On the day when the wettest April since records began turned into a pretty miserable May, fifteen intrepid Oundle School singers took to the Cloisters tower to greet the day with the singing of Madrigals.
Choirmaster Alex Eadon commented, “The whole process of getting up and down adds considerably to the experience for those to whom this responsibility falls as anyone with a phobia of heights, arachnids or inclement weather is in for a torrid time! However, having safely ascended, the Schola Cantorum delighted those who had also braved the weather with a rendition of seven madrigals – including, perhaps unconventionally, an amusing madrigalian take on the Beatles classic Can’t Buy Me Love. It sat surprisingly well with the more traditional songs about love and of course Summer is i-cumen in – the oldest known part-music, dating from the 1260’s.”
This year, the directing of the choir was largely left in the capable hands of Upper Sixth Former Benedict Williams (17) who did a superb job galvanizing his hardy singers for this most challenging, yet rewarding, of gigs!
A madrigal is a type of secular vocal music composition, written during the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Throughout most of its history it was polyphonic and unaccompanied by instruments, with the number of voices varying from two to eight, but most frequently three to six. The earliest examples of the genre date from Italy in the 1520s, and while the centre of madrigal production remained in Italy, madrigals were also written in England and Germany, especially late in the 16th and early in the 17th centuries. The madrigal was the most important secular form of music of its time. It reached its fullest development in the second half of the 16th century, losing its importance in the early 17th century, when forms such as the solo song became more popular.