ABSTRACT
Christopher Page's essay confronts a particular conjunction of critic, performer and musicologist. He intends to supplement his arguments by drawing on his experience as a performer and on the specific musical education he sketches. This chapter presents an expression of page's desire to find answers to questions continually raised during the performing process. Page proposes what he tentatively calls the 'English discovery' theory: It begins from the premiss that English singers performing a cappella are currently able to give exceptional performances of medieval and Renaissance polyphony from England and the Franco-Flemish area. Because the ability of the best English singers to achieve a purity and precision instilled by the discipline of repeated a cappella singing in the choral institutions is singularly appropriate to the transparency and intricate counterpoint of the music. It is well known that English a cappella choirs are excellent sight-readers: the reason generally cited is their training in the choral institutions of Britain.s.
