DATE
available now till Sun 5th January 2025
LOCATION
online at anytime on your device
PRICE
from £15
Book here for your private access to view both films in your own time on your own device .
Contributors of £30 or more will receive a PDF file of the 40-page illustrated narrative booklet by email link.
Circling around the heart of the Roman City [the Barbican fort] and the Saxon town [the Foundation Chapel of St Paul’s Cathedral] up to the present day, we are tracing a story of architectural places within the Square Mile and the vocal music that Londoners will have heard at the time of each architectural event.
In AD65, Londinio Mogontio, the first written record ‘of London’ is a fragment forming part of an address, “To Mogontius [a Celtic personal name], of [in] London”: it appears on a wooden writing tablet dating from c.AD 65, pre-dating Tacitus’ famous mention of London in his Annals, previously held to be the earliest, by half a century.
With original music recorded by ArchiCantiores and the ArchiCantuor Quartet –
Part One runs for 38 minutes and contains new recordings of Old Roman and Mediaeval chant, the Cock-crow mass, Dunstaple, Taverner, Dowland, Campion, Purcell, Simon Gutteridge and Cecilia McDowall, among others.
By 1700, Purcell is dead. The rebuilding of Londinium within the Square Mile is all but complete. Sir Christopher Wren is seen to be perpetuating an old century style. Robert Hooke, by swiftly measuring and certifying the merchants’ building plots, had long since thwarted Sir Christopher’s Baroque City plans. The City thrives, rapidly spreading beyond Roman bounds.
With original music recorded by ArchiCantiores and the ArchiCantuor Quartet –
Part Two runs for 45 minutes including premiere recordings of Michael Berkeley, Elgar Howarth, John Roper, Ann Purves, Julian Cable and Paul Barker together with new recordings of Handel, Greene, Attwood, Goss, Sullivan, Stainer, Darke, Walton, Warlock, Judith Weir and Cecilia McDowall inter alia.
Written and presented by Jonathan Louth with Marion Wyllie and featuring original drawings by Peter Kent, Topographical Artist.