The Clerks are a British early music

Early music

Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...

 vocal ensemble

Choir

A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

. They have authored a series of recordings and concerts featuring music by Johannes Ockeghem

Johannes Ockeghem

Johannes Ockeghem was the most famous composer of the Franco-Flemish School in the last half of the 15th century, and is often considered the most...

, Josquin des Prez

Josquin Des Prez

Josquin des Prez [Josquin Lebloitte dit Desprez] , often referred to simply as Josquin, was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance...

, Jacob Obrecht

Jacob Obrecht

Jacob Obrecht was a Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He was the most famous composer of masses in Europe in the late 15th century, being eclipsed by only Josquin des Prez after his death.-Life:...

 and other composers of the Franco-Flemish Renaissance

Franco-Flemish School

In music, the Franco-Flemish School or more precisely the Netherlandish School refers, somewhat imprecisely, to the style of polyphonic vocal music composition in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, and to the composers who wrote it...

History

Formed by Edward Wickham in 1992 from choral scholars (also known as Academical Clerks – hence the name) at Oxford University, the ensemble was soon signed by the record label ASV (later Sanctuary Classics). During the 1990s The Clerks’ recording profile focussed on the music of Johannes Ockeghem

Johannes Ockeghem

Johannes Ockeghem was the most famous composer of the Franco-Flemish School in the last half of the 15th century, and is often considered the most...

, whose complete sacred music the ensemble finished recording in 1999, picking up a Gramophone Award in the process. Several other recordings have focussed on previously neglected repertoire and composers, such as Jacob Barbireau

Jacobus Barbireau

Jacobus Barbireau was a Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer from Antwerp. He was considered to be a superlative composer both by his contemporaries and by modern scholars; however, his surviving output is small, and he died young.-Life:Until the 1960s he was confused with another somewhat older...

, Johannes Tinctoris

Johannes Tinctoris

Johannes Tinctoris was a Flemish composer and music theorist of the Renaissance. He is known to have studied in Orléans, and to have been master of the choir there; he also may have been director of choirboys at Chartres...

 and Johannes Regis

Johannes Regis

Johannes Regis was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He was a well-known composer at the close of the 15th century, was a principal contributor to the Chigi Codex, and was secretary to Guillaume Dufay.-Life:...

.

More recently The Clerks have moved into contemporary music and have given premieres of work by several British composers, including Robert Saxton

Robert Saxton

-Biography:After early advice and encouragement from Benjamin Britten, Robert Saxton took private composition lessons with Elisabeth Lutyens. He went on to study with Robin Holloway at Cambridge University, with Robert Sherlaw Johnson as a post-graduate at Oxford University, and later with Berio....

, Gabriel Jackson and Christopher Fox.

The Clerks have been associated with pioneering work in the field of performance practice, in particular singing from facsimiles of Renaissance manuscript sources, a process heavily influenced by the work of Margaret Bent

Margaret Bent

Margaret Hilda Bent CBE, FBA is an English musicologist.She was educated at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Acton School and Girton College, Cambridge University , receiving her BA in 1962 and Ph.D in 1969...

and John Milson. Several recordings were made in this way, and the experience has since informed the group’s approach to the rehearsal and performance.

Recent recordings

• Johannes Regis: Opera omnia (2009) - 2CDs Musique en Wallonie MEW 0848-0849
• The Essential Josquin Des Prez (2007) - Sanctuary/Gaudeamus CD GAM 361
• In Memoria: Medieval Songs of Remembrance (2007) - Sanctuary/Gaudeamus CD GAU 362
• The Ockeghem Collection (2006) - 5CDs Sanctuary/Gaudeamus CD GAX 550

External links

• http://www.theclerks.co.uk/
• http://www.musiwall.ulg.ac.be/
• http://www.solidair.org.uk/