Classical Music - A Cappella Choral Choir

I ask Gregory Atkin, the leader of the 18-strong Lewes A Cappella Choral Class, which is the most exciting song his group will perform in this weekend’s recital in the Westgate Chapel. “Undoubtedly it’s a piece by Tomas Luis de Victoria,” he replies. Victoria, it seems, was one of the most significant musicians of the counter-reformation. “The piece was all about the martyrdom of Thomas a Beckett, and was traditionally sung on the 29th of December, on Becket’s Saints’ day. The words go ‘behold a priest who in his time served God, and was found just.’ Henry, of course, detested the fact that this cast ill light on one of his predecessors, Henry II, who had Becket murdered. So he threw the feast out of the calendar. This was the first step he took in reforming the Church in England.”

Atkin, a renowned local theologian, has used his considerable experience in Renaissance and Tudor church music to form and train the local a cappella group, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last year. He specialises in making new annotations of works from the 16th and 17th century, ‘which involves putting them into the sort of notation modern singers can use.’ He often edits pieces which are no longer in print, to provide a unique listening experience for modern audiences. Other musicians represented tonight are Palestrina, Johann Eccard and Thomas Tallis. Tallis, an Englishman, was one of the first (post reformation) composers to write liturgical songs in English rather than Latin. AG