Tessa Bonner, champion of Early Tudor music sung as it should be sung - Requiescat In Pace

Tessa Bonner was one of those band of pioneering people who I looked up to when my interest in early music began in the early 1980's. She recorded and performed extensively with the Tallis Scholars, where I was able to appreciate her craft by following the smooth sustained lines. With David Wulsten's theory on relative pitch during Tudor times being transposed up a minor third from written pitch, the notion that the compass of the treble voice would find it's range being expandd to a top B flat, Tessa was one of those select group of singers who was able to replicate this sound. She was the mainstay of the treble sound with Ruth Holton and Deborah Roberts, but was also at home singing the lower mean part.

She also worked with Roger Norrington, Phillip Picket, Andrew Parrot (Bach recording's) and Robert King. I was fortunate to work with her when David Gedge put on a performance of Monteverdi Vespers 1610 in Brecon Cathedral. She led a team of soloists and even though this was a gig in the sticks, she was quite clearly at home with the situation. Her vitality of tone and expression in the duets and trios were a joy to behold live. Later in her career I was fortunate to hear the Tallis Scholars perform in Llandaff singing Tallis, Byrd and Palestrina. They sang Dum complerentur as an encore, two a part, which was stunning. Her contribution towards the early music revival was very much understated and she will be sorely missed. It was fitting that so many heartfelt obituaries were printed in the London Press. Click on the links for those printed in the Guardian, The Times, the Daily Telegrph and the Independent. Also a message on the Tallis Scholar's director, Peter Phillips' Blog by my old friend Farther Paul Brophy MA.