The musician David Trendell, who has died aged 50 of a brain haemorrhage, combined musicology with the highest standards of choir training, organ playing, record producing and teaching. Research for him always had a practical end. He found his niche as senior lecturer and director of music at Kings College London, where he performed with his chapel choir what he taught in his lectures.
Davids research into 16th-century Spanish polyphony yielded acclaimed recordings of Alonso Lobo and Sebastián de Vivanco from scores that he had edited. His love of the English Renaissance led to discs of William Byrd and John Taverner, which were praised for the passion and discipline of the choir. His approach was exemplified by the recording O Sapientia (2008), of advent works by renaissance and contemporary composers, on which learning, art and faith stood equal. He did not make a point of announcing his discoveries and singers might realise only at the last minute that the work they were to perform had not been sung for 500 years. His friend since student days, the conductor Paul Brough, said: It was the fusion of his scholarship and his recordings which was so potent.
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