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The King’s Musik - Music from the Chapel Royal

£9.96

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Label: Coro

Cat No: COR16041

Barcode: 0828021604126

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Vocal/Choral

Release Date: 2nd October 2006

Works

Traditional
I will always give thanks (The ’Club’ Anthem)

John Blow
I will hearken

Henry Cooke
Put me not to rebuke, O Lord; O Lord, thou hast searched me out

Pelham Humfrey
O Lord my God; Lord I have sinned; O the sad day; By the waters of Babylon; Sleep downy sleep come close mine eyes; Wilt thou forgive that sin (A Hymn to God the Father)

Artists

The Sixteen

Conductor

Harry Christophers

Works

Artists

The Sixteen

Conductor

Harry Christophers

About

It was largely through the efforts of ‘Captain’ Henry Cooke (c.1615-1672) that the choir of the Chapel Royal was successfully restored at the Restoration in 1660. He invoked ancient press-gang legislation to purloin promising choirboys from cathedrals across the country. Two of them, Pelham Humfrey and John Blow, went on to write ground-breaking music. (John Blow subsequently resigned his post as Organist of Westminster Abbey in favour of his own pupil Henry Purcell, only to assume it again on Purcell’s untimely death.)

Cooke’s most important service to English church music was to put into practice Charles II’s explicit desire to have his royal anthems decked out with instrumental ‘symphonies’ and interludes. The diarist Samuel Pepys regularly recorded the performances of Cooke’s novel new anthems by the Chapel Royal choir. On September 14, 1662 he wrote: "Thence to Whitehall Chapel, where .. I heard Captain Cooke’s new musique. This the first day of having [violins] and other instruments to play a symphony between each verse of the anthem … the music was more full than it was last Sunday and very fine it is."