TONUS PEREGRINUS TONUS PEREGRINUS is a group of individual musicians each forging their own diverse
careers, yet unified when they meet to make music from many times and places.
The ensemble was founded by the composer and producer Antony Pitts in 1990, while
studying at New College, Oxford under Dr Edward Higginbottom. The Latin term tonus
peregrinus was the name given to one of the Church’s ancient psalm tones;
in turn, this chant was based on a Jewish melody which may have been sung by Jesus
and the disciples at the Last Supper. This particular psalm tone was unusual in
that it had a different recitation tone in each half, hence its name, ‘wandering
tone’; it was also known, despite its history, as the tonus novissimus, or
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 with an interpretative approach that is both authentic
and original.
It was a recording of Antony Pitts’s sacred choral music, Seven Letters
(now available on Hyperion CDA67507 and Editor’s Choice in The Gramophone,
August 2005) that led Klaus Heymann to commission the ensemble’s first
two recordings for Naxos: Arvo Pärt’s Passio (Naxos 8.555860), which
hit the top of the BBC Music Magazine chart and won a Cannes Classical Award
in 2004, and a pairing of the earliest complete polyphonic Mass and Passion
settings The Mass of Tournai (Naxos 8.555861). Klaus Heymann also commissioned
the ensemble’s director to make new arrangements of 24 carols for Advent
and Christmas: The Naxos Book of Carols is available both as a CD (Naxos 8.557330)
and as a carol-book published jointly by Faber Music and Select Music (ISBN
0-571-52325-0).
The latest Naxos release by TONUS PEREGRINUS is of organum by Léonin
and Pérotin, Sacred Music from Notre-Dame Cathedral (Naxos 8.557340).
Forthcoming releases include Sweet Harmony – masses & motets by John
Dunstable (Naxos 8.557341), the first-ever opera Le Jeu de Robin et Marion by
Adam de la Halle (Naxos 8.557337), and Hymnes and Songs of the Church (Naxos
8.557681). The ensemble’s website is at: www.tonusperegrinus.co.uk; for
a free e-newsletter, please email: news@tonusperegrinus.co.uk.
Joanna Forbes – soprano
Rebecca Hickey – soprano
Kathryn Oswald – alto
Alexander L’Estrange – countertenor
Richard Eteson – tenor
Alexander Hickey – tenor
Francis Brett – bass
Nick Flower – bass
Antony Pitts – director
www.tonusperegrinus.co.uk
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