more information, or for advice on linking accommodation and travel. CONTACT US: +44 (0)20 8742 3355

CELEBRATING WILLIAM BYRD 1–5 JULY 2023 (mj 787)

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OUR PROMISES TO YOU

We aim to be fair, reasonable and sympathetic in all our dealings with clients, and to act always with integrity.

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Eligibility. You must be in good health, free of infectious illness, and have a level of physical and mental fitness that would not impair other participants’ enjoyment by slowing them down or by absorbing disproportionate attention from our staff. Please read ‘Fitness for the festival’ in the brochure, or on our website (search for the festival and click on the ‘Practicalities’ tab), as well as taking the self-

assessment tests described on this page (see below right); by signing the booking form you are stating that you have understood what we are asking of you and are fit to participate. If you have a medical condition or a disability which may affect your holiday or necessitate special arrangements being made for you, please discuss this with us before booking – or, if the condition develops or changes subsequently, as soon as possible before departure. If during the festival it transpires, in the judgement of the festival staff, that you are not able to cope, you may be asked to opt out of certain visits or to leave altogether. This would be at your own expense. We reserve the right to refuse to accept a booking without necessarily giving a reason.

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up to 57 days: deposit only between 56 and 29 days: 40% between 28 and 15 days: 60% between 14 days and 4 days: 80% within 72 hours: 100%

If you cancel your booking in a double or twin room but are travelling with a companion who chooses to continue to participate in the tour, the companion would have to pay the single-occupancy price.

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We ask that you take the following tests before committing to a booking:

Please also read ‘fitness for the festival’ in the brochure, or on our website (search for the festival and click on the ‘Practicalities’ tab).

By signing the booking form, you confirm that you have taken these tests.

1. Chair stands. Sit in a dining chair, with arms folded and hands on opposite shoulders. Stand up and sit down at least eight times in 30 seconds.

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An additional indication of the fitness required is that you should be able to walk unaided at a pace of three miles per hour for at least half an hour at a time, and to stand for at least 30 minutes.

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MARTIN RANDALL TRAVEL…

is Britain’s leading specialist in cultural travel and one of the most respected tour operators in the world.

MRT aims to produce the best planned, best led and altogether the most fulfilling and enjoyable cultural tours and events available. They focus on art, architecture, archaeology, history, music and gastronomy, and are spread across Britain, continental Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, India, Japan and the Americas.

For 2023 we have planned around 175 expert-led tours for small groups (usually 10–20 participants), four music festivals (such as Celebrating William Byrd ), several short history and music breaks, an extensive programme of online talks, and study days in London.

For over 35 years the company has led the field through incessant innovation and improvement, setting the benchmarks for itinerary planning, operational systems and service standards.

To see our full range of cultural tours and events, please visit www.martinrandall.com