Sing Joyfully: Choir, Cornetts and Sackbuts

Ripieno Choir

What better way for the Ripieno Choir to celebrate William Byrd’s 400th anniversary than to join forces with the Gramophone Award-winning, world-class English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble to perform masterpieces by the man himself, and his English and Italian contemporaries.  

The beautiful sounds of sackbuts and cornetts complement the human voice, and the blended sound of instruments and voices would have been a common experience for the sixteenth century ear.  Together, they enabled composers to envisage grand, multipart works, with instruments and voices distributed across the parts, perhaps expecting choirs of singers and players distributed around the performance space for added effect.  With this collaboration, the Ripieno Choir is able to take on some of these larger scale works - such as Byrd’s sacred masterpiece The Great Service, and Gabrieli’s Magnificat in 12 parts and Regina Coeli in 14 – the instruments and voices coming together to thrilling effect.  

Alongside these are the immaculate, small-but-perfect celebratory gems such as Monteverdi’s Cantate Domino, Byrd’s Sing Joyfully, and Palestrina’s Exultate Deo.  In rehearsals, the choir enjoys singing these so much that many can’t sit still! Do come along in celebratory mode, and see if you find yourself dancing along too!