Historical Performance and Authenticity

On Dec. 5th one equall musick and McGill's Centre for Research on Religion (CREOR) co-hosted a Restoration Evensong to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. It was a great success - we had c. 100 people in McGill's Birks Chapel at 530 on a cold wednesday night at the end of term. Quite the turn out considering it was the middle of the week - in some respects a bit of a gamble, but one that paid off immensely. The musical line-up was fairly accurate we thought, without going into too much precision on what might have actually appeared in a Chapel Royal Service c. 1667. The choral music was as follows: William Smith, Preces and Responses Psalm tunes from British
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