Download Booklet

The richest single source of Tudor polyphony, reconstruction before they can be performed. The Sweetest Songs preserving almost 170 works many of which New editions of most of the works on this Music from the Baldwin Partbooks III survive nowhere else, is a set of manuscript album were prepared specially for the project, partbooks copied between about 1575 and and in five of these (tracks 3, 4, 6, 8, 1581 by John Baldwin, a lay clerk at St George’s and 0) the missing Tenor part has been Chapel, Windsor. This album is the third and reconstructed by Owen Rees, while the tenor final instalment in a series of recordings by of Mundy’s Memor esto verbi tui (track 7) is 1 Domine, non est exaltatum Robert White (c. 1535-1574) [8.43] Contrapunctus exploring contrasting aspects of adapted from that by Jason Smart. 2 Tristitia et anxietas William Byrd (1539/40-1623) [9.35] this remarkable treasure house of sacred music 3 In te Domine speravi John Mundy (c. 1555-1630) [8.02] covering much of the sixteenth century. Without The preoccupation with the psalm motet over Baldwin’s efforts our knowledge of the history the middle part of the sixteenth century was 4 Confitebor tibi Domine anon. [3.36] of the motet in England would be much the a distinctively English phenomenon, when 5 Peccavi super numerum William Byrd [6.00] poorer, and on this third recording we open a compared with the output of Continental window on a striking aspect of that history: composers. Why was this? The great advantage 6 Domine quis habitabit Robert Parsons (c. 1535-1571/2) [3.56] the penchant for setting Latin psalms as motets of psalm texts amid the religious vicissitudes 7 Memor esto verbi tui William Mundy (c. 1528-c. 1591) [7.13] (the so-called ‘psalm motet’). The principal which England experienced during these 8 Confitebor tibi Domine John Sheppard (c. 1515-1558) [6.14] English composers born between the 1510s decades was that they were equally acceptable and the 1530s all contributed to this genre of to Catholics and evangelical reformers (although 9 Ne perdas cum impiis William Byrd [4.52] motet, but to a significant extent this fascinating many reformers objected to the use of Latin 0 Confitebor tibi Domine William Daman (c. 1540-1591) [2.25] repertory has lain in comparative obscurity and in services). However, contrary to the common q Portio mea Robert White [6.41] remains unfamiliar to modern audiences. More view over the last half-century, it may well be than half of the works on this album do not that many of these works originated not in the appear to have been recorded before now, Protestant England of Queen Elizabeth I (by Total timings: [67.23] including such glorious motets as White’s which time such pieces would have had no Domine, non est exaltatum, William Mundy’s specific liturgical function), but during the Memor esto verbi tui, and Sheppard’s Confitebor preceding reign (1553–1558) of her Catholic CONTRAPUNCTUS tibi Domine. Because the Tenor partbook has sister Mary, or that of Mary’s and Elizabeth’s OWEN REES DIRECTOR been lost from Baldwin’s set, those works that father Henry VIII, when the psalm motet may survive only in that collection require some indeed in many cases have been a liturgical www.signumrecords.com - 3 - item. During these periods when Catholic rituals Unsurprisingly, many psalms motets, including about how much of his output dates from subdivided to produce thickly-woven textures were in force in England, the tradition seems those which must be Elizabethan in date, retain Mary’s reign rather than Elizabeth’s. We catch of echoing voices; and notably florid and to have arisen there of providing polyphonic the ‘fingerprints’ – in terms of scoring, textures, sight of him as a singer of junior rank at Trinity energetic melodic writing. Since psalm motets settings of psalms for particular liturgical slots. structure, and style – which had characterised College Cambridge in the mid 1550s, during such as this one were not written to be used as One such was Matins (or Tenebrae) of Holy English polyphony for decades previously: the Mary’s reign, but there is disagreement about the normal psalmody of such Office services Saturday, which includes the psalm Domine quis psalm motet was thus a vehicle for continuity whether he was a boy chorister (i.e. young as Vespers, they do not end with settings habitabit of which we have numerous settings within English musical culture as well as for enough to be singing with unbroken voice) of the doxology (the ‘Gloria’), but instead by English composers: there are no fewer than innovation, particularly in terms of expressive at this point, and some of his works – such as many of them – including Domine, non est five in the Baldwin partbooks, including three response to text. The psalm texts offer, indeed, the Marian Tota pulchra es and Regina cæli exaltatum – culminate in monumental and by Robert White alone. Other psalm motets rich opportunity for such response, given their included on the previous album within this climactic settings of ‘amen’, as did many of seem likely to have fulfilled ritual functions special nature within the Old Testament as series – were surely written at Trinity College the great Marian antiphon settings by Tudor equivalent to those traditionally occupied by personal and impassioned addresses to God. during Mary’s reign. Judging by its style, Domine, composers. Of the motets on this recording, polyphonic Marian antiphons in the evening As St Athanasius put it, ‘it is as though it non est exaltatum surely dates from the same other magnificent examples conclude White’s sung devotions which were ubiquitous in were one’s own words that one read; and anyone period, rather than from Elizabeth’s reign. The Portio mea, William Mundy’s Memor esto pre-Reformation choral establishments: in who hears them is moved at heart, as though essential sound-world of the piece is one that verbi tui, and In te Domine speravi by his the case of the psalm motets, these devotions they voiced for him his deepest thoughts.’ had been established by English composers son John Mundy. (or ‘memorials’) were to the Holy Cross or the Referring to Athanasius in his commentary over the previous century: grand sonorities Trinity (for example), rather than to Mary. on the first fifty Psalms published in 1539, encompassing an overall range of three octaves, John Mundy is much the youngest composer As such liturgical and ritual ‘homes’ for the Richard Sampson (Dean of the English Chapel with the distinctive English treble as the represented on the recording, and his In te psalm motet disappeared during Elizabeth’s Royal under Henry VIII) praised them as a highest voice; division of the piece into Domine speravi demonstrates the remarkable reign, the psalm motet continued to be ‘garden of delights’, a cornucopia of ‘the two halves, the first in triple time and the longevity of aspects of the English tradition cultivated by English composers who were sweetest songs’ which touched upon the second in duple; articulation of the work by of psalm-motet writing just described. He familiar with these musical traditions (and themes of all the other books of scripture. alternating sections for a reduced number was organist of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, with the continued prominence of some of the of solo voices and fully-scored passages, the from about 1580 and so he and Baldwin relevant psalm texts in Books of Hours, which The distinctive English traditions of polyphonic entrances of which are often dramatic, as were colleagues; it is therefore not surprising were major sources for Latin and English texts composition are vividly apparent in the first piece at ‘speret Israel in Domino’ (‘Let Israel hope in that most of his surviving Latin-texted works to set as motets and anthems) but who were on the recording, Robert White’s Domine, non est the Lord’) in the second half of White’s piece; are preserved in the Baldwin partbooks. The text too young to have written some or all of exaltatum. As is typical, we do not know when passages of ‘gimell’ writing, in which some of Mundy’s In te Domine is not – as was their psalm motets during Mary’s reign. White was born, and there is hence uncertainty of the voice parts – here the bass – are further conventional within the psalm-motet genre - 4 - - 5 - in England – a complete psalm or a complete of the full forces at a significant shift in the the Chapel Royal during White’s years as one work with an unusual and intriguing text, section of the long Psalm 118, but is a text’s affect (‘The proud acted iniquitously Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey, Confitebor tibi Domine. This text is based upon compilation of single verses from three different altogether’). By way of contrast, after the dense from 1569 or 1570 until his death of the plague a passage from the Book of Isaiah, but this psalms. However, in musical terms many of contrapuntal play of the gimell section in the in 1574. White’s motet again shows how long- has been substantially altered in ways that the same stylistic characteristics – such as second part of John Mundy’s work a sudden established English compositional habits were would have made it particularly appropriate to elaborate melodic and rhythmic filigree – and turn to simple chordal declamation marks repurposed by this generation of psalm-motet the first year or so of Mary Tudor’s reign, from architectural conventions are there as in the touchingly the well known prayer from the composers to serve the potent expression of the August 1553, while she was working to restore psalm motets of his father and others of that service of Compline, ‘In manus tuas Domine impassioned psalm texts they were setting.

Load more