A First for London’s Taverner Consort

Eighteen years after its founding, the London-based Taverner Consort--an ensemble specializing in pre-19th-Century music--finally makes its first visit to the United States this month.

The 11-member traveling group opened its two-week American concert tour Friday in Boston. Tuesday night at 8 in the Romanesque sanctuary at Wilshire Christian Church, the Taverner Consort gives one of the two Monteverdi programs it is carrying on this tour as part of the Chamber Music in Historic Sites series sponsored by the Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary’s College.

“It’s all my fault we haven’t been here before--we’ve been invited time and again,” claims the group’s founder, Andrew Parrott, by phone from his home outside London.

“I take all the blame for not accepting sooner.”

Often highly praised for its expertise in the music of Monteverdi, Purcell and Bach, the choir and instrumental contingent continue to expand its repertory. To date, the group has made 25 recordings, in various vocal and instrumental permutations, large and small.

But the towering geniuses of Bach, Handel and Monteverdi occupy them most, says Parrott, who named his group after the neglected 16th-Century English composer, John Taverner.

“We were the first in England--back in 1977--to perform in its entirety Monteverdi’s masterpiece, ‘The Vespers of 1610.’ Now, coming back to it after all these years, I am struck, not only by the greatness of the work, but also by the infinite variety it contains, and the many, many artistic decisions I am faced with in putting it on, again.”

The 43-year old conductor/musicologist says his job as leader of the consort of singers and instrumentalists is one of balancing the requirements of performance and rehearsal--bringing the music to life--with the intellectual demands of solving the mysteries of the composer’s intentions--getting it musicologically correct.

In this regard, he recently told a British magazine: “Good performances are essential, but I’m also interested in ideas, because they can illuminate the music.”

After performing in Los Angeles, the ensemble takes up residence next week at Princeton University, from where it will travel to concerts in New York and Washington.

While at Princeton, the group will record its Monteverdi madrigal program. Asked why there are so many different ways to perform Monteverdi’s music, Parrott said: “Among many other reasons, because Monteverdi’s publishers--and those who followed--were a liability. Every edition is littered with mistakes. So one must seek out the most logical, or most felicitous, solution to each problem that arises.”

Sighing audibly, he added: “You see, Monteverdi, like many successful people then and now, was overstretched professionally most of the time. At one point, he promised someone a treatise justifying some of his ideas on word-setting. But, of course, he never got around to writing it.”

Then, returning to the subject of the “Vespers,” Parrott continued, “Coming back to it, recently, I realized again how rich and varied a piece it is.

“With so many possibilities in the realization, I’ve decided that it is--at once--both a mine field and a gold mine!”