LASSUS
CLEMENS
LUDFORD
JACOTIN
TAVERNER
PARSONS
TALLIS
TUDOR MUSIC
AFTERLIVES E N S E M B L E P RO V I C T O R I A TO B Y WA R D
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A regular attendee of choral evensong at an Anglican cathedral would be unsurprised to hear the Second Service of William Byrd or O nata lux by Thomas Tallis, or perhaps the Eastertide responsory Dum transisset by John Taverner, O praise the Lord by Adrian Batten and the indispensable Responses by William Smith of Durham. These musical monuments bespeak solidity, continuity, and a near-unbroken link between the Tudors and us. So it is easy to forget that these rocks were submerged below the ‘waves of time’ for centuries. The Tudor repertory so familiar to modern listeners is almost entirely a revived one. The revival had begun in the nineteenth century, but gathered speed in the 1920s, thanks to the influential series Tudor Church Music and its editor Edmund H. Fellowes, along with the advent of the 78 rpm disc, and some timely anniversaries: Fayrfax (1921), Byrd and Weelkes (1923) and Gibbons (1925). This programme, however, looks back to a time long before: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the immediate afterlives of the Tudor tradition, to long-forgotten pathways once much frequented, and paths not taken; to early experiments that ultimately led nowhere; and to the efforts of Tudor musicians to adapt their artistic patrimony to changing circumstances. ‘How many’, asked the Victorian critic William Rockstro, ‘know that the original of I call and cry to thee, O Lord is an O sacrum
convivium worthy of any Church composer in the world short of Palestrina himself?’ Tallis’s piece enjoyed an astonishingly prolific afterlife, if not in the manner that Rockstro imagined: in fact, it probably originated as a viol consort fantasia sometime around 1550. Soon reworked into a vocal Latin motet with the eucharistic text O sacrum convivium, it was sung during Mary Tudor’s assumed pregnancy of 1554–5 and twenty years later published in the Tallis/Byrd Cantiones Sacrae of 1575, a collection announcing England’s musical prestige on the international stage. Meanwhile, the Latin motet was adapted (or ‘contrafacted’) with three different vernacular texts to serve as sacred partsongs or anthems for the Reformed liturgy of which the most widely circulated version was I call and cry, found in dozens of sources from all over England, nearly all from the seventeenth century. The sevenfold weekly cycle of Lady Masses by Nicholas Ludford enjoyed no such afterlife, although the composer’s workplace did. After its dissolution in 1548, St Stephen’s Chapel in the Palace of Westminster became the permanent debating chamber for the House of Commons until the fire of 1834; the layout of the modern House of Commons still echoes the opposed choir stalls that Ludford and his colleagues once occupied in the royal chapel. Ludford’s Lady Masses survive by a hair’s breadth in a single set of partbooks once in the
royal library, whose bindings and innovative use of printed manuscript paper suggest a composition date in the 1520s. The Lady Masses were composed mainly in alternatim form: an ensemble of three voices sang the even-numbered versets of the mass text, and the organist played the odd-numbered verses in alternation. The vocal polyphony survives complete, but the organ versets only survive in the form of single-line melodies or ‘squares’ upon which Ludford or a colleague would have improvised. A historically informed performance therefore, paradoxically, requires large quantities of non-original material in the form of newly devised organ versets based on tried-andtested Tudor methods. Here the afterlife is one of know-how, mastering the long-disused techniques taught to Tudor music students: for instance, paraphrase (‘breaking the plainsong’), textural layering, rhythmic and melodic ostinato, fuga, and strict canons. The nine-fold Kyrie eleison is perhaps the most rewarding movement to perform, with numerous changes of mensuration between duple and triple, simple and compound time. We present here two Kyries – for the votive masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Wednesday morning (Missa Feria iv – Kyrie) and Friday morning (Missa Feria vi – Kyrie) – as well as Ludford’s through-composed Missa Feria v – Alleluia. Veni electa mea, sung on Thursdays.
Taverner also composed a setting of Alleluia. Veni electa mea. Like many of his Latin pieces, this was arranged and adapted for use at home once it became unusable in Protestant worship. The lute-and-voice intabulation performed here is a typical Elizabethan arrangement using the fashionable French lute tablature: the lute player performs the lower voices of Taverner’s vocal polyphony and a singer performs the top voice or ‘singing part’. The same composer’s Quemadmodum desiderat cervus is an enigma. It is found in four Elizabethan sources, including the important ‘Baldwin’ Partbooks at Christ Church, Oxford, copied by John Baldwin of Windsor around 1580, and a table-book dated 1578 (British Library, Add. MS 31390). The latter source, which also contains an intermediate, untexted version of Tallis’s O sacrum convivium, is laid out with the six voice-parts orientated at right angles to each other, such that a group of singers or instrumentalists could perform from it while seated around a table. Quemadmodum exists only in this Elizabethan afterlife: the sources give us the first word only of the title with the likelihood that the piece therefore originated as a psalm motet, based on Ps. 42 (‘Like as the hart’), and the implication that it lost its text in the journey from Henrician motet to Elizabethan chamber piece. If Quemadmodum survives only by virtue of its post-Reformation afterlife, another repertory points towards a historical cul-de-sac. Although
Notes on the music eclipsed by his longer-lived contemporaries, John Sheppard was the equal of Tallis in reputation during their lifetimes, and was a key influence upon Byrd. He reached artistic maturity in the 1540s, just as English church music underwent the most turbulent upheaval in its history. He was a most fecund composer, and this ability to churn out compositions in quick time made him the obvious choice to pioneer the new repertory of vernacular church music in spring 1548, when he moved from Magdalen College, Oxford, to join the Chapel Royal of England’s Protestant boy-king, Edward VI. At this time, Edward’s courtiers were experimenting with new traditions of versified psalmody: a Lutheran idea, but refracted through French culture, exemplified by the poet Clément Marot. Later in the Reformation, metrical psalms would become the battle songs of Protestant traditions, but English metrical psalmody had a surprising, courtly origin which has only recently been fully recognised. Thomas Sternhold was groom of the robes to Henry VIII and his son, a collector of royal favours, and a well-placed political insider. But he is best remembered as the pioneer psalm versifier whose translations ‘in fine englysh meter’, first published in 1548, were sung in front of the king as an example of godly religion. Sheppard, newly arrived at court, was evidently set to work turning Sternhold’s iambic pentameters to music: not the rugged
congregational psalm tunes that would later symbolise Reformed religion, but polite, devotional part-songs based on courtly dance styles and the fashionable Parisian chanson. Sheppard’s psalm settings survive only as fragments in three sources. A keyboard arrangement of his setting of Psalm 1 was used by the organist Thomas Mulliner in teaching at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. A handful of Sheppard’s metrical psalms made their way into a partbook from County Durham, sometime around 1570. But the main source is an orphaned Medius partbook in the British Library (Add. MS 15166). We therefore have one of the original four voice-parts. Through a process of extreme reconstruction, we can hypothesise the original four-part scorings of Sheppard’s lost settings; their main structural archetype was the ‘ABB’ form with repeating second half that was used in the early vernacular anthem and inspired by the French chanson. Most of Sheppard’s psalms therefore resembled miniature Edwardian church anthems, but sung not once but several times according to the length of the psalm.
per arsin et per thesin, where one voice enters on the strong beat and is answered on the weak beat (and vice versa). The surviving voicepart of I trust in God (Ps. 11) suggests chaste, text-sensitive homophonic declamation. Help, Lord, for good and godly men (Ps. 12) recalls Sheppard’s Christ the Paschal lamb and other anthems for lower voices from around 1550. All laud and praise (Ps. 30) comprises a canon at the fourth between the top two voices. Attend, my people (Ps. 78) is the outlier: the four-line stanzas are paired into eights (without repetitions), and the musical metre is that of the galliard. Reconstructing these sacred partsongs enables us to hear them for the first time in some 450 years. It also reveals something of Sheppard’s facility and imagination, and the daunting task of setting so many texts – an experiment, however, that seems to have led nowhere. One or two of Sheppard’s settings seem designed to appeal to a boyish royal listener, but it is easy to see how this model of Reformed psalmody failed to catch on: listening to a much-repeating Edwardian mini-anthem may not have been as effective an evangelistic tool as active vocal participation.
Sheppard wrote six extended psalms, with lengthy fuga and repeated entries, as well as 41 shorter settings. Five of the shorter settings are presented here. O Lord, with all my heart and mind (Ps. 9) is set for Triplex, Medius, Contratenor and Bassus and deploys one of Sheppard’s favoured compositional ideas, fuga
The French chanson, mentioned already, was a vital conduit for the transmission of continental music into Tudor England;. they circulated in many contexts, perhaps the most interesting of which was educational. An intriguing pair of Henrician manuscripts, now in the British Library (Royal Appendix 56 and 58), are well-
known as early sources of composed keyboard pieces such as My Ladye Carey’s dompe. Amidst much else, they contain untexted copies of Parisian chansons, including Aupres de vous. This song, first published around 1528, was probably composed by the French court musician Jacotin Le Bel, but is attributed in later editions to his better-known colleague, Claudin de Sermisy (d. 1562). One manuscript contains voices I, III and IV; the other has voice II, either for a pupil to play on a wind or string instrument or, perhaps, for the pupil to learn the art of composition by reconstructing the omitted Contratenor voice. Perhaps the best-known chanson composer in Tudor England was the Flemish lutenist and singer, Philip van Wilder (d. 1553). His songs circulated widely on account of his privileged position in the households of Henry VIII and Edward VI. By 1529 he had risen quickly to become the highest-paid musician at court, a member of the Privy Chamber, supervisor of the king’s musical instruments, lute teacher to Henry’s children, and master of a select band of Privy Chamber singers. Decades after his death his music could still be found in many and varied circles: among music aficionados, professional singers and lutenists, and in Catholic households. Seventeen of his songs can be found in the same tablebook as Taverner’s Quemadmodum, Tallis’s O sacrum convivium and other Tudor classics (BL, Add MS 31390), along with continental imports by
Notes on the music Thomas Crecquillon and Clemens non Papa. Among these is Si de beaucoup je suis aymée, printed by Le Roy & Ballard of Paris in 1572, but already circulating in England. An untexted copy of the Bassus part, made around 1600, has recently been rediscovered as flyleaves to a book belonging to Elizabeth Calthorpe, a Norfolk friend of the Catholic music-lover, Sir Edward Paston. Since 1964, courtesy of the musicologist Philip Brett, Edward Paston has been emblematic of Tudor musical afterlives. Paston built an enormous music collection, he shared repertory with like-minded friends such as Byrd’s patron, John, Lord Petre, and his household musicians arranged choral music for instrumental accompaniment, expertly copied in Spanish lute tablature. Orlande de Lassus was perhaps the most widely represented European composer in the later sixteenth century. He probably visited England briefly in the mid 1550s, and a few of his motets circulated in Elizabethan sources. Decantabat populus never seems to have travelled in England beyond the Paston collection. Perhaps because it was printed several times and may have been in use during the Marian restoration of Latin worship in the 1550s, Clemens non Papa’s motet Job tonso capite enjoyed quite a different history. Its main Tudor source is the Sadler Partbooks (Bodleian Library, MS Mus. e. 1-5), also made in Norfolk, but in the
1570s–80s for John Sadler, a well-to-do, slightly showy, merchant of Norwich – rather than (as used to be thought) a rural Northamptonshire clergyman-schoolmaster. The Sadler partbooks have recently been the subject of an intensive digital reconstruction. The ink has steadily corroded its way through the paper, rendering them partially illegible. This is particularly unfortunate, as they are a most unusual set – a richly if idiosyncratically ornamented mixture of early Tudor polyphony, continental motets, and contemporary Elizabethan compositions by Byrd and the young Thomas Morley. The Jesus antiphon O splendor gloriae is one of Sadler’s more puzzling items. Sadler attributes the piece, unproblematically, to John Taverner. However, the well-connected professional copyist, John Baldwin, attributed the first half of the antiphon to Taverner, and the second half to a composer of the next generation, Christopher Tye. Baldwin’s reliability as a copyist has often, unreasonably, been called into question; but a recent computer analysis of the two halves of the piece reveal that it is indeed the work of two different composers. Tudor compositional collaborations are not unheard of, and it is possible that the Cambridge-based Tye collaborated with Taverner of Boston; or, perhaps more likely, Tye provided the second half of a piece which Taverner had started but for some reason not completed.
Taverner enjoyed a remarkable posthumous reputation, and his musical emulators ensured him a long compositional afterlife. Sheppard’s reputation was shorter-lived, although his antiphon Gaude virgo Christiphera enjoyed a brief if seditious afterlife during the 1569 Rebellion of the Northern Earls, when it was sung in Catholic worship in Durham Cathedral. Three fragments, each for three voices, survive from another one or two large-scale votive antiphons. Illustrissima omnium, Singularis privilegii and Igitur O Jesu are all in the same modal scheme, but scored for different vocal combinations; the first two are addressed to the Virgin Mary, the third to Jesus. At an early stage, perhaps in the 1560s, it would seem that a votive antiphon to Jesus and Mary was dismembered, the full sections for five or six voices discarded, and the solo sections or ‘counter-verses’ preserved in various guises: as a compositional commonplace (Illustrissima, copied by John Baldwin), as devotional or recreational vocal trios for the Paston household (Illustrissima, Singularis privilegii at two different pitches, and Igitur O Jesu), as voice-and-lute arrangements in Spanish lute tablature, also for the Pastons (all three movements), and as an independent voice-and-lute arrangement in French lute tablature (Igitur O Jesu). Both the piece and its text are known only from these little gems which, prised from their original setting, kept very mixed company in later sources. The
source in French lute tablature, BL, Add. MS 4900, also contains John Taverner’s Alleluia. Veni electa mea, as well as a motet by Luca Marenzio, fragments of Tallis’s well-regarded antiphon Salve intemerata, a macaronic song by the Scottish émigré Robert Johnson, English songs, instrumental pieces and comprehensive lists of English bishops from the eleventh to the seventeenth century. The final piece is a masterly miniature by Robert Parsons, famous for having drowned in the River Trent and known today as composer of an exemplary Ave Maria. The part-song When I look back, with a text by Thomas, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, survives in one of the Paston lute books (BL, Add. MS 31992), as a lone Contratenor part in the so-called ‘Dow Partbooks’, and in an orphaned Contratenor partbook copied for Lord Petre. The Paston lute book provides an intabulation of the lower four voices, one of which can be corroborated from the surviving Contratenor part; the Bassus, Tenor and Medius parts have been reconstituted from the lute intabulation by Dr Andrew Johnstone who has entirely reconstructed the Triplex or ‘singing part’. © 2022 Magnus Williamson
Texts and translations 1
I call and cry to thee, O Lord I call and cry to thee, O Lord; give ear unto my plaint. Bow down thine eyes and mark my heavy plight, and how my soul doth faint; for I have many ways offended thee. Forget my wickedness, O Lord, I beseech thee. Anon.
2/4
Kyrie Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.
3
Quemadmodum desiderat cervus Quemadmodum desiderat cervus ad fontes aquarum, ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus. Sitivit anima mea ad Deum fontem vivum; quando veniam et apparebo ante faciem Dei? Psalm 41: 2–3 (Vulgate)
As the stag longs after springs of water, so my soul longs after you, my God. My soul has thirsted after God, the living spring; when shall I come and appear in the sight of God? 5/16 Alleluia. Veni
electa mea Alleluia. Veni electa mea et ponam te in thronum meum: quia concupivit rex speciem tuam.
Alleluia at Lady Mass on a Thursday
Alleluia. Come, my chosen one, and I shall place you upon my throne: for the King has desired your beauty.
6
O Lord, with all my heart and mind O Lord, with all my harte and mynde I will geve thankes to the; and speake of all thie wondrous workes unsercheable of me. I wil be glad and much reioyce in the O God moste highe; and make my songes extoll thie name above the starrie skye. For that my foes are driven backe and tourned into flight; they fall downe flatt and are destroyed by thie greate force and mighte. He is protectour of the poore what tyme they be oppreste; he is in their adversitie theire refuge and theire reste. Singe psallmes therefore unto the Lord that dwelleth in Sion hill: publishe among the people playne his counsaile and his will. Thomas Sternhold (1500–1549), after Psalm 9
7
Job tonso capite Job tonso capite corruens in terram adoravit et dixit: Nudus egressus sum de utero matris meae et nudus revertar illuc. Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit; sicut Domino placuit, ita factum est. Sit nomen Domini benedictum ex hoc nunc et usque in saeculum. Job 1: 20–21; Psalm 112: 2 (Vulgate)
After shaving his head Job threw himself to the ground and worshipped, and said: Naked I came out of my mother’s womb and naked shall I return there. The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away; as the Lord has pleased, so has it been done. May the name of the Lord be blessed henceforth, now and forever.
Texts and translations 8
I trust in God I truste in God, how dare ye then say thus my soule untill? Flee hence as faste as any foule and hide the in thine hill.
10
Behoulde, the wicked bend theire bowes and make theire arowes preeste to shoote in secreate and to hurte the sounde and harmeles breste.
But flatteringe and deceiptfull lips and tonges that be so stout to speake proud wordes againste the Lord the Lord will sure cut out.
That they may bringe all godlynes to ruyne and decaye; for, as for iuste and righteous men, what canne they doe or say? But he that in his temple is moste holie and moste hie; and in the heaven hath his seate of royal majestie. Thomas Sternhold (1500–1549), after Psalm 11
9
Aupres de vous Aupres de vous secretement demeure mon povre cueur, sans que nul le conforte; et il languist pour la douleur qui porte puisque voulez qu’en ce tourment il meure. Anon.
Near you my poor heart dwells in secret without any to comfort it, and it is sick with the pain it bears, since you want it to die in
Now, since thie promise is to help, Lord, kepe thie promise then; and save us from the cursednes of this ille kinde of men. Thomas Sternhold, after Psalm 12
11
If I am loved by many, do not be displeased, my love: it enhances your renown that you enjoy what they desire. Isn’t it a great pleasure for you to have in your sole power the whole good and hope of so many poor lovers, whom your honourable pleasure has turned into wretched hangers-on?
this torment. Help, Lord, for good and godly men Helpe, Lord, for good and godlie men do perishe and decaye; and faith and truthe from worldlie men is parted cleane away.
Si de beaucoup je suis aymée Si de beaucoup je suis aymée, n’en prenez, amy, desplaisir: cela croit votre renomée que jouissiez de leur desir. Ne vous est-ce pas grand plaisir d’avoir seul en votre puissance le bien entire et l’esperance de tant de povres amoureux, que votre honneste jouissance d’attendans a fait malheureux? Anon.
12
All laud and praise All laud and praise with harte and voice O Lord I geve to the which willt not se my foes reioyce nor triumphe over me. O Lord my God, to the I criede in all my pain and greife; thou gavest an eare and didst provide to ease me with releife. Of thie good will thou haste cald backe my soule from hell to save; thou doest releive when strenghte doth lacke to keepe me from the grave. Singe praise, ye Saintes that prove and se the goodnes of the Lord; In memorie of his majesty reioyce with one accord. Rev. John Hopkins (fl. 1549–1562)
13
Decantabat populus Decantabat populus Israel Alleluia et universa multitudo Jacob canebat legitime et David cum cantoribus citharam percutiebat in domo Domini et laudes Deo canebat. Alleluia. Responsory in Eastertide (for the third Sunday after Easter in the post-Tridentine rite)
The people of Israel was singing Alleluia and the whole multitude of Jacob was singing according to the law, and David with the cantors struck the harp in the house of the Lord, and sang praises to God. Alleluia.
Texts and translations 14
Attend, my people Attend, my people, to my lawe and to my wordes incline: my mouth shall speake straunge parables and sentences divine which we ourselves have hard and sene even of our fathers old and whiche for our instruction our fathers have us tolde. Because we should not kepe it close from them that should come after, but shewe the power and glorie of God and all his workes of wonder; with Jacob he the covenante made how Israell shoulde live, and made theire fathers the same law unto theire children geve.
15
Anon.
16
Alleluia. Veni electa mea see text for track 5
17
Igitur O Jesu Igitur O Jesu bone te humani generis servatorem, apud Deum Patrem advocatum nostrum propitium, in quo unice tota spes est veniae, humiliter precamur ne tuos permittito inveterati malitiae tiranni Sathanae incauta mentis conspurcari quos tui, in salutem Christi victimam oblatus pretiosissimo immaculati agni sanguine, tam care redemisti.
That they and their posteritie that were not spronge up thoe should have the knoweledge of the lawe and teache theire seed also; that they mighte have the better hope in God that is above, and not forgeat to keepe his lawes and his preceaptes in love. Thomas Sternhold
Illustrissima omnium Illustrissima omnium immo et beatissima feminarum, quas admirabilis illa caelestis natura, longe admirabilis caelica virtute nobis hominibus et terrestri mole, corporeo quidem foetu moribundas, animis immortales, unquam vel usquam mirifice produxit, tu sola virgo Maria.
18
Most glorious indeed and blessed of all women whom that wonderful heavenly nature, wonderful from afar to us men for its heavenly virtue and earthly strength, at any time or place wondrously created to be mortal even through their birth in the body, but immortal in their souls, are you alone, virgin Mary.
Anon.
Therefore we humbly pray you, good Jesus, Saviour of the human race, our kindly advocate before God the Father, in whom alone is all our hope of mercy, let not your people, heedless in their mind of the malice of the ancient tyrant Satan, be befouled, whom you, offered as a salvation-bringing sacrifice as Christ, have so dearly redeemed with the most precious blood of a spotless lamb.
Singularis privilegii Singularis privilegii dote locupletata, singularis gratiae plenitudine refertissima, singularis vitae castimonia floridissime decorata, singulari ultra universas fragili sexu mulieres humilitate copiosius praedita, et ceteras omnes maxime praecellis et a tergo relinquis.
Most richly endowed with a unique privilege, most replete with the fullness of a unique grace, most ornately beautified with the chastity of a unique life, more copiously endowed beyond all womankind by your frail sex with a unique humility, you outshine and exceed all other women to the utmost degree.
Anon.
19
Texts and translations O splendor gloriae O splendor gloriae et imago substantiae Dei Patris omnipotentis Jesu Christe, unice eiusdem fili dilecte, totius boni fons vive, Redemptor mundi, servator et Deus noster salve. Gloriosa, domine, tua est maiestas et opera mirabilia; tu coelum et terram cum omnibus quae in eis sunt creaturis divino tuo verbo ex nihilo fecisti; quae sapientissime mox disponens nobis quos ad imaginem tuam novissime formasti ut deservirent benignissime cuncta subdidisti. Mortem intulerat protoplasti inobedientia sed quo facturae tuae vitam redimeres de Maria virgine humillima, Jesu, sumpsisti carnem: ex qua enim de Spiritu Sancto conceptus natus es Deus et homo, ancilla tua mater integra permansit et perpetua virgo. Et cum pro nobis duram tolerasses vitam, flagris caesus et tormentis laceratus, qui peccatum non feceris in corpore tuo scelera nostra perferens ac eadem tuo pretiosissimo sanguine effuso abluens mortem denique infamem agnus mitissimus passus es et crudelissimam. Hinc tuo Patri suavis hostia oblatus pro nobis miseris peccatoribus es afflictus. Dein tertia die a morte exsuscitatus
Radiance of glory and image of the substance of God the almighty Father, Jesus Christ, only and beloved son of the same, living spring of all good, the world’s Redeemer, our saviour and our God: hail! Glorious, Lord, is your majesty and wonderful your works; you made heaven and earth, with all the created things that are in them, out of nothing by your divine word; and all of them you soon, in your most wise disposition, most liberally put under us to serve us whom you had only lately fashioned in your image. The disobedience of your first-created brought death, but to bring redemption to the people you had made, you, Jesus, took flesh from the humblest virgin, Mary: for conceived by her of the Holy Spirit you were born God and man, and your handmaid and mother remained an intact and everlasting virgin. And when for our sake you had borne a troublous life, flogged with whips and slashed by tortures, you who committed no sin, bearing our crimes in your body, and washing them away with the most precious blood that you poured out, at last, the gentlest lamb, endured an inglorious and most cruel death. And so, offered as a sweet sacrifice to the Father, you suffered for us wretched sinners. Then raised from death on the third day you were uplifted on high to the heavenly Father
ad coelestem Patrem cum gloria summa es elevatus ut illi dexter assideas: inde Sanctum Paraclitum nobis dedisti, qui ut nostra coelesti doctrina confirmet pectora. Te prece precamur humili. Amen.
with the utmost glory to sit with him on his right hand: thereupon you gave us the Holy Paraclete that he might strengthen our hearts with heavenly teaching. To you we pray in humble prayer. Amen.
Anon.
20
When I look back When I looke backe, and in my selfe beholde, The wandring ways that youth could not descry; And markt the fearefull course that youth did holde, Ande mette in mind, each steppe youth strayed awry. My knees I bowe, and from my hart I call, O Lorde, forget these faultes and follies all. For nowe I see, howe voyde youth is of skill, I see also his prime time and his end: I doo confesse my faultes and all my yll, And sorrowe sore, for that I did offend. And with a mind repentant of all crimes, Pardon I aske for youth, ten thousand times. And now since I, with faith and doubtlesse minde, Doo fly to thee by prayer, to appease thy yre: And since that thee, I onely seeke to find, And hope by faith, to attayne my just desire. Lorde, minde no more youths error and unskill, And able age, to doo thy holy wyll. Thomas, Lord Vaux of Harrowden (1509–1556)
Translations © 2022 Henry Howard
Biographies Founded in 2015 at Cambridge University by Humphrey Thompson and Toby Ward, Ensemble Pro Victoria is established as of Britain’s leading early music ensembles. Named after a favourite Spanish Renaissance battle mass by T.L. de Victoria, the Missa Pro Victoria, the ensemble put down roots in the rich tradition of combined historical research and performance. It won joint-first prize at the London International Festival of Early Music’s Young Ensemble Competition in 2020 and a first album, Robert Fayrfax: Music for Tudor Kings and Queens (Delphian DCD34265) was received with critical acclaim in 2021, winning five stars from Choir and Organ and being praised for ‘outstanding vocal energy and stylistic elan’ in Cathedral Music. Major highlights for the ensemble include Monteverdi Vespers in the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, and a live Tudor Vespers on BBC Radio 3 from Hampton Court Palace. Ensemble Pro Victoria collaborates extensively with musicologist Magnus Williamson to fulfil its vision of stimulating performance combined with cutting-edge research. It is one of the few groups in the world to practice choir-book performance from one manuscript, while researching the effects of this lost manner of performance. The ensemble also runs workshops and joint concert days to educate, inspire and develop love for early music and music-making.
Toby Ward was born in Otley, Wharfedale, in 1993. He was one of the last choristers of Leeds Parish Church, studying organ with David Houlder and Simon Lindley before joining the choir of Gloucester Cathedral under Adrian Partington. He read music as a choral scholar at King’s College Cambridge under Sir Stephen Cleobury, followed by postgraduate studies in singing at the Royal College of Music, studying with Alison Wells. He continues studies in conducting and choir training with Paul Brough. A versatile conductor, singer and organist, he is director of music for the Grand Priory of England and a specialist in liturgical provision. He regularly sings with vocal ensembles Tenebrae Choir and Contrapunctus, and is known for his work with boy trebles, having taught at Westminster Abbey, Durham and Newcastle Cathedrals. Future projects with Ensemble Pro Victoria expand on his research interests including the combined liturgical and musical traditions of Catholic worship and the use of instruments in Renaissance polyphony.
Lutenist and guitarist Toby Carr is known as a versatile and innovative artist, performing with some of the finest musicians in the business. Toby was introduced to the lute while studying classical guitar at Trinity Laban, and developed this interest during a masters degree at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he has since been welcomed back as a professor. He has developed a busy performing career on a variety of plucked instruments, as a soloist, continuo player, accompanist and chamber musician. His recent recording with mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston (Battle Cry: She Speaks, Delphian DCD34283) has received rave reviews, Presto Music calling his playing ‘magical’. The challenge of presenting old music to new audiences in exciting and engaging ways takes up most of his professional life, and as such Toby has performed with most of the principal period instrument groups in the UK, as well as many modern orchestras and opera companies. Toby’s interests outside of music include reading, cooking and travelling, though when not working he generally tries to do as little as possible.
Magnus Williamson is Professor of Early Music at Newcastle University, a keyboard player, improviser, researcher and editor specialising in musical practices, sources and contexts from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. His publications include a prize-winning facsimile of the Eton Choirbook and a major edition of Latin polyphony by John Sheppard (published in the British Academy series, Early English Church Music, of which he is currently chairman). He has led numerous publicly-funded research projects (for instance, Tudor Partbooks: Arts & Humanities Research Council, 2014–17), and is currently engaged in a Leverhulme Trust collaborative research project investigating the music theorist, grammarian and beekeeper, Charles Butler (1571–1647). For two decades he has been associated with the Early English Organ Project whose investigations of Tudor organs have led to several CD recordings, broadcasts and research projects.
DCD34265
Pelham Humfrey: Sacred Choral Music The Choir of Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace / Joseph McHardy; Alexander Chance, Nicholas Mulroy, Nick Pritchard, Ashley Riches soloists
In that golden age of British choral music half a millennium ago, when polyphonic voices soared in the vaulting of the great late-Gothic churches and chapels that seemed to have been built for them to fill, one composer was in especial favour with the royal family: Robert Fayrfax. A newly reconstructed movement from a mass for the private wedding of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, later treasured in darker times by the recusant gentry for its Catholic associations, sits here alongside exuberant masterpieces from the Eton Choirbook and, in intimate contrast, Fayrfax’s seven surviving courtly songs, brought together on a single recording for the first time. An exciting new signing for Delphian, Ensemble Pro Victoria’s young professionals bring both freshness and individuality to Fayrfax’s music in the five hundredth anniversary year of his death.
A protégé of Henry Cooke, first director of the choir of the Chapel Royal after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Pelham Humfrey was part of a generation of musicians who enriched the musical life of their native England with influences drawn from continental Europe – from France, where Humfrey had studied between 1664 and 1667, and from the Italian musicians at work in the London to which he returned, succeeding Cooke in 1672. Today the same choir sings at St James’s Palace, where, joined by a small instrumental ensemble led by Delphian regular Bojan Čičić and with an antiphonal layout inspired by records of the former chapel at Whitehall, this group of ten boy choristers and six adult singers revives the musical and devotional world of its former director.
‘one of Britain’s finest young vocal ensembles … supported by musical scholarship of the highest order’ — Early Music Review, October 2021
‘A terrific new disc which … under McHardy’s fine direction, brings a new sense of style to the music of this period’ — Planet Hugill, January 2021, FIVE STARS
Robert Fayrfax (1464–1521): Music forTudor Kings & Queens Ensemble Pro Victoria / Toby Ward
DCD34237
Singing in Secret: clandestine Catholic music by William Byrd The Marian Consort / Rory McCleery
William Mundy (c.1529–1591): Sacred Choral Music Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh / Duncan Ferguson
In the turbulent religious climate of Elizabethan England William Byrd wrote – and, more audaciously, published – a huge amount of music for the Catholic rite, for services which he and his fellow Catholics had to celebrate clandestinely, in the private houses and chapels of sympathetic noblemen. The cloistered intimacy of those occasions is re-enacted in The Marian Consort’s performances here, and their programme also explores the more coded ways in which Byrd was able to express his faith and his commitment to the recusant cause.
William Mundy’s music was at the heart of the Marian Catholic revival and then, just a few years later, made a vital contribution to the development of the Elizabethan motet. The present programme centres on Mundy’s two most extended festal compositions, possibly sung to Queen Mary on the eve of her coronation in 1553 – the celebrated Vox patris caelestis and, newly reconstructed, the little-known Maria virgo sanctissima. Two further premiere recordings feature alongside the remarkable collaboration of Mundy, Sheppard and a young William Byrd on music for the Easter procession to the font, In exitu Israel. Combining powerful music on a ceremonial scale with shorter liturgical works, this recording conveys the choir’s sheer joy as ambassadors of sixteenth-century polyphony.
DCD34230
‘Perhaps the ideal consort for this repertoire, the Marians bring an intimate, individually passionate flavour to Byrd’s Latin works’ — Choir & Organ, May 2020, FIVE STARS
DCD34204
‘Ferguson secures a rich, purposeful tone … All-Mundy recitals are a considerable rarity, and this one can be confidently recommended’ — BBC Music Magazine, October 2018
DCD34295