1/2/2008: Alpha and Omega (Hyperion CDA67668)
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TONUS PEREGRINUS is one of the most exciting young ensembles in Britain, with major successes in both early music and new music, including the prestigious Cannes Classical Award for the ensemble's debut release of Arvo Pärt's Passio (8.555860) on Naxos, and this year's nomination for the first-ever BBC Music Magazine Awards. Recent critical acclaim in the BBC Music Magazine, The Telegraph, and The Gramophone speaks for itself: "utterly spellbinding", "utterly beguiling", "captivating excitement", "gloriously sung by this superb choir", as does the selection first of Passio, and then of the ensemble's release of Antony Pitts's Seven Letters on Hyperion (CDA67507) as Editor's Choices in The Gramophone. TONUS PEREGRINUS has a history of performing at unusual occasions, recently asked to sing at a memorial for Alexander Litvinenko.

In a new series of recordings for Naxos, TONUS PEREGRINUS has focused on the most important milestones of early Western music including: the first music in four separate parts by Pérotin (Sacred Music from Notre-Dame Cathedral 8.557340), the first-ever opera, Adam de la Halle's mediaeval musical (Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion 8.557337), the first complete polyphonic mass and Passion settings (The Mass of Tournai 8.555861), motets and mass movements by the musical godfather of the Renaissance, John Dunstaple (Sweet Harmony 8.557341), and a brand-new realization of the first English hymnbook from 1623 - Hymns and Songs of the Church. TONUS PEREGRINUS has also made a unique impact on the popular Christmas market with The Naxos Book of Carols - commissioned by Klaus Heymann of Naxos and published both as a CD (8.557330) and as a carol-book in partnership with Faber Music (ISBN 0-571-52325-0; 0-571-52327-7).

TONUS PEREGRINUS was founded while director Antony Pitts was studying under Dr Edward Higginbottom at New College, Oxford, and early years saw repeated tours abroad in the Low Countries, as well as twice featuring on the cult CD journal Unknown Public. The name tonus peregrinus is taken from an ancient plainchant psalm tone dating back to Jewish liturgical sources linked to the Passover, and hence the Last Supper. This chant has a different starting-note in each half, so was called the "wandering tone", and also gained the nickname of tonus novissimus, the "newest tone". TONUS PEREGRINUS combines these two characteristics in a repertoire that ranges far and wide from the end of the Dark Ages to scores fresh from the printer, and has an interpretative approach that is both authentic and highly original.


TONUS PEREGRINUS
Joanna Forbes
Rebecca Hickey
Kathryn Knight
Alexander L’Estrange
Richard Eteson
Alexander Hickey
Francis Brett
Nick Flower
Antony Pitts

with:
John Crook