So when I first heard her latest single, This Pretty Face as I was driving through rural Suffolk… well… I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.  It’s not just the timbre of her voice, but the way the lyrics and instrumental interweave. Another winning catchy choon.

You may have heard it already, it’s getting a lot of plays on a lot of stations, but if you’ve missed it… enjoy

More music sharing. The National Theatre’s War Horse is currently playing in the West End, and greatly deserves each of the five star ratings it has received. Music is an intrinsic character in the story, and the production includes stirring arrangements of hymns and traditional songs.

The soundtrack is well worth buying. I have included track four from the soundtrack CD above, found on YouTube accompanying a Disney-esque video which I have tried to squash out of view – hit play to hear the delicious Devonian sound.  The song is called The Year Turns Round Again on the War Horse CD, it is written by John Tams and he originally called it Snow Falls (click for lyrics).

My taste in music is broad. Some would say eclectic. Some might very well say random. Most would say piss poor.  It falls in to four broad groups:

• Early music, particularly renaissance polyphony
• Classical and romantic music
• Musical theatre
• Pop music (particularly 70s/80s artists)

When listening to classical music I usually veer towards large, bombastic works – music for jolly times. The same is true of musical theatre (of course).

Early music and pop music are more polarised. Both contain pieces of  high elation, and also deep contemplation. Sometimes one piece is suitable for both.

I thought I’d take a look at the top 15 tracks of the last five years, and see what record my musical diary reveals.

There are several artists and songs I listen to over and over again. Psychologists have theories about what this says about a person, I won’t go in to detail, but in a nutshell walk away slowly. No sudden movements. There is even a last.fm group for people like me, but as the poor deluded fools are mainly listening to Coldplay (over and over again), I haven’t joined.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, as someone who loves singing and music in general, my top 15 tracks show I turn to music at the very best, and the very worst times.

Top tracks of the last five years

OK pop pickers, let’s go…. Here’s the raw data.

Good times

Tracks 1, 5, and 7 (Spem in Alium): The soundtrack to big decisions, small decisions, ups, downs, pretty much everything in life. Sometimes I play it and it’s a raw, all consuming emotional experience. Sometimes I play it for white noise, and barely notice it. If you said “Rob Fenwick” in a game of word association, more than one person would say “Spem in Alium.” I have spent at least 55 hours listening to this work, and I’ll probably play it again tomorrow. More often than not it’s an anthem of joy.

11 (Ecce beatam lucem): A very similar work to Spem, but discovered some time after so doesn’t enjoy ‘first love’ affection.

Tracks 2, 3, and 4 (Jersey Boys): This is all good stuff. Pure musical theatre schmaltz, to which I was introduced by a good friend. Often hits the iPod on a summer’s day. A sign of many happy days.

8 (Beautiful people): A TV show theme. How deeply embarrassing. But a pure feel good choon, so a sign of many a happy day.

13 (Monteverdi 1610 Vespers): The first movement is an expansive joyous sound. If Spem were to be a funeral piece for me, Deus in adjutorium meum intende is there for if/when I walk down the aisle.

Bad times

Tracks 4, 9, 12 (Ariadne’s Lament): I’m a little sorry to see this feature so highly, as these tracks show hours of troubled and perhaps conflicted thought. This collection of Monteverdi madrigals is haunting, and particularly useful when mentally navigating ethical dilemmas.  These tracks were prominent during a period in one job when we were making big and difficult decisions with real impact on the lives of  many good people.

10 (Misty rain): In the weeks immediately after the onset of Tinnitus earlier this year, I needed this track of natural rain noise playing through speakers next to the bed in order to mask the whistling in the ear, so I could get to sleep. These days the tinnitus is less of an intruder (it’s still there, it’s just familiar now), so this track is rarely played.

14 (Run): A tearjerker. Featured heavily in the services following the death of friend and fellow Liberal Democrat campaigner Neil Trafford.

15 (Life is): Again I’m surprised to see this in the top 15. This song by Runrig is for getting through the most difficult days. This piece doesn’t make you feel better, but it does keep you company if feel awful!

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So on that happy note, that’s it… I wonder how this list will change in the next five years.

Quite often I find myself driving home in the late evening, listening to Sue Marchant on radio Suffolk. One of her set piece questions is to ask her main guest where in time and space they would choose to travel if they could make a single trip in a TARDIS. It is a question that is simultaneously rather narrow (even geeky), and huge (sometimes inspirational) in scope.

I know what my answer would be. To the Chapel Royal of 1568, and lunch with Thomas Tallis. Like many enthusiasts of Tallis and his incredible composition Spem in Alium, I have questions I’d like to put to him. Not least of which is the piece’s relationship with Allesandro Striggio’s Ecce Beatam Lucem (embedded above).

Historial records indicate that Ecce was composed for a first performance in 1561, possibly a royal wedding. So far as we know, Spem was first performed seven or eight years later at Arundel house. As relatively little is known about the history of Spem a plausible if not definitive theory has gained currency – namely that the Duke of Norfolk, on becoming aware of Striggio’s work, commissioned Tallis to compose a work of equal or greater scale and complexity as a birthday gift to Elizabeth I.

While Tallis’s work makes a more finely developed use of counterpoint and spine-tingling antiphone, has seen greater enduring success, and could be argued to be technically superior, I prefer (on no rational basis whatsoever) to see the pieces as siblings. For example, both use the same technique of building steadily to great tutti moments – Striggio on the “O” of O mel et dulce nectar (oh honey of sweet nectar), and Tallis on the “respice” of respice humilitatem nostram (look upon our humiliation / lowliness).

But the killer commonality is the modesty. For me you will find it in the score of Ecce, and in the story of Spem. At the time he chose the words to use as a basis of  Spem in Alium, a plea to the almighty to watch over us in our lowliness, Tallis was at the zenith of his career – a musical giant who had survived numerous seismic shifts in the religious and political fabric of England. He could have been forgiven an inclination towards triumphalism, particularly given his royal audience.

When I listen to Ecce Beatam Lucem it is the last minute which blows me away. The whole piece is a joy on the ears, but as the piece approaches what could be a rousing finale with the words “This delight, this peace, this goal, this mark. Draw us from here straight to Paradise” the dynamics take the deliciously unexpected turn of slipping away from us – ever diminishing until the final word paradisum -paradise – is almost a whisper. There are no such dynamics written in to the scores I have. I would love to know if this is interpretation, or the will of the composer. In either case it’s little short of genius.

If you are north of the border you can hear Spem in Scotland on 2 July at the East Neuk festival, I’ll be there at the generous invitation of friends.

Then a week later there is what true artists call “a real humdinger” of a concert at Southwark Cathedral. I’ll be attending this one too – it will be very interesting to hear how the forty individual voices are able to fill a space as cavernous as Southwark.

As Armistice Day continues to somewhat inevitably fade from the public consciousness, the two conflicts in Iraq and the conflict in Afghanistan have made Remembrance Sunday ever more relevant and prominent. Today we have no choice but to look the human cost of political decisions directly in the eyes – it must be deeply sobering for those entrusted with national leadership.

Anyway, without wishing to be maudlin, whatever your reason for remembrance and reflection today I hope Perotin’s Beata Viscera helps you along your way.

(Starts after 8 seconds of silence. Translation.)

Posted via email from rfenwick’s posterous

Earlier this year I promised myself I would take a tour – a pilgrimage if you like – of the key places in the life of Thomas Tallis, centered around a study of his fourty part motet Spem in Alium.

I am now trying to get my act together to do this, and would like to access / get a copy of two programmes – one is a specific episode of Radio 4′s Soul Music, and the other is a BBC four programme of a 1000 strong performance of Spem recorded in Manchester in 2006.

If anyone can tell me how I might lay my hands/eyes/ears on these programmes, I’ll be forever in your debt – please leave a blog comment, or perhaps drop me an email?

This video is a good piece of online outreach from the Proms digital team, and conveys some of the joy of performance on any scale. The video comes courtesy of Jon Jacob of Thoroughly Good fame, and there’s a behind the scenes blog post here.

There’s been some debate this week about why Radio 3 is picking up listeners, with a lot of focus on people turning to classical music in times of recession and stress. I can believe that, but I also suspect that Radio 3 is being rewarded for maintaining a consistently high supply of quality content produced by people with real knowledge, commitment, and dedication to their subject.

As I write I’m listening to the Monteverdi choir singing four Bach motets, thanks to the ever-wonderful Radio 3. Fantastic.

My promming is getting off to a slow start this year – work and holidays have kept me away from God’s own Royal Albert Hall (incidentally, did you know Tallis is at the foot of the Albert memorial? Neither did I.)

Here are my pick of the Proms – the concerts I’ll be trying to get to, and commend to you… spend £5 on a gallery ticket, and give it a whirl. Bring a cushion. I have had to leave out the lunchtime chamber music Proms, as no prospect of attending one this year, more’s the pity (though if I can squeeze one in it will be PCM 19)…

• 2 August – Prom 24: Includes Beethoven’s 4th symphony, and some top choirs – with the added bonus that I don’t know the Berlioz Te Deum at all. I might be tempted back the following night for Prom 25 too…
• …probably not, however, as I do want to get along to Prom 29 on 6 August, for some top Rossini
• 12 August – Prom 36: I adore The Sixteen, Handel’s Coronation Anthems make me want to curl up in a ball and make happy gurgling noises, so this may be my top Prom of 2009 – particularly as it (perhaps a little predictably) ends with Zadok – but then the Proms so often take you by surprise, so you never know…
• 15 August – Prom 40: Who can resist the BBC SO trotting through Beethoven’s 9th? The Albert Hall’s long acoustic makes the final movement feel really huge.
• 21 August – Prom 48: I’m a sucker for a bit of Wagner. So, even if (whisper it) I’m not overly wild about the Symphonie fantastique… well, it’s also Wagner, and it’s the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, who can make sentimental people cry at 50 paces. This is the one our office is going to. Fidelio is also very tempting.
• The OAE will be the stars on 25 August for Prom 53. I love the OAE, and the Handel choices in the programme. Second-favourite concert.
• Fianally, Prom 74 – it’s the Vienna Phil and Strauss. You’d be mad not to.

Something of a choral bent to my choices this year, but then that’s where my musical interests lie at the moment. Who knows, next year it might justbe Glastonbury. (Don’t count on it.)