Last Updated on October 14, 2025
Pilgrim’s Progress
The BBC’s hamfisted attempt at cultural vandalism with its attempt to bring about the demise of the BBC Singers has put the British classical choral world in a state of turmoil. So, it’s wonderful to be able to celebrate the work of The Sixteen, a sixteen-piece choir that is now a British choral institution with a global reputation. The group is currently undertaking the 22nd year of the ensemble’s ‘Choral Pilgrimage’ with a nationwide series of events entitled ‘The Choral Pilgrimage 2023: A Watchful Gaze’. The extensive tour comprises concerts and workshops. It started on 11 March in Oxford and visits twenty-seven locations across the whole country including a performance in Dublin. The tour marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Byrd and features works by that great English master of Renaissance polyphony (a compositional tool that features a number of interweaving melodic lines) as well as pieces that reflect ‘his influences, colleagues and pervading faith’. There are also two world premiere performances of works written by Bulgarian-British composer Dobrinka Tabakova.
In support of the tour, The Sixteen have just released a new album featuring the works in the Choral Pilgrimage. I am reviewing one of the early concerts in the series in the glorious Gothic revival chapel of St. John’s Cambridge. designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and influenced by the thirteenth-century Sainte Chapelle in Paris. It’s the perfect space and acoustic for this repertoire and is packed for the concert.
The show opens with the fugal textures of Byrd’s ‘Arise Lord into thy rest’. Conductor Harry Christophers marshalled the vocal forces with his usual élan shaping each line to great effect. Van Wilder’s ‘O doux’ highlights the rich sonorities of the basses, featured in the low perfect 5th opening. The choir was fully warmed up and singing as one instrument for Byrd’s stately ‘Ne irascaris / Civitas sancti tui’ and made a gorgeous job of the transcendent opening of de Monte’s ‘O suavitas et dulcedo’. De Monte was a great influence on Byrd who in turn has clearly influenced the writing of Dobrinka Tabakova. Her ‘Arise Lord into thy rest’ (a new commission) had lush, jazzy harmonies as well as some nifty parallel suspensions and a wonderfully delivered soprano solo. The first half came to a close with the long sustains of the devotional work devotional ‘Tristitia et anxietas’ from the Dutch composer and friend of Byrd, Clemens non Papa.
After the interval, we were able to compare Byrd’s setting of the same ‘Tristitia et anxietas’ text which has glorious builds and is more dynamic than his friend’s. It just reinforced in my mind the greatness of Byrd! His ‘Turn our captivity’ was particularly engaging with its trumpet-like tenor lines and a lively triplet “jollity” section. Clemens non Papa’s ‘Ego flos campi’ with its 3-part sectional writing is a grand exercise in diatonicism that was juxtaposed with Dobrinka Tabakova’s new commission ‘Turn our captivity’, which is more in the tradition than her first piece in the concert but with subtle Bulgarian and contemporary touches. Philippe de Monte’s ‘Super flumina Babylonis’ with its ‘hidden’ references to the problems of being a practising Catholic in a protestant country is a classic piece of Renaissance polyphonic writing and bears little relationship to the Boney M track of the same name. Byrd’s response to the de Monte, ‘Quomodo cantabimus?’, has long fluid lines that contrast With the composer’s ‘Vigilate’ energetic influence of Italian madrigal writing prefiguring Handel.
This kind of singing is all about the collective and not about the individual and The Sixteen are past masters in this Renaissance repertoire. If you’ve not experienced this type of music before it is genuinely spiritual, transcendent and hypnotic as well as being a major plank of our national cultural heritage. In addition to the Choral Pilgrimage, The Sixteen are giving a performance of William Byrd’s seminal creation: The Psalmes, Songs and Sonnets of 1611 at Wigmore Hall and the 2023 season also sees a collaboration with jazz pianist Julian Joseph and delivery of an operatic double bill at Grange Festival (find out more in our roundup of the Summer’s Opera season.
For more details of the Choral Pilgrimage dates and to book tickets click here
Hereford Cathedral, 19 April
Llandaff Cathedral, 20 April
Truro Cathedral, 21 April (inc Choral Workshop for amateur singers)
Derby Cathedral, 12 May
Peterborough Cathedral, 13 May (inc Choral Workshop for amateur singers)
Old Royal Naval College Chapel, Greenwich, 16 May
St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, 13 June (inc Choral Workshop for amateur singers)
National Concert Hall, Dublin, 20 June
York Minster, 9 July
Exeter Cathedral, 7 September
Wells Cathedral, 8 September
Tewkesbury Abbey, 9 September (inc Choral Workshop for amateur singers)
St Albans Cathedral, 16 September
Southwell Minster, 21 September
Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, 22 September
Blackburn Cathedral, 23 September (inc Choral Workshop for amateur singers)
Croydon Minster, 25 September
St Mary’s Church, Warwick, 28 September
Rochester Cathedral, 11 October
Lancaster Priory, 12 October
Hexham Abbey, 13 October
Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh, 14 October (inc Choral Workshop for amateur singers)
King’s Place, London, 26 October
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