Marlow

Peter Philips was, after William Byrd, the most published English composer of the Elizabethan-Jacobean Age. He was also, in his day, the best-known English composer on the European mainland but his absence from his homeland after the age of about twenty-one means that he remains relatively neglected at home. Born in 1560 or 1561, he trained as a choirboy at St Paul’s Cathedral in London and may have studied keyboard playing with Byrd. In 1582 he fled England to avoid persecution as a Roman Catholic, making his way to Rome. In 1585 he joined the entourage of another Roman Catholic refugee, Sir Thomas Paget, travelling with him through Northern Europe for the next five years, eventually settling in Antwerp in 1591. In 1593 he was accused of plotting against Elizabeth I and arrested, but was eventually exonerated. He joined the court chapel of Archduke Albert, Viceroy of The Netherlands, as organist in 1597 and remained there until his death in 1628.

Tim Marlow, world renowned British Art Historian, narrates this four-part series about the nude in art and its ongoing significance. Using Classical, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Modern representative masterpiece nudes, Marlow imparts information about each piece’s societal context.

Several generations of Bachs have been gathered by Richard Marlow and the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge for their programme of motets. All of them have been recorded at various times in the past but many only infrequently, and one or two, perhaps, now make their first appearance on CD. There is no dull music here and two of the pieces, at least, are of outstanding expressive beauty. The earlier of these is Johann Bach’s profoundly affecting Unser Leben ist ein Schatten (“Our life is but a shadow”). This member of the clan survived both the Black Death and the savage bombardment of Erfurt during the Thirty Years War.

Héritier d'une des familles les plus riches de la petite ville anglaise de Marlow, Peter Bailey est retrouvé mort, écrasé sous une armoire, la veille de son mariage. Alors que tout le monde pense à un accident, Judith Potts, 77 ans, est persuadée qu'il s'agit d'un meurtre. Elle mène l'enquête avec ses deux excentriques partenaires, Becks, la femme du vicaire, et Suzie, la promeneuse de chiens. …