Eleanor Harries Clarke (Founding Member of Stile Antico)

Scofield: As we were saying a little bit earlier, Renaissance music is so important to the development of music history, and according to what’s my understanding, Eleanor, you’re the expert here, what’s really special about the Renaissance, its major contribution, is this innovation of polyphony, is that right?

Clarke: Absolutely. Well I’m actually not the best expert in the group, cause I’m one of the few people who didn’t study music in the university, I studied math instead. But I’m very lucky to have learned so much and that’s one of the best things for me about singing in Stile Antico, because we work collaboratively. I get to see how all the other members approach this music. And yes, it is incredible to see the difference from the music that came before the more medieval music, to music from the height of the Renaissance, where so many parts wheezing in and out, the intricacies you get, you know, composers writing sort of canons in seven parts. It’s really incredible to make the techniques that they use, and yet, when you listen, all you hear is just this beautiful sound. You’re not necessarily aware of the craft that has gone into it.

Scofield: It is remarkably beautiful music from this period. You’re going to be performing William Byrd and also the great Josquin in Hong Kong as well. Can you tell us a little bit about your approach to these great composers?

Clarke: Yes. Byrd is really one of our absolute favourite composers. I suppose the way we approach it is that we’re very interested in the history of the time in the context, and what the composers were doing, why they were writing these pieces. But we are also very keen that our music is a performance here and now. We are creating wonderful music. We’re not a museum, so we really like to be informed by the history of music, but we’re not bound by it. And I think we don’t really know what it would have sounded like in Byrd’s time, but I’m sure it would have been very different. Of course, we work in a different way anyway because we have full vocal score, rather than each singer having just their own vocal line, which means that we’re so much more aware of the parts. We spend a long time discussing the music, trying out different ways of performing it. In the end, I suppose what we want is, as always, to achieve is a very beautiful performance, one that has for us integrity.