Peter Phillips (born 15 October 1953)[1] is a British choral conductor, musicologist and writer.[2] He is the founder of the Tallis Scholars[3] as well as Gimell Records.[4] He has been the owner of the Musical Times since 1995.[5]
Phillips's first concert with the Tallis Scholars took place in St Mary Magdalen's Church in Oxford on 3 November 1973. The group was made up of choral scholars (hence the use of the word 'Scholars' in the title) and layclerks from the leading Oxbridge choral foundations.[8] From the beginning, Phillips aimed to produce a distinctive sound, influenced by choirs he admired, in particular the Clerkes of Oxenford.[9] However the repertoire he chose was idiosyncratic, based in his desire to explore neglected corners of the polyphonic repertories, continental as much as English. This first concert included music by Obrecht, Ockeghem, Lassus and Victoria. After the founding of Gimell Records in 1980,[10] the Tallis Scholars have gone on to fill many gaps in the recording catalogue, making discs devoted to such relatively unknown composers as Cardoso,[11]White,[12]Clemens,[13]Gombert,[14]Mouton,[15]Browne and Fayrfax.
Since winning the Gramophone Record of the Year Award in 1987,[16] the Tallis Scholars have been recognised as one of the world's leading ensemble in interpreting renaissance polyphony. That 1987 disc inaugurated a career-long project of recording all of Josquin des Prez’s masses, ready for the 500th anniversary of the composer’s death, in 2021. The ninth and last disc in the series also won an Award entitled Record of the Year – from the BBC Music Magazine – in 2021, 34 years after the first one.[17]
In 2013 he directed the Tallis Scholars in a 99-concert year of events, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the group. Amongst other countries they visited New Zealand for the first time, Australia for the seventh time, Japan for the 14th time, and the US for the 61st.[18] As of 2021, The Tallis Scholars have given more than two-thirds of their 2,500 concerts outside the UK. In November 2023 they celebrated their 50th anniversary with a special concert in the Middle Temple Hall in London
Relationship with John Tavener
Phillips first met the composer John Tavener in 1977, which led to a lifelong friendship.[19] For many years Tavener was the only living composer to write for The Tallis Scholars,[20] a connection which resulted in pieces such as the Ikon of Light (1984),[21]Let not the Prince be silent (1988), the Lord's Prayer (1999), Tribute to Cavafy (1999) and The Requiem Fragments (2014), which was dedicated to Phillips.[22]
Phillips gave his first Promenade concert in 1988, since when he has appeared eight more times, always with the Tallis Scholars, though in 2007 also with the BBC Singers, when the two groups joined forces to give the first modern performance of Striggio's 60-part Mass Ecco si beato giorno. Phillips and The Tallis Scholars appeared at the Proms on 4 August 2014 to help mark the anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, with a Requiem written for them by John Tavener, televised on BBC 4. In 2018 they returned to the Albert Hall to sing a specially adapted Compline service.[30]
Other conducting work
In 1985 Phillips was invited by Philippe Herreweghe to conduct La Chapelle Royale of Paris and the Netherlands Chamber Choir, which sparked a lifelong interest in working with groups trained outside the Anglican choral tradition. These invitations also promoted in Phillips an interest in European culture, cuisines and languages. He has owned property in Paris since 1989 and given interviews in French, German, Italian and Spanish. He is also a student of Arabic (in which he has not given an interview).
Phillips started a collaboration with the BBC Singers in 2003, with whom he has now appeared in nearly 25 productions, most recently in May 2023. In 2021 he conducted them in a live broadcast from Maida Vale, featuring Mexican polyphony written for Puebla Cathedral.[31][32] He has recorded with the Spanish group El León de Oro (Oviedo). Other groups he has worked with include Intrada (Moscow), Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Danish Radio Choir.
In 2018 he gave a six-part series of lectures on BBC Radio 3, entitled The Glories of Polyphony.
Educational work
In 2000 Peter Phillips and David Woodcock set up the first Tallis Scholars Summer School in Oakham.[33] This was followed in 2005 by an extension in Seattle (US), and in 2007 by one in Sydney, Australia. He has also been involved with similar courses in Rimini, Evora and Barcelona. He lectured on the John Hall pre-University course in Venice from 1981 to 2019.[34]
Phillips began an association with Merton College Chapel in 1974 when, as an undergraduate, he directed Tallis's 'Why fum'th in fight' as a prelude to a performance of Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis. The Tallis Scholars recorded regularly in Merton Chapel between 1976 and 1987, returning more permanently in 2005. In 2006, with the help of Jessica Rawson and Simon Jones, Phillips established a new choral foundation at the College.[35] This choir sang its first services under Phillips and Benjamin Nicholas in October 2008.[36]
Phillips became a founding trustee of the Muze Trust, a charity designed to help with musical education in Zambia. At the invitation of Paul Kelly he visited Lusaka in 2010, directing Vox Zambesi in a concert and a recording, and continuing as a Trustee until 2023.
Publications
Phillips wrote a regular column for The Spectator on all aspects of classical music from January 1983 to May 2016.[38]
The Blue French (Musical Times, 1st edition, 2023 ISBN978-0-9545777-3-5) Phillips' first novel. It is an account of a performance of Tallis's Spem in alium which focuses on the daily lives of London-based singers[49]
Awards and honours
In 1990 Phillips was the subject of The South Bank Show, introduced by Melvyn Bragg. It followed the course of renaissance polyphony through England and the Netherlands and was entitled "A Personal Odyssey".[50][51]
In 2005, Phillips was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture, a decoration intended to honour individuals who have contributed to the understanding of French culture in the world, in his case Josquin des Prez.
From 2008 to 2016 he was made a Reed Rubin Director of Music at Merton College, Oxford, and in 2010 a Bodley Fellow.[52] In 2021 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, where he had been Organ Scholar from 1972 to 1975.[53]
Record of the Year from the BBC Music Magazine in 2021
His 1980 recording of Allegri's Miserere was said by the BBC Music Magazine to be one of the 50 greatest recordings of all time.[55]
In 2009 the Tallis Scholars were voted by Early Music Today the fourth most influential early group in the history of the genre, after the instrumental ensembles of David Munrow, John Eliot Gardiner and Christopher Hogwood.[56] In 2013 they were voted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame[57] – about 120 names from the entire history of classical recording – the only early music group to be so listed.
^"Contents". The Musical Times (Vol. cxxxvii No. 1839 ed.). London, UK: Peter Phillips. May 1996. p. 3.
^Dennis Shrock (May 1992). "An Interview With Peter Phillips: Director of the Tallis Scholars". The Choral Journal (Vol. 32 No. 10 ed.). Oklahoma, USA: American Choral Directors Association. p. 7.
^Fabrice Fitch (20 January 2001). "Phillips, Peter(ii)". www-oxfordmusiconline-com. Retrieved 21 June 2024.
^Rees, Owen (2017). Know-it-all classical music : the 50 most significant genres, composers & forms, each explained in under a minute. New York, USA: Wellfleet Press. p. 43. ISBN9781577151500.
^Rees, Owen (2017). Know-it-all classical music : the 50 most significant genres, composers & forms, each explained in under a minute. New York, USA: Wellfleet Press. p. 43. ISBN9781577151500.
