FROM BYRD TO THE BEATLES (The Kings' Singers) (Classical Documentary, 2004)
The Kings' Singers - From Byrd To The Beatles (Classical Documentary, 2004)
King's Singers
Television Director: Cole, Steve
Television Director: Hunt, Chris
Playing Time: 01:28:41
Catalogue Number: GLW0755310X
The six Englishmen known as The King's Singers enjoy a reputation as one of the world's most sought-after a cappella vocal ensembles. This pre-eminent group has never diminished in virtuosity throughout its thirty-plus year history of sharing one of the widest repertoires imaginable with enthusiastic audiences around the globe. This programme features The King's Singers performing some of their favourite works' a mixture of songs old and new - from Byrd to The Beatles.
Madrigals by Byrd, Weelkes, Lassus, Passereau, Gesualdo and Monteverdi are all included in the excellently varied programme, as well as a traditional spiritual, the ensemble's interpretation of a Duke Ellington composition and the overture to Rossini's Barber of Seville. There are two Beatles' numbers and arrangements of Billy Joel's Lullabye (Goodnight My Angel) and Freddie Mercury's Seaside Rendezvous. The King's Singer's give a superb performance of Paul Drayton's Masterpiece, a musical satire on four hundred years of Western music in nine minutes, with sections ranging from a hgue on the name Johann Sebastian Bach' to an impressionistic rendering of 'Debussy' in fanatically over-pronounced French.
�� will be the 5OOth Anniversary of the birth of Thomas Tallis, the most influential English composer of his generation, as well as one of the most popular renaissance composers of today. The King's Singers recently recorded Tallis's famous forty-part motet, Spem in Alium. How does a six-member ensemble perform this piece? All is revealed in sequences interspersed between the concert performances that show the singers at work in London's superbly-equipped Angel Studios solving this problem. The programme culminates with the ensemble's remarkable rendition of this magnificent setting.
