Hear selections from new releases with our weekly Choral Featured Album Fridays at 11 a.m. central on the Choral Stream.
This week on the Choral Featured Album, we present Sacred and Profane, the new release from the Sixteen. Comprising 16 tracks, the record includes compositions by William Cornysh and Benjamin Britten.
About the record (from website of the Sixteen)
William Cornysh and Benjamin Britten were prolific writers of both sacred and secular music. Cornysh is actually two people, quite possibly father and son. Both were court musicians who excelled at writing complex and adventurous antiphons for the church, as well as beautiful secular songs for the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII. As far as who wrote what is concerned, the truth may never be known and so here they are linked as one. Britten is celebrated for his ability to mix sacred and secular expertly in order to showcase the voice in all its multifaceted glory. A perfect example of this is 'Sacred and Profane,' where he gives us a fascinating mixture of the devotional and the rumbustiously secular. The final song 'A death' is a wicked blend of horror and gallows humour far removed from the melancholic canon 'Ah, Robin, gentle Robin' by Cornysh.
Resources
The Sixteen (artist site)
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