Polyphony in Portugal, 16–21 May 2021 by Martin Randall Travel

Thank you for expressing an interest in this festival. You can book immediately. Please contact us directly or book online through our website. Please note that due to the Covid-19 emergency, we will not be producing hard copies of our brochures this year. Therefore this document is the only brochure for this festival that will be published.

Polyphony in

Portugal CELEBRATING MUSIC AND PLACE 16â&#x20AC;&#x201C;21 MAY 2021

A festival of glorious choral music in the churches and chapels of the beautiful and remote Alentejo

MARTIN RANDALL FESTIVALS

Martin Randall Festivals bring together world-class musicians for a sequence of private concerts in Europe’s glorious historic buildings, many of which are not normally accessible. We take care of all logistics, from flights or trains and hotels, to pre-concert talks.

VENICE: PAGEANTRY & PIETY 2–7 NOVEMBER 2020 POLYPHONY IN PORTUGAL 16–21 MAY 2021 MUSIC ALONG THE RHINE 15–22 JUNE 2021 MUSIC ALONG THE DANUBE 20–27 AUGUST 2021 THE DIVINE OFFICE 27 SEPTEMBER– 1 OCTOBER 2021

CONTENTS

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE FESTIVAL Renaissance and Baroque polyphony from across Europe

DISCOVER THE PLACE The Alentejo: timeless, beautiful and relatively tourist-free

12. MEET THE MUSICIANS

18. TRAVEL OPTIONS

Details on flight and rail options.

International ensembles of the highest calibre.

14.

ACCOMMODATION & PRICES Information about the festival bases and different price categories.

19.

PRE & POST FESTIVAL TOURS Extend your trip to Europe with tours that can be combined with the festival.

25.

THE FESTIVAL PROGRAMME

BOOKING

The booking form, booking process, booking conditions.

Concerts 1 to 7, with a steer on the itinerary.

Photographs: Left: ©Benjamin Ealovega. Right: ©Turismo Alentejo, ©Benjamin Ealovega, ©Nick Rutter, ©Humphrey Mulega. Published: July 2020

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INTRODUCTION

POLYPHONY IN PORTUGAL

Private performances of polyphony in exquisite churches and chapels in one of the loveliest stretches of southern Europe: this, the newest in our series of boundary-breaking music festivals, takes you to the Alentejo in Portugal.

Renaissance and Baroque unaccompanied polyphony powerfully provides solace in ruffled moments, companionship in joy, catharsis after troubles. Dazzling in its complexity and cleverness (and devilishly difficult to sing), polyphony can cut through to the soul with a potency and purity rivalled by few other musical forms. Polyphony in Portugal is the latest of the music festivals following the famous and highly praised formula created by Martin Randall Travel – a package of concerts in beautiful and appropriate historic buildings with hotel accommodation, transport, most meals, talks and much else. The Tallis Scholars, world leaders in the performance of Renaissance polyphony, provide three of the seven concerts, and the brilliant Italian group, Odhecaton, give two. You also hear twice the Portuguese ensemble Cupertinos, the finest local interpreters of their native repertoire.

Illustration. Estremoz, from an illustration for 'The Labour of Mars' by Allain Manesson Mallet, etching on paper, by Romeyn de Hooghe, c.1672. 4

The choral music composed in Portugal in the 16th and 17th centuries constitutes one of the supreme creative achievements of its time, distinguished by its emotional intensity and daring use of harmonic colour. About a third of the music in this festival is Portuguese, with Manuel Cardoso and Duarte Lobo heading the list of otherwise rarely heard composers. The rest of the programme ranges across Europe – as did some of its protagonists, not least Josquin des Prez, the 500th anniversary of whose death the festival commemorates. Among the other composers are the Franco-Flemings Gombert and Brumel, Byrd and Tallis from England, Padilla and Victoria from Spain and the Frenchmen Poulenc and Messiaen – who contribute the 20thcentury masterpieces. From Italy come the Miserere by Allegri and a rarely performed oratorio for soloists and small orchestra by Bononcini.

INTRODUCTION

'Private visits and concerts with truly excellent musicians doing interesting music in amazing venues is something no-one can organise for themselves' – Participant on 'Sacred Music in Santiago' 2019

THE FESTIVAL PACKAGE

THE SPEAKERS

The price includes:

PROFESSOR OWEN REES

— All seven private concerts.

See page 12 for his biography. A leading authority on the music of Portugal and Spain from the 15th to the 17th centuries, Professor Rees is Fellow and Tutor in Music at The Queen’s College, Oxford University. He is director of the college’s renowned chapel choir, and of the professional ensemble Contrapunctus. He has conducted broadcasts on BBC Radios 3 and 4 and released numerous recordings on the Hyperion, Signum, and Avie labels to high critical acclaim. He regularly teaches on a summer school at Evora in the Alentejo.

—A ccommodation for five nights – you choose from selected hotels. —R eturn flights between London or Manchester and Lisbon. See page 18. — S ome dinners and lunches (the number varies according to your hotel choice). —T alks on the music. —T ravel by private coach within Portugal.

PETER PHILLIPS

—T he assistance of festival staff and a detailed programme booklet. Optional extras: —T ravel from London by train with a night in Barcelona. —A choice of pre- and post-festival tours. See pages 19-24. —Extra dinners and visits. See page 14.

Illustration. After a drawing by Muirhead Bone 1938.

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THE PLACE

DISCOVER THE PLACE: THE ALENTEJO

Imagine a white-washed town with pink pantiles and ancient alleys pushing irrational routes between soaring churches, proud mansions and work-a-day dwellings. A place where little seems to have changed for a century or more.

Imagine there are several such joyfully picturesque places. Imagine also that most are gathered around a bluff on which sit the towers of a medieval castle, and that some are ringed by magnificent ramparts – startling collisions of geometry, architecture and brute functionality, characteristic of disputed borderlands.

Travelling through the Alentejo on another mission, Martin Randall wrote to Peter Phillips, director of The Tallis Scholars, to tell of the joys of the region, adding that it would be an excellent destination for a music festival. You seem to have forgotten, Peter replied, that my annual family holiday for the last f ifteen years has been in the Alentejo. Thus was Polyphony in Portugal born.

Now imagine these settlements scattered through an undulating landscape of holm oak, cork trees and olive groves; vines, cereals and pasture with wild flowers and horned brown cattle; where man-made structures are scarce. Next, envisage such towns being equipped with comfortable hotels, specialist shops, simple cafés and good restaurants. Perhaps hardest of all is to imagine such a paradise with few international visitors. The cafés which spill onto the sunlit squares are patronised predominantly by local residents, enjoying a pace of life long vanished from most of modern Europe. It seems scarcely credible that such a region could exist, but it does. Authentic, timeless, beautiful and relatively touristfree, the Alentejo provides many of the ingredients sought by travellers. Elvas, Vila Viçosa, Estremoz and the surrounding countryside: this is the setting for Polyphony in Portugal, our new festival of choral music. Photograph. Alentejo landscape ©Nicola di Nunzio for Turismo Alentejo.

THE PLACE

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THE PROGRAMME

THE FESTIVAL PROGRAMME

Concert 1

Concert 2

Cupertinos The Genius of Manuel Cardoso São Paolo, Vila Viçosa, Elvas

The Tallis Scholars Josquin and fellow Franco-Flemings Vila Viçosa, Elvas

The festival starts with some of the very best polyphony of Portugal’s Golden Age, a monographic programme devoted to Manuel Cardoso (1566–1650). Cardoso was the presiding genius of Portuguese Renaissance music, perhaps the greatest Portuguese composer of all time.

For the first of their three concerts, The Tallis Scholars pay tribute to the quincentenary of the greatest and most influential composer of his time and the first master of Renaissance polyphony: Josquin des Prez (c. 1450 –1521). Two other major Franco-Flemish masters share the programme, Antoine Brumel (1460 –1512) and Nicolas Gombert (c.1495–c.1560), magnificently represented by one of his eight settings of the Magnificat. The centrepiece is Josquin’s great Missa Mater Patris, based on a motet by Brumel and probably the first true ‘parody’ mass to be composed.

Built around his Requiem Mass in four parts, the programme focuses on two of the most pungent moments in the liturgical year, Lent and the Office of the Dead. Embracing some of the most dramatically charged of liturgical texts, this plays to Cardoso’s strengths by highlighting his particularly expressive style.

This concert is performed twice. Elvas inhabitants hear it in the Igreja das Dominicas, an exquisite and intimate octagonal chapel dating to 1543 and fully lined with 17th-century tiles.

The concert is performed three times in three different places. At the Convento de São Paolo, it is scheduled for the hour before dinner on the day of arrival in the hotel’s own serenely beautiful chapel. Cupertinos move on the following day to the very pretty little convent chapel in the hotel at Vila Viçosa, with polychrome wall tiles and painted ceiling. The venue in Elvas is the 18th-century Igreja dos Terceiros, richly decorated and with an exceptionally elaborate altarpiece, reached by a lovely walk along the northern ramparts.

The rest hear it in the chapel of the Paço Ducal in Vila Viçosa, the palace where the House of Braganza was elevated to kingship in 1640 and whither they had retreated when the monarchy was extinguished in 1910. (At the time of publishing, the Ducal Palace chapel had not been confirmed; the back-up venue is the Igreja dos Agostinhos across the square, from 1677 the Braganza pantheon.)

Photograph. Forte Gracias, Elvas, ©Martin Randall

THE PROGRAMME

Concert 3

Concert 4

Odhecaton Secular song – frottole e madrigale São Paolo

Cupertinos Music for the Virgin Mary Estremoz

On the morning of day three, and for the first occasion during the festival, the entire audience converges on a single venue for a concert – the chapel at the Convento de São Paolo, the hotel deep in the countryside. Afterwards there is a buffet lunch for all in the restaurant and at tables set out in the contiguous cloister.

After lunch at the Convento de São Paolo, participants move on to the little city of Estremoz. The oldest part of the town is a citadel, encircled by medieval walls and rising through winding alleys to a glorious group of castle, palace and church – the Igreja de Santa Maria, venue for the second concert with Cupertinos.

Odhecaton, the brilliant vocal ensemble from Italy, brings to the festival a burst of secular song from the Italian Renaissance in the form of ‘frottole’ and madrigals.

This noble building, a cube with four great classical columns supporting the vault, a characteristic form of the Portuguese Renaissance, is the perfect venue for a programme of Marian music of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Frottole are an early Renaissance form of musical setting of texts which are secular – sometimes bawdy, sometimes sentimental, though to modern ears the music is otherwise. Unlike the madrigal, the songs are strophic, with the music similar in each verse and refrain.

The unparalleled devotion the Catholic Church grants to Mary, mother of Jesus, has its roots in the early days of Christianity, and was consolidated by the Council of Trent (1545–1563). The magnitude and versatility of Marian themes have inspired some of the most moving and glorious moments in Portuguese music throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.

From c. 1530 the frottola fades, to be replaced by a more free-flowing structure and a more expressive style characteristic of madrigals. This concert concentrates on the earlier phase of madrigals, most of which were composed by FrancoFlemish composers resident in Italy. One distinctive feature is that the texts are in Italian, not Latin.

The composers featured are António Carreira, Francisco Garro, Pedro de Cristo, João Lourenço Rebelo and Duarte Lobo, and the concert includes pieces discovered by Cupertinos alongside wellknown works.

Illustration. Estremoz, from an illustration for 'The Labour of Mars' by Allain Manesson Mallet, etching on paper, by Romeyn de Hooghe, c.1672.

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THE PROGRAMME

THE FESTIVAL PROGRAMME

Concert 5

Concert 6

The Tallis Scholars Cardoso’s Six-Part Requiem São Paolo, Vila Viçosa

Odhecaton Oratorio: Bononcini’s Joshua Vila Viçosa

It’s nonsense, of course, to proclaim a single piece of music as the best of an era, but were there to be an award for the finest piece of Portuguese polyphony, the six-part Requiem Mass by Manuel Cardoso would stand a good chance of winning. And if there were a further award for the finest rendition, the odds on The Tallis Scholars would be very short.

A child prodigy, Giovanni Bononcini (1670 – 1747) became a celebrated composer of operas and oratorios in several of Europe’s capitals. Born in Modena and trained in Bologna, his music adorned many of the great cities of Europe – Rome, Naples, Berlin, London, Vienna, Paris and Lisbon. While in England, he was the only composer to come close to challenging G.F. Handel’s pre-eminence.

In the morning of day four, residents of the Convento de São Paolo have a performance of this magnificent piece to themselves, in their own chapel. Elvas dwellers join Vila Viçosa inhabitants that afternoon for the concert at the church of São Bartolomeu in Vila Viçosa.

Paolo Da Col and Odhecaton have developed a special relationship with the melodious and expressive music of this unfairly neglected Italian composer. Il Giosuè (Joshua) is a dramatic masterpiece, small-scale only by the number of musicians, five singers and seven instrumentalists, but large in the ambition, variety and virtuosity of the music.

Prominently situated at the top of the main square, the Praça da República, the robust façade screens a lovely Baroque interior profuse with tiles, frescoes and gilded ornament.

The handsome Igreja da Conceição (Church of the Conception) in Vila Viçosa makes an excellent venue for Bononcini’s oratorio. Dominating a plaza within the walled precincts of the medieval castle, it was begun in 1570, and embellishments accumulated over the next two centuries. Odhecaton perform to the whole audience in the early evening of day four.

Photograph. Igreja da Conceição, ©Humphrey Muleba,

THE PROGRAMME

Concert 7 The Tallis Scholars Fernando Miguel Jalôto (organ) A feast of polyphony Elvas

The final concert, in the afternoon of day five, is a feast of some of the finest choral music ever composed. Great masters of the Renaissance and early Baroque from England, Italy and Spain dominate the programme, offset by plainchant and a handful of 20th-century masterpieces.

Participation in our festivals is a very different experience from conventional group travel. No repetitive or redundant announcements, no herding by elevated umbrella, no unnecessary roll calls, little hanging around. We work on the assumption that you are adults, and our staff cultivate the virtue of unobtrusiveness.

Different settings of five liturgical texts are juxtaposed. Thus we hear Salve regina and Ave Maria as chant and as polyphony by Poulenc and William Cornysh – and a fourth Salve regina with a Latin-American inflexion by Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla.

Though there will be up to 140 participants, you will often find yourself in smaller groups – the audience is divided between three hotels, and into different restaurants for some of the dinners.

Allegri’s heart-stoppingly beautiful Miserere (a Tallis Scholars signature piece) is paired with a version by Giovanni Croce, while O sacrum convivium is heard in tenderly etherial settings by Thomas Tallis and Olivier Messiaen. The festival closes with the Magnif icat, the Vespers canticle which has inspired some of the noblest music ever written, in versions by William Byrd and Tomás Luis de Victoria.

For those who are not averse to group activities there are extra meals and visits to sign up to. Details will be sent in due course. You choose the level of participation that suits you. We provide sufficient information to enable you to navigate the festival events without needing to be led. However, festival staff are also stationed around the events to direct you if needed.

Hosting this concert is the Church of the Assumption in Elvas, the city’s most important church and for three hundred years its cathedral. Begun in 1517 as a Manueline basilica, it was subsequently enriched with wall tiles and a great Baroque east end. Recently restored, the organ dates to 1777 and is one of the finest historic instruments in Portugal. Appropriate solos are interleaved between groups of vocal pieces.

Illustration: Etching and drypoint c. 1920 by Isabel Codrington.

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THE MUSICIANS

MEET THE MUSICIANS

CUPERTINOS LUÍS TOSCANO

THE TALLIS SCHOLARS PETER PHILLIPS Over the course of fortyeight years, Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars have done more than any other group to establish sacred vocal music of the Renaissance as one of the great repertoires of Western classical music. They have brought polyphony to a very wide audience through over 2,400 performances on five continents, and through nearly 65 recordings, many of which have won awards. They continue to develop their unique sound, exceptional for its supple clarity, blend and beauty, and to bring fresh interpretations to music by contemporary composers as well as those of the past. Peter Phillips founded The Tallis Scholars while an undergraduate at Oxford in 1973, and has dedicated his subsequent career to the research and performance of Renaissance polyphony.

As well as conducting every performance of The Tallis Scholars, he is in demand around the world as a choral conductor and teacher. He contributed a column on music to the Spectator for 33 years and is the author of two books. Honours include being a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and a Bodley Fellowship at Merton College, Oxford. The Tallis Scholars have contributed to many MRT festivals, in Italy, Spain and England. They contribute three concerts to Polyphony in Portugal.

The finest polyphony ensemble in Portugal, Cupertinos is now becoming increasingly prized internationally. Their recording of the Requiem and Lamentations by Manuel Cardoso won the Gramophone Award in 2019 for Early Music. They specialise in Portuguese vocal music of the 16th and 17th centuries, one of the great schools of Renaissance polyphony. They focus their efforts not only on perfecting the performance of the repertoire but also on recovering, studying and disseminating this vast and still largely undiscovered body of music. Established in 2009 at the Fundação Cupertino de Miranda in Vila Nova de Famalicão, the group is directed by Luís Toscano. They work closely with the musicologist José Abreu. Their performances combine freshness of sound, Iberian passion and a distinctly Portuguese essence.

The tenor Luís Toscano was a chorister at Coimbra where he later studied Music at the Conservatory and Economics at the University, to which he is now attached as a researcher. He has sung with a number of consorts including Ars Nova Copenhagen, the Brabant Ensemble, Theatre of Voices and Contrapunctus. Cupertinos provide two concerts to this festival, their first engagement for MRT.

THE MUSICIANS

Photographs. Left page: Luis Toscano, ©Fundação Cupertino de Miranda; The Tallis Scholars ©Nick Rutter; Cupertinos, ©Martine Oliveira. This page: Paolo da Col ©Fabio Fiandrini; Fernando Miguel Jalôto©Michal Novak; Odhecaton ©Odhecaton.

ODHECATON PAOLO DA COL

FERNANDO MIGUEL JALÔTO

The Italian ensemble Odhecaton owes its name to the first printed book of polyphony, published in 1501 in Venice. Founded in 1998 and directed by Paolo Da Col, Odhecaton brings together some of the best Italian male voices specialised in the performance of Renaissance and Baroque vocal repertoire.

Miguel is a star performer on Baroque organ and an academic specialist in Baroque sacred repertoire in Portugal. He studied at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague as well as the University of Aveiro and the Universidade Nova in Lisbon.

Starting with a speciality in Josquin des Prez and the Franco-Flemish composers active in 15th- and 16thcentury Italy, their programmes and recordings came to embrace Gombert, Isaac, Josquin, Peñalosa, Compère, Palestrina, Gesualdo and other Renaissance masters. They also perform work by Baroque and contemporary composers. The have appeared in Europe’s leading festivals, and their recordings have garnered many awards including Diapason d’or de l’année and CD of the Year (Goldberg). Roland de Lassus is the subject of their most recent release. For MRT, they have performed in Bologna and Siracusa, and in the Alentejo they contribute two concerts.

He has performed in Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Austria, Poland, Bulgaria and Japan, as soloist or with prestigious international ensembles, working under the direction of celebrated musicians such as Ton Koopman, Paul McCreesh, Christina Pluhar, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Christophe Rousset, Fabio Biondi, Harry Christophers and Andrew Parrott.

MORE ABOUT THE CONCERTS Private. All the performances are planned and administered by us, and the audience consists exclusively of those who have taken the festival package. Seating. Specific seats are not reserved. You sit where you want. Audience size. There will be up to 140 participants on the festival. Acoustics. This festival is more concerned with locale and authenticity than with acoustic perfection. The venues may have idiosyncrasies or reverberations of the sort not found in modern concert halls. Changes. Musicians fall ill, venues may close for repairs, airlines alter schedules: there are many circumstances which could necessitate changes to the programme. We ask you to be understanding should they occur.

The Artistic Director of the Ludovice Ensemble since its creation in 2004, he is the regular continuo player for the Orquestra Barroca Casa da Música in Porto, the Gulbenkian Symphony Orchestra in Lisbon and the Baroque orchestra Divino Sospiro.

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ACCOMMODATION & PRICES

HOTEL CHOICE: THE BIG DECISION

Your choice of hotel is a decision about more than the category and character of accommodation. It is also a question about the nature of your experience of the Alentejo.

The question is, what sort of experience do you want from the festival – one that has a large dose of countryside and time to relax around the hotel, or one that allows more opportunity to explore a lovely historic town? In terms of comfort, facilities and service, the differences between the three hotels are not enormous. And all share the enchanting feature of occupying former monasteries. So whatever your choice – the rural Convento de São Paolo, or a hotel in the town of Elvas or Vila Viçosa – your base for the festival will be an architectural ambience which combines grandeur and simplicity, historical resonance and modern comforts. All have cloisters, formal gardens, vaulted halls, whitewashed corridors and a chapel – concerts take place in two of them. Our audience of up to 140 will be fairly evenly split between the three, along with musicians from our three ensembles. And another thing: whatever hotel you choose, you will be able to walk to at least three of the seven concerts, and in one case, four. Coaches take you to the other locations (journeys of between 20 and 50 minutes), where you will have free time to enjoy what they have to offer.

Extra dinners & optional visits —— For those staying in Elvas or Vila Viçosa, there is the opportunity to sign up for a package of two optional dinners, meaning all dinners are included. —— Optional visits will be weaved in among the concerts and talks. —— Details on both will be sent in due course.

ACCOMMODATION & PRICES

CONVENTO DE SÃO PAOLO The relaxed, rural option —— Located deep in countryside —— Plenty of time to relax in and around the hotel’s terraces, gardens, swimming pools, halls —— Three of the seven concerts take place in the hotel itself —— More meals included: all dinners and three lunches —— We have booked the whole hotel —— Two to three hours in Elvas, Estremoz and Vila Viçosa

RELAX IN COUNTRYSIDE Occupying a monastery built on a wooded hillside in the remote Serra d’Ossa region, this is the option for those who want the opportunity to relax between concerts in a rural hotel. The joys of the Convento de São Paolo include a wisteria-clad cloister, several terraces with orange trees and oleander and two outdoor swimming pools. From the hotel there are glorious views across sparsely inhabited countryside. One whole day and two long mornings are spent in the hotel, plus time on the first and last days. There is no practicable way of reaching the towns independently, but there is some free time before concerts in Elvas, Vila Viçosa and Estremoz.

MORE ABOUT THE HOTEL

FURTHER POINTS

This is a hotel of character. Not only are there the expected appurtenances of a monastery – courtyards, halls, chapel, long vaulted corridors, flights of stone stairs – but the complex boasts the largest quantity of in situ figurative wall tiles of any building in Portugal. The good restaurant spills into the cloister walks, and there are indoor as well as outdoor areas for sitting. Staff are willing but may be hard pressed at times.

—— 4 dinners and 3 buffet lunches at the Convento, one dinner in Vila Viçosa.

Rooms are distributed between the main building and out-buildings, and vary in size and outlook. They are comfortable but not luxurious with simple décor and furnishings. All have en suite bathrooms (mostly showers, some baths) and the usual mod cons. We have grouped them in two broad categories, relating to their orientation, with suites another category. Not all bedrooms have lift access; a handful are up or down a f light of stairs.

—— The option of a visit to a cork farm and winery will be sent to participants in due course, for additional cost. —— Coach transfers to the four concerts elsewhere of 25 to 50 minutes. —— If booking our flights, you need to choose ‘option 1’. See page 18.

PRICES Two sharing (per person) Standard twin/double £3,160 Superior twin/double £3,280 Suite twin/double £3,700 Single occupancy Standard £3,340 Superior £3,470 Suite £4,120 Price without flights, subtract £180.

Standard rooms, generally looking to the rear, over a terrace to the hill behind.

ADDITIONAL NIGHTS

Superior rooms, which run off the original tiled corridors in the main building, and have far-reaching views across the estate.

We can book additional nights before or after the festival, including breakfast. Please note that transfers are not included.

Suites, of varying configurations and outlook, with separate sitting areas. The chapel, adorned with blue and white tiles, is an excellent venue for choral concerts. Three take place here, one attended by all festival participants and two just by those staying here. www.hotelconventosaopaulo.com

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Two sharing (per person) Standard twin/double £60 Superior twin/double £90 Suite twin/double £170 Single occupancy Standard £100 Superior £120 Suite £220 15

ACCOMMODATION & PRICES

HOTEL VILA GALÉ, ELVAS Smart hotel in the centre of town —— Located in the heart of an enthralling little city —— Modern hotel in an historic building —— Most comfortable of the three festival hotels

LUXURY IN AUSTERITY

FURTHER POINTS

Opened in 2019, the Hotel Vila Galé is the most luxurious of the three selected hotels. The imposing 18th-century monastery buildings, with a monumental cloister with Corinthian columns at their core, had become badly dilapidated before conversion, and restoration has been thorough.

—— Two days entirely in Elvas, five coach journeys to/from concerts elsewhere of 25 to 50 minutes

Modern services and facilities, together with contemporary décor and furnishings, have been inserted into historic fabric which has been scraped and scrubbed ELVAS, THE TOWN and plastered to perfection. Attractions include a good restaurant, a range of Elvas is that increasingly rare phenomenon, communal areas and a spa with two an excellently preserved city of historical swimming pools, one indoor, one out. importance and great architectural interest which carries on with daily life as it has for Bedrooms are comfortable; standard generations – and is not overwhelmed with rooms are lofty and spacious, family rooms tourists. Winding, narrow, whitewashed and suites even more so. In contrast streets lead up (and down) to some all bathrooms are small and only have incredible churches, palaces, squares, showers, no baths. Service is excellent – shops and restaurants. welcoming and efficient. However, if you are ill at ease with cutting-edge design and The larger (and hillier) of our two city high-tech facilities, this may not be the bases (population 16,500), Elvas is close option for you. to the border with Spain, and on a clear day you can just make out Badajoz. It is www.vilagale.com/pt/hoteis/alentejo/vilano coincidence that it is famous for its gale-collection-elvas fortifications of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries and played a role in Wellington’s Peninsular War (there’s a small British cemetery here). It is known also for its exquisite sugar plums. — — Three of the seven concerts within walking distance

—— Three dinners in the hotel and nearby restaurants, and a buffet lunch at the Convento de São Paolo.

PRICES Two sharing, per person Standard twin/double £2,980 Family twin/double £3,090 Suite twin/double £3,370 Single occupancy Standard double

£3,170

Price without flights, subtract £180

ADDITIONAL NIGHTS We can book additional nights before or after the festival, including breakfast. Please note that transfers are not included. Two sharing, per person Standard twin/double Family twin/double Suite twin/double

£60 £70 £110

Single occupancy Standard double £100

ACCOMMODATION & PRICES

POUSADA VILA VIÇOSA One of the town-centre options —— Traditional hotel in the town centre —— Long-established hotel in a 16thcentury convent —— Four concerts in the town, with two full days spent here —— We have booked the whole hotel —— The choice between here and Elvas largely a matter of hotel style

VILA VIÇOSA, THE TOWN This is a town built with style, ambition and a firm hand on the planning. The nearby cluster of marble quarries explains lavish use of the material in the buildings. The castle precinct, housing the beautiful Igreja de Conceiçao, rises up one (gentle) incline and a further church crowns another, while a very appealing square joins the two. And of course, there’s the palace. Vila Viçosa was the base of the House of Braganza, a ducal family which became royal from 1640 when the scion became King John IV – and the Alentejo was swept into prominence. The family’s grand Renaissance-style palace occupies one side of the Terreiro do Paço, their pantheon and a seminary sit opposite with the hotel on another side.

CONVENT FOR ARISTOCRATS

FURTHER POINTS

Pousadas, like Spanish paradores, are historic buildings converted into hotels. Originally restored and operated by the state, they are now privately run.

—— Two days entirely in Vila Viçosa with no coaching, five journeys to/from the other concerts of 40 minutes or less.

The Convento das Chagas de Cristo was founded by a Duke of Braganza in 1514 for aristocratic ladies. Nominally following the rule of the Franciscan order of Poor Clares, it seems they lived in some style. Wrapped around the two-storey cloister, an alluringly austere sequence of vaulted chambers contain sitting rooms furnished with appropriately grand furniture and inviting sofas, the bar and the restaurant. This exudes old-fashioned elegance with white tablecloths and glinting glasses and silverware. Outdoors, there is a patio with pomegranate trees, Mozarabicstyle gardens with water features and a swimming pool. Bedrooms are fairly simple, as is to be expected of a former nunnery, though well equipped with classic traditional furniture and en suite bathrooms. Some have balconies and superior rooms are more spacious. Half a dozen bedrooms are up a short run of stairs, without lift access. www.pousadas.pt/uk/hotel/pousada-vilavicosa

—— Three dinners in the hotel and nearby restaurants, and a buffet lunch at the Convento de São Paolo. —— Located midway between Elvas and the Convento de São Paolo.

PRICES Two sharing (per person) Superior twin/double £2,980 Suite twin/double £3,140 Single occupancy Classic double Superior double

£3,170 £3,290

Price without flights, subtract £180.

ADDITIONAL NIGHTS We can book additional nights before or after the festival, including breakfast. Please note that transfers are not included. Two sharing (per person) Superior twin/double £60 Suite twin/double £130 Single occupancy Classic double Superior double

£100 £120

Whiling away a sunny day here would be easy, out and about in the town or relaxing in the hotel. WWW.MARTINRANDALL.COM

TRAVEL OPTIONS

TRAVEL OPTIONS JOINING & LEAVING THE FESTIVAL Flights with Air Portugal (TAP) from London to Lisbon are included in the price. Flights from Manchester (also Air Portugal) are available on request. There may be a supplement depending on the rate quoted by the airline at the time of booking. Or you can choose to make your own arrangements for travel to and from the festival, for which there is a price reduction of £180 per person. We are investigating travelling from London by rail, 1st-class, which will involve a night in Barcelona (in each direction). Details will be available in October 2020. It is likely to mean a supplement in excess of £1000 per person. Please indicate on the booking form if you would like to receive more information.

FESTIVAL FLIGHT OPTIONS Option 1 16 May 2021: London Gatwick to Lisbon (TP1339) departing at 10.35 and arriving at 13.15. 21 May 2021: Lisbon to London Heathrow (TP1350) departing at 15.00 and arriving at 17.45. At the time of publishing, the only flight to Gatwick on 21 May departs Lisbon at 07.00. Please note: participants opting to stay at the Convento de São Paolo must take Option 1 in order to arrive in time for the f irst concert.

THE NO-FLIGHTS OPTION

Option 2 16 May 2021: London Heathrow to Lisbon (TP1367) departing at 11.20 and arriving at 14.05. 21 May 2021: Lisbon to London Heathrow (TP1364) departing at 16.05 and arriving at 18.50.

You can choose not to take any of our flight options and to make your own arrangements for joining and leaving the festival. You are welcome to join our airport coach transfers if your flights coincide with any of the options above.

Option 3 16 May 2021: Manchester to Lisbon (TP1311) departing at 11.35 and arriving at 14.25. 21 May 2021: Lisbon to Manchester (TP1314) departing at 13.10 arriving 16.10.

Easyjet fly from Gatwick and Edinburgh. Schedules are likely to change and so are not published here. See easyjet.com

PRE & POST FESTIVAL TOURS

Price reduction for ‘no f lights’: £180.

Illustrations: This page: Elvas, ©Turismo Alentejo. Opposite: Merida, engraving.

The prices for pre- and post-festival tours include a return flight – out at the start of the tour (or festival), and back at the end of the festival (or tour). If you opt to book our flights, we charge you the full price for your pre or post-festival tour, and the price of the festival without flights. All pre-festival tour participants return to the UK on festival flight option 1.

FITNESS FOR THE FESTIVAL Reasonable fitness and agility are necessary to enjoy this festival. The towns visited all have some up and down; Elvas is the most demanding (but participants can move at their own speed). Vila Viçosa has only modest ascents. Coaches cannot enter historic centres and taxis may not be available, so once in the town concert venues have to be approached on foot.

Added to this, streets and squares are often cobbled or unevenly paved.

We are happy to talk to you about the terrain, and which base might suit you best. We also ask that you take the simple fitness tests on page 26 before booking.

If you have a medical condition or a disability which may affect your holiday or necessitate special arrangements being made for you, please discuss these with us before booking. If the condition develops or changes subsequently, as soon as possible before departure.

PRE– FESTIVAL TOUR

EXTREMADURA

LANDSCAPE, HISTORY AND FOOD IN RURAL SPAIN

6–15 May 2021 (mh 727) 10 days • £3,230 Lecturer: Paul Richardson Extremadura means ‘beyond the Duero’, a designation coined by the conquering Christians as they bludgeoned their way southwards against the Moors. The Moors were finally defeated; but much of the countryside of Extremadura remains unsubjugated. Together with the a djoining Alentejo in Portugal, this, though tawny as a lion’s pelt in sweltering midsummer, is the largest ‘green’ region in western Europe. Griffon vultures and the Iberian lynx are still resident in these parts, hawks and other birds of prey abound. The Sierra de Gata in the north, the Sierra de Guadalupe in the centre and the wild country of the south-west around Jerez de los Caballeros all remain rough and uncultivated. Equally, Extremadura is cattle country, with fighting bulls and the local Retinta breed making the most of some of the gentler lands. In the autumn, when there are acorns to be eaten, the black-foot pig, source of the finest of mountain hams, comes on the scene. The landscape has a mixed array of well-spaced trees, mainly holm oak and cork oak, which together with the wild grasses constitute the habitat known as dehesa. The river valleys, notably the Tiétar and Guadiana, are now wellirrigated and grow fruit and vegetables: apricots, cherries and peppers. From the south comes wine, much improved of late. There is virtually no industry which is not based on agriculture. The history and architecture are as rewarding as the landscape. Before the Visigoths and Moors, this was a major Roman centre, with Mérida – Augusta

Emerita – the capital of the western province of Lusitania. It remains the major Roman site in Spain. Above all, this is conquistador country. An astonishing proportion of the leaders of the rough bands which savaged South and Central America, in the names of king and queen and Christianity, came from Extremadura. Trujillo and Cáceres are well-known for the rich monumentality of palaces assembled by conquistadors returning with their ill-gotten gains. The spiritual centre was and remains the shrine of Guadalupe. Here a rich and beautiful Hieronymite monastery grew up, with swirling Moorish-Gothic tracery and a suite of paintings by Zurbarán. The little mountain town which formed beneath the monastery is balconied and full of geraniums, one element of a varied vernacular architecture which is a particular Extremeñan pleasure.

ITINERARY Day 1. Fly at c. 10.45am from London Gatwick to Madrid (Iberia). Drive to Plasencia (c. 4 hours, including a stop), arriving in time for dinner. First of two nights in Plasencia. Day 2: Plasencia, Yuste. In Plasencia, start in the arcaded Plaza Mayor and then visit the two cathedrals, Renaissance and Gothic backing into one another. Drive into the hills to the monastery of Yuste to which the Emperor Charles V retired in 1556, building a gent’s des. res. right up against the fabric of the Gothic monastery. Get a moving insight into the last days of the man who once ruled most of Europe and Latin America.

Day 3: Sierra de Gata. A taste of rural Extremeñan life in the Sierra de Gata, a range of rolling hills that back onto the Portuguese border, dotted with pretty, unspoilt villages. Our lecturer hosts lunch at his finca (smallholding), before a gentle Zafra, in the south, is a white town, stroll (2 km) into the nearby village of intermediate between Andalucía and the stony sobriety of Old Castile. Most curious Hoyos. Drive to Cáceres for the first of three nights. is Plasencia in the north, where seven roads lead out of the arcaded Day 4: Cáceres. The historic town centre plaza and two cathedrals stand back is enclosed within almost perfectly to back. The most moving is Yuste, the preserved Moorish walls and is a myriad monastery to which the Emperor Charles of narrow streets and squares lined with V retired, gout-ridden and exhausted. He Renaissance mansions. Visit the Provincial chose it, he said, because of its climate of Museum housed in the 17th-century Casa continual springtime. de las Valetas, built over an 11th-century Arabic cistern. Dinner is at Extremadura’s In its deep rurality and concentration of most renowned restaurant, two Michelinhuman monuments, Extremadura is a far starred Atrio. cry from ‘ordinary’ Europe.

WWW.MARTINRANDALL.COM

PRE– FESTIVAL TOUR

EXTREMADURA CONTINUED.

'There was an excellent selection of places to visit in Extremadura, with good representation of the area's Roman, Medieval and Renaissance heritage.' – Participant on Western Spain: Extremadura & Toledo in 2018

Day 5: Sierra de San Pedro. A drive into the hills west of Cáceres takes us deep into the dehesa, the wooded pastures where pigs roam among the holm oaks grazing on acorns. A visit to a livestock farm includes a walk through the countryside, ham tasting and lunch. Day 6: Trujillo, Guadalupe. Drive east to Trujillo, a hilltop conquistador town (birthplace of Pizarro). The magnificent, irregular main square is surrounded by conquistador mansions and the grand church of S. Martín. Climb up to the Gothic church of Sta María and the castle with fine views of the surrounding countryside. Continue to Guadalupe for the first of two nights. Day 7: Guadalupe. The tiny town of Guadalupe is hidden in hills. Columbus prayed here and gave its name to a Caribbean island. Morning visit to the monastery, with splendid church, Mudéjar cloister and sacristy with paintings by Zurbarán. The museum contains exceptional vestments. Free afternoon, a chance to rest or stroll around the town and into the surrounding countryside. Day 8: Mérida, Zafra. The Roman legacy of Mérida includes architecture both grand and domestic: theatre, villas, temples, fortresses. See also Rafael Moneo’s outstanding National Museum of Roman Art. Continue south to Zafra for the first of two nights.

Chica, and the Collegiate Church with an altarpiece by Zurbarán. Afternoon excursion to the remote 15th-cent. mudéjar style hermitage of Nuestra Señora del Ara, known as the ‘Sistine Chapel of Extremadura’ for its remarkable frescoes. Day 10. Free morning. Leave Zafra in the early afternoon and drive across the Portuguese border into the Alentejo (time change: Portugal is one hour behind Spain). Depending on your chosen festival base, this is a journey of between 60 and 95 miles. The rest of the afternoon and evening are independent. Polyphony in Portugal begins the following afternoon. Day 16, 21st May, final day of the festival. By coach to Lisbon for the flight to London, arriving Heathrow c. 5.45pm (as per flight Option 1, see page 18).

LECTURER Paul Richardson. Critically acclaimed travel writer and expert on Spanish culture and gastronomy, Paul has lived in Spain for the last quarter century. First, on the island of Ibiza then in the wilds of northern Extremadura, where he and his partner produce their own food, wine and olive oil on their 12-acre organic farm. He writes for some of the UK’s most prestigious publications, including Condé Nast Traveller and the Financial Times. His books include Our Lady of the Sewers and other adventures in Deep Spain and A Late Dinner: discovering the food of Spain.

Price per person. Two sharing: £3,230 or £2,990 without flights. Single occupancy: £3,550 or £3,310 without flights. If combining with Polyphony in Portugal: Please select an additional night before the festival in your chosen hotel (see pages 15-17) and the 'no f lights' price for the festival. By train: London – Paris – Barcelona – Madrid: c. 24 hours. Contact us for more information. Included: 2 lunches and 8 dinners, with wine. Accommodation. Parador de Plasencia (parador.es): 4-star parador in a converted 15th-century monastery. NH Collection Palacio de Oquendo, Cáceres (nhcollection.com): 4-star hotel in the historic centre of town. Parador de Guadalupe (parador.es): 4-star hotel in the converted 15th-century pilgrims’ hospital of St John the Baptist. Parador de Zafra (parador. es): 4-star parador in the 15th-cent. castle, one of Zafra’s principal monuments. Single rooms are doubles for sole use throughout. How strenuous? There is a lot of walking in town centres, sometimes on uneven ground, and sure-footedness is essential. There are also short country walks on days 3 and 5. There is a large amount of coach travel. Average distance by coach per day: 73 miles. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Day 9: Zafra, Fuente del Arco. In Zafra begin with the two adjacent squares, the Plaza Grande and the (smaller) Plaza 20

PRACTICALITIES

PRE– FESTIVAL TOUR

MEDIEVAL HEART OF PORTUGAL ROMANESQUE AND GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE

10 –16 May 2021 (mh 733) 7 days • £2,460 Lecturer: John McNeill

The area consists of a ribbon of land between the river Mondego at Coimbra and the Alentejo, the region south of the Tagus. The Alentejo is low-lying and fertile, while the land north of the Tagus is hilly, well-wooded and scoured by numerous narrow valleys. Roman colonisation responded to this geography by creating a province for western Iberia (Lusitania) with a magnificent port at the mouth of the Tagus (Lisbon), a provincial capital at Mérida, and substantial cities to the north and south at Conimbriga and Évora. Rather remarkably, much of Roman Conimbriga is still there, albeit revealed through excavation, likewise Évora. Notwithstanding these Roman survivals, the core of the tour is medieval. After the Islamic conquest of Iberia, initial steps towards the Christian resettlement of Coimbra and the land north of the Mondego were taken around 1100. The decisive advance, however, was made in the 1130s under Afonso Henriques. Afonso loosened ties with the neighbouring kingdoms of Spain, wrested control of Lisbon and Santarém from the Moors and elevated Portugal from a county to a kingdom. To consolidate his victories, Afonso founded churches and new towns – thus the cathedrals of Coimbra and Lisbon, the fortified town of Santarém and the dazzling new military complex at Tomar del Cristo. These are the decisive, and very splendid, Romanesque buildings of Portugal. In their wake came the great essays in early Gothic – of the new Cistercian monastery of

Alcobaça and the stunning cathedral of Évora. The second of the tour’s themes is the extraordinarily inventive, almost fanciful architecture of the later Middle Ages – climaxing in the architectural style known as Manueline. One might see this at a number of levels – in the traceried cloisters at Batalha and Belém, the airy elevations of the Carmelite monastery in Lisbon, the fanciful façades of Coimbra or the dazzling arrangement of royal tombs at Alcobaça.

ITINERARY Day 1. Fly at c. 12.00 noon from London Gatwick (TAP Portugal) to Porto. Drive south to Coimbra. First of two nights in Coimbra. Day 2: Coimbra. The 12th-century ‘old cathedral’ is the earliest and bestpreserved Romanesque great church in Portugal, with an elevation related to the major monuments of north-western Spain, the cathedral of Santiago above all. Above is the Machado de Castro museum, housing a superb collection of medieval sculpture, while across the river are the former royal Clarissine convents of Santa Clara-a-Velha and Santa Clara-a-Nova. Day 3: Conimbriga, Alcobaça, Batalha, Tomar. Initial drive south to Roman Conimbriga before continuing to two monasteries of exceptional beauty. Alcobaça is the pre-eminent early Gothic monument of Portugal, architecture of breathtaking lucidity. Batalha was founded WWW.MARTINRANDALL.COM

by King Joan I in 1385 to commemorate his victory over the Castilians – and boasts the greatest set of medieval tombs in Portugal, plus extraordinarily inventive, and English-looking, tracery windows. First of two nights in Tomar. Day 4: Tomar. Crowning a hill above the town, the mighty Templar Convento del Cristo is one of the most important medieval military-religious sites to survive in western Europe. Its octagonal Romanesque sanctuary stands at the centre of a record-breaking seven cloisters and courtyards – heaven for anyone interested in cloister design. Free afternoon in Tomar. Day 5: Santarém, Lisbon, Évora. Continue south to glorious, fortified Santarém, home to the striking early 15th-century church of Nossa Senhora de Graça. Thence Lisbon - the airy and roofless arcades of Lisbon’s late 14th-century Carmelite church, damaged and shored up to act as a memorial to the infamous 1755 earthquake. A visit to the great Manueline monastery at Belém before driving east into the Alentejo to Évora for the first of two nights. Day 6: Évora. A day to savour one of Iberia’s most beautiful small cities; including Portugal’s best-preserved Roman Temple, the battlemented early Gothic cathedral, grand 14th-century cloister and treasury, the royal church of São Francisco and the city museum – home to the stunning remnants of the cathedral’s Netherlandish late medieval high altarpiece. 21

PRE-FESTIVAL TOUR

MEDIEVAL HEART OF PORTUGAL CONTINUED.

'John McNeill was a fount of knowledge which he shared with unremitting enthusiasm.' – Participant on Civilisations of Sicily in 2018

Day 7: Évora. Morning visit to the tiled interiors of São João Evangelista. In the early afternoon, travel by coach to your chosen festival hotel. The festival begins this evening.

PRACTICALITIES

Day 12, 21st May, final day of the festival. By coach to Lisbon for the flight to London, arriving Heathrow c. 5.45pm (as per flight Option 1, see page 18).

By train: London – Paris – Hendaye – Coimbra: c. 20 hours, overnight. Contact us for more information.

LECTURER John McNeill. Specialist in the Middle Ages and Renaissance – John lectures for Oxford University’s Department of Continuing Education. He is Honorary Secretary of the British Archaeological Association, for whom he has edited and contributed to collections of essays on medieval cloisters, chantries, Anjou, and King’s Lynn and the Fens. In 2010 he established a biennial series of international conferences on Romanesque visual culture. His most recent effort in this field – Romanesque Patrons and Processes – was published in 2018.

Price, per person. Two sharing: £2,460 or £2,300 without flights. Single occupancy: £2,760 or £2,600 without flights.

Included: 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Quinta das Lagrimas, Coimbra (quintadaslagrimas.pt): 5-star hotel in a former 18th-cent. palace. Hotel Dos Templários, Tomar (hoteldostemplarios.com): 4-star, modern business hotel. Pousada dos Loios, Evora (pousadas.pt): 4-star, installed in a former monastery Single rooms throughout are doubles for sole use. How strenuous? The tour involves a lot of walking in historic centres, where coach access is restricted, and a lot of standing. Streets and sites are roughly paved. A good level of fitness is essential. Average distance by coach per day: 76 miles. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Illustration: Previous page: Évora, Temple of Diana, wood engraving c. 1880 This page: Old Lisbon, watercolour by Donald Maxwell, publ. 1932

Flights are charged as part of the pre or post festival booking.

POST-FESTIVAL TOUR

GARDENS OF SINTRA LISBON AND THE PORTUGUESE RIVIERA

23–27 May 2021 (mh 762) 5 days • £2,530 Lecturer: Dr Gerald Luckhurst

The Serra de Sintra. A small range of granite hills to the north-west of Lisbon, they occupy the westernmost point of continental Europe, jutting out into the Atlantic. It is this proximity to the ocean that defines the gardens of Sintra and allows them to luxuriate with year round verdure. This brings too the sweet poetic air and soft rosy light of the setting sun. Gardens have been made here by the Romans and the Moors, by the Portuguese re-conquerors and discoverers, and by merchants enriched by the diamonds and gold of Brazil. These gardens have been described by poets, travellers, diplomats and soldiers from the Peninsular campaigns. In the 19th century Sintra became the centre for Portuguese Romanticism which celebrated this rich history and wild landscape. This in turn engendered a new round of garden-making which sought to emulate the cosmopolitan influences of the Portuguese discoveries and Moorish heritage. Palaces were built in the decorative style of the 16th-century king Dom Manuel, but were soon accompanied by others whose looks belied the links with India, Arabia and China. Their gardens were filled with exotic plants from Brazil, Australia, South Africa and Mexico, transforming the terraces of Moorish orchard gardens into sub-tropical forests and extravagant floral paradises. Opera set designer at La Scala, Luigi Manini, is the architect of one of Sintra’s most extravagant buildings, the Quinta da Regaleira. But the Romantic capabilities of Sintra are not exhausted by this

giant folly. The wooded hills reveal, one after another, the most extraordinary richness and concentration of amazing gardens: Sir Francis Cook’s Monserrate, once described as the world’s largest greenhouse; Ferdinand Saxe-Coburg Gotha’s gardens surrounding the Pena Palace that have transported the Black Forest to Portugal; the contemporary gardens of Quinta da Alegria inspired by the owner’s former garden in the South of France; and our hotel the Palácio de Seteais, built by the richest man of his day, holder of the Crown Monopoly of Brazilian Diamonds.

ITINERARY Polyphony in Portugal ends on Friday 21st May. Transfer to Lisbon by coach (c. 2 hours). We can book a hotel on your behalf but your two nights here are independent. Day 1, Sunday 23rd May. Lisbon, Sintra. Make your own way to Lisbon Airport to meet the rest of the group flying in from London at c. 2.00pm. By special arrangement, visit an 18th-century noble garden decorated extensively with exquisite azulejos. Continue to our hotel in Sintra, an elegant former palace with gardens that retain 18th-century features, where all four nights are spent. Day 2: Queluz, Lisbon. Drive to the royal palace at Queluz. Continuously developed from 1747 until the French invasion of 1807, the garden shows Rococo influences and is filled with classical sculpture from England. In Lisbon, Portugal’s Presidential Residence at Belém became a royal palace WWW.MARTINRANDALL.COM

in 1726 when acquired and reconstructed by King Dom João V. The gardens contain mythological sculptures, tile panels, cascades, pavilions and an aviary. The Fronteira Palace’s 16th-century garden celebrates Portugal’s victory in the Wars of Independence (1640 –1664). Day 3: Sintra. Monserrate, an English landscape garden transplanted to southern climes, is full of literary associations and exotic plants: tree ferns, cactus, araucarias, palms, lotus and cycads. Lunch at a private home with one of Sintra’s best gardens; the design owes much to the South of France in its order and harmony, yet is coloured by local conditions and landscape. The idiosyncratic and thoroughly misunderstood garden of Regaleira was created at the close of the 19th century by Luigi Manini for his eccentric patron Antonio Augusto Carvalho Monteiro. Day 4: Sintra. The Capuchos Convent is a former Franciscan monastery founded in 1560, famous for extremely sparse living conditions. Hidden in the woods of Pena Palace is the recently restored Chalet da Condessa and its gardens, a refuge for the widowed king Dom Fernando II and an American opera singer. Lunch at the prettiest house in Sintra, with frescoed rooms by Jean-Baptiste Pillement and a magnificent view of the town and its mountain. Free time in Sintra. Day 5: Lisbon. The Estufa Fria, an enormous greenhouse in a former quarry, preserves 19th-century horticultural

POST-FESTIVAL TOUR

GARDENS OF SINTRA CONTINUED.

practice and plant collections. The Ajuda Botanical Garden stretches over several marble-lined terraces with a spectacular zoological fountain at the centre. Fly from Lisbon, arriving at London Heathrow at c. 6.45pm.

Accommodation. Tivoli Palácio de Seteias, Sintra (tivolihotels.com): luxury 5-star hotel in a former 18th-century residential palace with gardens and outdoor pool. Single rooms are doubles for sole use throughout.

LECTURER

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty and are reliably sure-footed, this tour is not for you. There are steep streets, cobbles and steps. The parks and gardens are extensive with uneven ground and terraces. Average distance by coach per day: 27 miles.

Dr Gerald Luckhurst. Landscape architect and garden historian based in Lisbon for the past 30 years. His work is based upon the restoration of historic palaces and botanical gardens, but also includes contemporary garden design in Portugal and overseas. His writing reflects an interest in Portuguese history and culture, as expressed through gardens and other monuments, and includes: The Gardens of Group size: between 10 and 22 Madeira, The Gardens of the National Palace participants. of Queluz and Sintra: A Landscape with Villas.

PRACTICALITIES Price, per person. Two sharing: £2,530 or £2,370 without flights. Single occupancy: £2,990 or £2,830 without flights. Included: 3 lunches and 3 dinners with wine.

Accommodation in Lisbon. We can book a room on your behalf at the Hotel Avenida Palace, a 5-star hotel well-placed for visiting the various quarters of the city. Price, per person, for 2 nights including breakfast. Two sharing: £240. Single occupancy: £400. www.hotelavenidapalace.pt

By train: London – Paris – Hendaye – Lisbon (overnight): c. 24 hours. Or via Barcelona with a night in a hotel. Contact us for more information.

Illustration: The Palace at Sintra, lithograph c. 1810 after a drawing by W.H. Burnett.

BOOKING FORM

POLYPHONY IN PORTUGAL 16–21 MAY 2021 (MH 751) NAME(S) – We do not use titles on documents issued to festival and tour participants unless you want us to by including them here: Participant 1:

Participant 2:

Contact details for all correspondence: Address

Postcode/Zip

Country

Telephone (home) Mobile E-mail T ick if you are happy to receive your festival and booking documents online, where possible – and confirm your e-mail address above. Please complete this section, even if you have told us your preferences before: How would you like to be kept informed about our future tours and events?:

E-newsletter Yes

E-newsletter recipients are among the

By post No

Yes

f irst to hear about our future plans and

newly-launched tour departures.

What prompted this booking? Please be as specific as possible – e.g. did you see an advertisement?:

HOTEL & TRAVEL OPTIONS See pages 14–18 for details. Those staying in the Convento de São Paolo must select f light Option 1. HOTEL

TWO SHARING

Convento de São Paolo

Standard Superior Suite

Hotel Vila Galé, Elvas

Pousada, Vila Viçosa

Standard Family Suite

SOLE OCCUPANCY Standard

No flights

Superior Suite

Flight Option 1

Standard

Classic

Suite

Superior

PRE & POST FESTIVAL TOURS See pages 19–24 for details..

No flights

additional night before

Group flights

ADDITIONAL NIGHTS Please see pages 15-17 for prices. Nights prior

—

Nights after

—

No flights Flight Option 1

Superior

Extremadura (Please also select one

FLIGHT OPTIONS

Flight Option 2 Flight Option 3

FOR TWO SHARING Twin beds Double bed

FURTHER INFORMATION & SPECIAL REQUESTS, including dietary needs:

the festival)

Medieval Heart of Portugal

If you select group f lights, you will return on Flight Option 1.

Sole occupancy Two sharing- twin

No flights Group flights Gardens of Sintra

If you select group f lights, please also select your preferred outbound festival f light option.

Two sharing- double

Please note that due to the Covid–19 emergency we are working remotely, and therefore are unable to accept cheques as a form of payment. Please contact us to discuss other ways to make a payment. Where possible, we would also ask you to complete a PDF booking form. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

BOOKING FORM

PASSPORT DETAILS & NEXT OF KIN Essential for airlines and the hotels, and in case of emergency. Please use capital letters for your passport details. Title

Surname

Date of birth (dd/mm/yy)

Forename(s)

Place of birth

1. 2.

Passport number

Place of issue

Next of kin name

Relation to you

Issue date (dd/mm/yy)

Expiry date (dd/mm/yy)

1. 2.

Telephone number(s)

1. 2.

PAYMENT. We prefer payments by bank transfer or debit card. We can also accept payment by credit card. All money paid to us is fully protected regardless of payment method. Please tick one option: BANK TRANSFER. Please use your surname and the festival code (mh 751) as a reference and ask your bank to allow for all charges. Account name: Martin Randall Travel Ltd. Bank: Handelsbanken, 2 Chiswick High Road, London W4 1TH. Account number: 8663 3438. Sort code: 40-51-62. Transfers from non-UK bank accounts: please instruct your bank to send payment in pound sterling (GBP). IBAN: GB98 HAND 4051 6286 6334 38. Swift/BIC code: HAND GB22. DEBIT OR CREDIT CARD. I authorise Martin Randall Travel to contact me by telephone to take payment from my Visa credit/Visa debit/Mastercard/AMEX. TRANSFERRING FUNDS I have a refund credit note from a cancelled or postponed tour that I would like to use. Please specify the amount below. Please tick payment amount: EITHER Deposit 10% of total booking cost.

OR Full balance Required if you are booking within 10 weeks of departure.

Carbon offset donation: tick to add £5 per person. We support the India Solar Water Heating project (visit www.martinrandall.com/sustainable-tourism for details). TOTAL: £ I have read and agree to the Booking Conditions and Privacy Policy (www.martinrandall.com/privacy) on behalf of all listed on this form. Signature: Date:

FITNESS TESTS Please also read ‘fitness for the festival’ on page 18. By signing this form, you conf irm that you have taken these tests. 1. C hair stands. Sit in a dining chair, with arms folded and hands on opposite shoulders. Stand up and sit down at least eight times in 30 seconds.    2. S tep test. Mark a wall at a height that is halfway between your knee and your hip bone. Raise each knee in turn to the mark at least 60 times in two minutes.    3. A gility test. Place an object three yards from the edge of a chair, sit, and record the time it takes to stand up, walk to the object and sit back down. You should be able to do this in under seven seconds. An additional indication of the f itness required, though we are not asking you to measure this, is that you should be able to walk unaided at a pace of three miles per hour for at least half an hour at a time, and to stand for at least 15 minutes.

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BOOKING CONDITIONS

Making a booking 1. Provisional booking. We recommend that you contact us first to make a booking option which we will hold for seven days. To confirm it please send the booking form and deposit within this period – the deposit is 10% of your total booking price. Alternatively, make a definite booking straight away through our website. 2. Definite booking. Fill in the booking form and send it to us with the deposit. It is important that you read the Booking Conditions at this stage, and that you sign the booking form. Full payment is required if you are booking within ten weeks of departure. 3. Our confirmation. Upon receipt of the booking form and deposit we shall send you confirmation of your booking. After this your deposit is nonreturnable except in the special circumstances mentioned in the Booking Conditions. Further details about the festival may also be sent at this stage, or will follow shortly afterwards.

Booking conditions Please read these. You need to sign your assent to these booking conditions on the booking form. Our promises to you. •

We aim to be fair, reasonable and sympathetic in all our dealings with clients, and to act always with integrity.

•

We will meet all our legal and regulatory responsibilities, usually going far beyond the minimum obligations.

•

We aim to provide full and accurate information about our holidays. If there are changes, we will tell you promptly.

•

If something does go wrong, we will try to put it right. Our overriding aim is to ensure that every client is satisfied with our services.

What we ask of you. That you read the information we send to you. Specific terms Our contract with you. From the time we receive your signed booking form and initial payment, a contract exists between you and Martin Randall Travel Ltd. Eligibility. You must be in good health and have a level of fitness that would not impair other participants’ enjoyment by slowing them down or by absorbing disproportionate attention from the festival leaders. Please read ‘Fitness’ (on page 18) and take the self-assessment tests described there; by signing the booking form you are stating that you have passed these tests. If during the festival it transpires, in the judgement of the festival leaders, that you are not able to cope, you may be asked to opt out of certain visits or to leave the festival altogether. This would be at your own expense. We reserve the right to refuse to accept a booking without necessarily giving a reason. Foreign Office advice. Before booking, please refer to the FCO website – www.fco.gov.uk – to ensure you understand the travel advice for the places to which the festival goes. Non-UK citizens should look at the advice issued by their governments, which may differ significantly. Insurance. It is a requirement of booking that you have adequate holiday insurance cover. The insurance must cover, at minimum, medical

treatment, repatriation, loss of property and loss of payments to us in the event that you cancel the festival. If you are making your own arrangements for international travel, please ensure you have insurance that protects you in the rare event of Martin Randall Travel cancelling the festival. Experience indicates that free travel insurance offered by some credit card companies is not to be relied upon. Passports and visas. From 1st January 2021, i.e. at the end of the Brexit transition period, British passports should be valid for at least six months beyond the end of the festival or tour. If you renewed your current passport before the previous one expired, extra months may have been added to its expiry date. Any extra months on your passport over 10 years will not count towards the 6 months needed. Nationals of other countries should check passport and visa requirements with the relevant consulates.

If you cancel. If you have to withdraw from a festival on which you had booked, there would be a charge which varies according to the period of notice you give. Up to 57 days before the festival the deposit would be forfeited. Thereafter a percentage of the total cost of the festival will be due: up to 57 days: between 56 and 29 days: between 28 and 15 days: between 14 days and 3 days: within 48 hours:

deposit only 40% 60% 80% 100%

If you cancel your booking in a double or twin room but are travelling with a companion who chooses to continue to participate in the festival, the companion would have to pay the singleoccupancy price. We take as the day of cancellation that on which we receive written confirmation of cancellation. If we cancel the festival. We may decide to cancel a festival if there were insufficient bookings for it to be viable (though this would always be more than eight weeks before departure). We would refund you with everything you had paid us. Safety and security. Cancellation may also occur if civil unrest, war, natural disaster or other circumstances amounting to force majeure arise in the region to which the festival was due to go. If the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises against travel, we would either cancel or adjust the itinerary to avoid risky areas. Health and safety. We have a safety auditing process in place and, as a minimum, request that all of our suppliers comply with local health and safety regulations. However, we operate festival in parts of the world where standards are lower than those you are used to at home, particularly in the areas of accessibility, handrails and seatbelts. We ask that you take note of the safety information we provide. The limits of our liabilities. As principal, we accept responsibility for all ingredients of a festival, except those in which the principle of force majeure prevails. Our obligations and responsibilities are also limited where international conventions apply in respect of air, sea or rail carriers, including the Warsaw Convention and its various updates. If we make changes. Circumstances might arise which prevent us from operating a festival or event exactly as advertised. We would try to devise a satisfactory alternative, but if the change represents a significant loss to the festival we

would offer compensation. If you decide to cancel because the alternative we offer is not in your view an adequate substitute, we would give a full refund. Financial protection. Any money you have paid to us for a festival which includes an international flight is protected by our Air Travel Organiser’s Licence (ATOL, number 3622). Payments for tours which do not include a flight from/to the UK are protected by ABTA –The Travel Association. So, in the (highly unlikely) event of our insolvency in advance of the festival, you would get your money back, or if we failed after the festival had begun, the festival would be able to continue and you would be returned to the UK at its conclusion. Clients living elsewhere who have arranged their own flights should ensure their personal travel insurance covers repatriation in the event of holiday supplier failure. Financial protection: the official text. We are required to publish the following. We provide full financial protection for our package holidays which include international flights, by way of our Air Travel Organiser’s Licence number 3622. When you buy an ATOL protected flight inclusive holiday from us you receive an ATOL Certificate. This lists what is financially protected, where you can get information on what this means for you and who to contact if things go wrong. Most of our flights and flight-inclusive holidays on our website and in our brochure are financially protected by the ATOL scheme. But ATOL protection does not apply to all holiday and travel services listed. Please ask us to confirm what protection may apply to your booking. If you do not receive an ATOL Certificate then the booking will not be ATOL protected. If you do receive an ATOL Certificate but all the parts of your trip are not listed on it, those parts will not be ATOL protected. In order to be protected under the ATOL scheme you need to be in the UK when you make your booking and/or one of the flights you take must originate or terminate in the UK with the group. We provide full financial protection for our package holidays that do not include a flight, by way of a bond held by ABTA The Travel Association. We will provide you with the services listed on the ATOL Certificate (or a suitable alternative). In some cases, where we aren’t able do so for reasons of insolvency, an alternative ATOL holder may provide you with the services you have bought or a suitable alternative (at no extra cost to you). You agree to accept that in those circumstances the alternative ATOL holder will perform those obligations and you agree to pay any money outstanding to be paid by you under your contract to that alternative ATOL holder. However, you also agree that in some cases it will not be possible to appoint an alternative ATOL holder, in which case you will be entitled to make a claim under the ATOL scheme (or your credit card issuer where applicable). If we, or the suppliers identified on your ATOL certificate, are unable to provide the services listed (or a suitable alternative, through an alternative ATOL holder or otherwise) for reasons of insolvency, the Trustees of the Air Travel Trust may make a payment to (or confer a benefit on) you under the ATOL scheme. You agree that in return for such a payment or benefit you assign absolutely to those Trustees any claims which you have or may have arising out of or relating to the non-provision of the services, including any claim against us (or your credit card issuer where applicable). You also agree that any such claims maybe re-assigned to another body, if that other body has paid sums you have claimed under the ATOL scheme.

English Law. These conditions form part of your contract with Martin Randall Travel Ltd and are governed by English law. All proceedings shall be within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales. Privacy. By signing the booking form you are stating that you have read and agree to our Privacy Policy, which can be found online at www.martinrandall.com/privacy. 27

MARTIN RANDALL TRAVEL

VENICE: PAGEANTRY & PIETY 2–7 NOVEMBER 2020

Britain’s leading specialist in cultural travel and one of the most respected tour operators in the world.

POLYPHONY IN PORTUGAL 16–21 MAY 2021

MRT aims to produce the best planned, best led and altogether the most fulfilling and enjoyable cultural tours and events available. They focus on art, architecture, archaeology, history, music and gastronomy, and are spread across Britain, continental Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, India, China, Japan and the Americas.

MUSIC ALONG THE RHINE 15–22 JUNE 2021 MUSIC ALONG THE DANUBE 20–27 AUGUST 2021 THE DIVINE OFFICE 27 SEPTEMBER– 1 OCTOBER 2021 Please contact us for more information.

In recent years, we have organised about 250 expert-led tours for small groups (usually 10 –20 participants), five or six music festivals, (such as this festival, Polyphony in Portugal), a dozen music and history weekends in the UK and over 100 single-day events in London. For 32 years the company has led the field through incessant innovation and improvement, setting the benchmarks for itinerary planning, operational systems and service standards. To see our full range of cultural tours and events, please visit www.martinrandall.com

Martin Randall Travel Ltd Voysey House Barley Mow Passage London W4 4GF, United Kingdom

Martin Randall Australasia PO Box 1024 Indooroopilly QLD 4068, Australia

North America 1155 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20036 USA

Tel +44 (0)20 8742 3355 Fax +44 (0)20 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk www.martinrandall.com

Tel 1300 55 95 95 New Zealand 0800 877 622 Fax +61 (0)7 3371 8288 anz@martinrandall.com.au

Tel 1 800 988 6168 usa@martinrandall.com ATOL 3622 | ABTA Y6050 | AITO 5085