Thomas Tallis' Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis

[GravityBeater]

Good effort (basses missing top C in Magnificat). Accents don't spoil it for me at all. It's surprising that there aren't other you tube recordings out there. How about recording it again on better equipment?

[Ikje86]

it's sound really nice!!! But sorry that I have to say this, but girls, serieus! change your outfit!!!

[unfrazzled1]

absolutely fantastic! congratulations!

[PorterfieldMusic]

Any group of young men and women who attempt such lovely are to be wonderfully commended. Continue your singing and God bless you in your music making and lives...criticism be hanged. I'm very proud of your spirit and efforts.

[cmwyoung]

As an English English speaker I have no issues with your pronunciation and I'm sure you're aware of your musical rough edges. It looks to me like you're the first choir to post a performance of this amazing piece of Tudor music. Well done.

[Trumscheit]

verdammt unsauber. Aua!

[vikingjr87]

This sounded great! I only have one musical criticism apart from some of the others here (tuning, etc.). Be careful not to clip off the ends of words. Try to take, perhaps, an extended lift, so that you can say the whole word without clipping it, as well as catch your breath. Otherwise, splendid!

[brhodes0]

thomas tallis is pure goosebumps stuff thanks!

[hermesminiatures]

Yeah, I really didn't think we did very well, but I suppose it's alright for the first time we'd ever sung classical music. We've talked about doing it again with better recording equipment, now that we've had more experience with this sort of stuff. If we ever do Talis again, I'll mention the accent issue, thanks.

[edders05]

Don't beat yourself up - this is seriously good if it is really the first time you've sung classical music! Congrats!

[heikkuri]

DON'T listen to vicfrankenstein on the accent. The American accents reflect and preserve the history of the English colonial settlement. The speech of the Pilgrims and Puritans was much closer to Elizabethan English than what we hear in Britain today. The British think that "thorn" and "dawn" rhyme, for goodness' sake. American accents are lovely! See my comment to him below. Isn't this your church group? Be prayerful, & yourselves. This isn't a circus. Worship, not farce, Tallis' intent.

[heikkuri]

But apart from the accent issue, he really knows his stuff....

[vicfrankenstein]

The singing's really not bad (the odd tuning issue excepted) considering the evidently poor recording equipment - but for God's sake do something about your accents! This is English music, and unless you're going to do authentic Tudor accents, at least make an attempt to sound vaguely English. Please?

[heikkuri]

Wrong! What you think of as an "English accent" is a bunch of innovations (r-dropping, etc) in the dialect that were NOT present at the time of Elizabeth. There is an area in Maryland on Chesapeake Bay which is believed to be the closest to Elizabethan. Other contenders include English as spoken in Newfoundland, and Irish accents. What you propose enforces an anachronistic and historically inaccurate pronunciation which will reduce clarity and make for a pedantic and affected performance.

[vicfrankenstein]

Well, that's why I said "unless you're going to do authentic Tudor accents", which, as you point out, were rhotic and had very different vowels from a modern English accent - but not the same as a lazy modern American accent! A reconstructed pronunciation sounds amazing if you're Red Byrd (I'm a *huge* fan!), but there it's deliberate and careful...

[vicfrankenstein]

Otherwise, my personal preference is for an English (singer's) pronunciation, i.e. non-rhotic and with modern English vowels (whatever you think of dawn and thorn rhyming! :P), but modified for singing so that it's clearer, with rolled Rs (when they'd be pronounced normally) and slightly purer vowels. It's just what comes with the English choral tradition, and after all, this music was written for the Church of England, the head of which is still the Queen...

We may have to agree to disagree...

[heikkuri]

I think it is largely a learned thing, such as "Shakespearean" pronunciations. You will naturally prefer what you are most accustomed to, as well as what you have been taught. Britons have a perception of what is the "best" English, typicially the artificial public school "Received Pronunciation." Americans also sometimes adopt this viewpoint; formerly the eastern New England (Boston) dialect held sway. It is generally agreed that the most odious is metropolitan New York, followed by Southern.

[dmsreg]

I've sung in English church and "fill-in" cathedral choirs and I'm not sure we've ever tried for 16th Century London vowels any more than they would have tried to sing Latin with an adopted 50BC Roman accent. Trying to reproduce an "authentic" sound is an interesting academic exercise but it would sound plain odd to a modern audience.

Incidentally thorn and dawn do rhyme here still, but if you pick up an English hymn book you do wonder about your ancestors sometimes... Adonai and majesty?

[heikkuri]

Yes, while I do see your point, it would be natural for you to sing with a modern British accent, as you're British, but it is completely artificial for Americans to do so, so while they are trying to be authentic, they are failing utterly in doing so. And it does sound odd when they do it. So if they want to be authentic, they may as well sing it in their American accents, because there isn't anyone left from the time period to tell them if they're doing it right anyway.

[jkeersmcmahon]

There is no such thing as a "British Accent" The only accents of the English lanuage accross the British Isles are English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish.

[heikkuri]

How do you figure that? There types of British accents. There ii Cockney, there is Received Pronunciation, there is Northern, there is Educated Scottish English. How do you explain these?

[heikkuri]

You should probably follow your own advice on your group's performance of "Mack the Knife." Bravo on Voces8 "Oh, Clap Your Hands." It was exquisite, and an utter delight....

[vicfrankenstein]

Do you mean me? I don't have any videos on Youtube, and my group (how did you know I have one?) only sings early music...

P.S. Isn't calling an English accent pedantic and affected a bit of a strange value judgement for what's just a geographical thing? Or do you mean it would be so if an American choir did it?

[vicfrankenstein]

P.P.S. Sorry if any of this comes across as slightly aggressive, I do respect your point of view - and especially your ability to put it forward in a fluent and literate (!) manner, which seems to be beyond most of the people who post on Youtube...

[heikkuri]

Yes, the latter is absolutely what I mean! For a Briton to drop R's is natural, if historically inaccurate, but for an American is absolutely ridiculous, especially with regard to historical linguistics.

[mikkiegrunn]

don't mind the accents, it is just poor singing. sorry guys.

[musicistheworld]

wow, thats really really good...........REALLY REALLY good.

*sigh*...i wish i could get a group together like this. really good guys.