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VIRGIN AND CHILD veneration of Mary makes it striking that a antiphonal passages Taverner deploys a panoply MUSIC FROM THE BALDWIN PARTBOOKS II good deal of the Marian polyphony composed of textures, ranging from chordal declamation to under Henry VIII and Mary Tudor survives in rich five-voice counterpoint, used climactically Elizabethan manuscript sources, the greatest to end sections of the motet and most gloriously of which is the ‘Baldwin partbooks’, copied of all at the concluding ‘amen’, where those 1 Gaude gloriosa Dei mater Thomas Tallis [18.33] during the 1570s and 80s by John Baldwin, who know the familiar version of the motet will 2 Mater Christi John Taverner [6.50] a member of the choir of St George’s Chapel, notice that Baldwin copied a strikingly decorated 3 Tota pulchra es Robert White [7.24] Windsor and later of the Chapel Royal. On final cadence. Among the chordal exclamations 4 Magnificat Thomas Tallis [5.30] this disc, the second in our series featuring in the piece are the invocations of Jesus by 5 Videte miraculum Thomas Tallis [13.20] music from the Baldwin partbooks, we present name, marked – as was typical during the some of the finest examples of Marian polyphony period – by sustained chords, a musical 6 Regina cæli Robert White [3.20] copied by Baldwin, encompassing a wide variety equivalent of genuflexion. 7 Ave Dei Patris filia Robert Fayrfax [10.25] of styles, and with a particular focus on texts 8 Verbum caro John Sheppard [9.56] celebrating Mary as mother of God, and on the A particularly imposing example of such a Virgin and her Child. vocal acclamation is heard at the words Total timings: [75.18] ‘ave Jesu’ in Robert Fayrfax’s Ave Dei Patris For example, the prayer Mater Christi 2 set filia 7, where its appearance is highlighted CONTRAPUNCTUS by John Taverner during the reign of Henry by an unanticipated shift in harmony. OWEN REES DIRECTOR VIII opens with a plea to Mary as the ‘most holy This monumental votive antiphon to Mary mother of Christ’ to ‘move your son to kindness’, represents an even older musical world than www.signumrecords.com so that the singers of the prayer and those does Taverner’s motet, the world of grandiose listening may dare to pray to her Son directly polyphony most famously represented by the in the second part of the motet. Taverner repertory of the Eton Choirbook copied at VIRGIN AND CHILD mediator, manifest not least in regular sung enhances the rhetorical impact of the prayer the opening of the sixteenth century. In such Music from the Baldwin Partbooks II devotions centring on splendid polyphonic votive through repetition: typically, the upper two English works divisions between sections of antiphons, was suppressed by the Protestant voices first sing a phrase of text (such as, text are usually marked by a change to a new Devotion to the Virgin Mary produced much of regimes of King Edward VI and his sister near the opening, ‘virgo sacrata Maria’), and combination of singers. These sections each the most glorious music of the early Tudor Queen Elizabeth, although between their reigns then the three lower voices repeat the same defined by their particular vocal scoring are period in England. That devotional world of it enjoyed a new flowering under Mary Tudor. music in an enriched form. Alongside these on a much larger scale that the antiphonal prayer to the ‘glorious mother of God’ as our The Elizabethan state’s antipathy to excessive - 2 - - 3 - contrasts in Taverner’s Mater Christi. Thus line-endings. In the first five stanzas the author sense of perpetual flow. With this unvarying – if composed under Elizabeth – it would not Fayrfax sets the first of the eight stanzas for of the text found manifold ways to impart cantus-firmus ‘tread’ and the more active have received liturgical performance, as the the highest three voices, and the next to the the same message: Mary’s fourfold status as counterpoint in the free voices as the norm, Marian antiphon during the Easter season. lowest three, while for the third he marks the daughter of God the Father, mother of God moments of relative stasis and calm in entrance of the full ensemble with another the Son, bride of God the Holy Spirit, and White’s piece achieve a special quality, as The other two cantus-firmus works on the of the chordal ‘bows’ at ‘ave’. But despite its handmaid of the Trinity. The praise of at the tranquil setting of ‘imber abiit’ (‘the disc – Tallis’s Videte miraculum and Sheppard’s use of this long-established English method Mary as bride links this text with the Song rain is over’), and the beginning of the final Verbum caro – are among the greatest of constructing the piece by means of scoring- of Songs, that great love-poem of the Old invitation to the beloved, ‘Veni de Libano, veni masterpieces of this English genre. Tallis’s sections, Fayrfax’s writing also anticipates the Testament, Christian interpretations of which coronaberis’ (‘come from Lebanon; come, and extraordinarily long career extended from the more direct communication of text heard in frequently identified the female beloved you will be crowned’). 1520s until 1585 and so encompassed the Taverner’s Mater Christi: floridity of the kind therein as Mary. entire period of religious change in England found in many Eton-Choirbook works has been This technique of cantus-firmus writing is from the reign of Henry VIII to that of Elizabeth. stripped away much of the time, so that the The Song of Songs is the source for the text of employed also in White’s setting of another Videte miraculum 5, which might date either text is declaimed with simple lucidity by each Robert White’s Tota pulchra es 3. White was Marian antiphon, Regina cæli lætare 6, from Henry’s reign or Mary’s, ranks as one voice. The most unadorned writing achieves a chorister at Trinity College, Cambridge, in the included on this disc. This ebullient Eastertide of the greatest expressive works of Tudor a crystalline and poignant quality, as in the mid 1550s, and went on to hold a succession text calls on Mary ‘Queen of heaven’ to rejoice music. Its text – for the feast of the Purification extended duet between soprano and tenor of positions as Master of the Choristers, at at the resurrection of the Son she bore, the of the Blessed Virgin Mary – celebrates the for the ‘Ave plena gratia’ stanza in the second Ely Cathedral, Chester Cathedral, and finally celebratory message marked textually by the miracle and mystery of the virgin birth, half of the motet, although the music takes at Westminster Abbey until his death in 1574. recurrent ‘alleluias’ and musically by the and Tallis’s music evokes both mystery and flight into soaring melisma as the Although his composing career thus extended joyful chiming dialogues between the two wonder, highlighting the opening repeated penultimate syllable of the stanza is sung. across the first part of Elizabeth’s reign, equal upper voices. The acclamation of Mary declamation of the word ‘miraculum’ by Fayrfax’s relatively austere treatment of much it is likely that some at least of his Latin- as Queen of heaven at the opening of the text placing a dissonance on its stressed syllable of the text contrasts with the floridity of texted works were written during the reign of is at odds with the official attitudes of the each time. The music reaches a passionate the text itself, heard for example in Elizabeth’s elder sister, Mary. Tota pulchra es is Elizabethan church, in which the great climax as the free voices ecstatically repeat the extraordinary succession of superlative one of four pieces on this disc which represent feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin the name of Mary at the end of the second adjectives (‘nobilissima’, ‘dignissima’, etc) the strong English tradition of composing Mary – celebrating Mary’s bodily ascension into section of polyphony. In the polyphonic ending every line of the first three stanzas, richly-textured polyphony around a plainchant heaven – had been removed from the Calendar. responsory genre to which this piece belongs a construction which Fayrfax emphasises by cantus firmus moving steadily in semibreves, Either, then, White’s Regina cæli is an early- the polyphony falls into three sections, suspending the musical flow at many of these and thus lending the music a majestic career piece dating from the reign of Mary or which are initially sung without a break. After - 4 - - 5 - the plainchant verse, the second and third of the text focuses on Mary’s role as merciful next dramatic ‘Gaude’ salutation, for all six spoken by Mary during her visit to her cousin sections only are repeated, and after the mediator on behalf of wretched sinners voices. The penultimate verse considers ‘the Elizabeth, when the infant John the Baptist plainchant Gloria the third section is heard and the condemned. Tallis’s handling of this eternal sufferings of hell’, evoked by Tallis leaps in Elizabeth’s womb and Elizabeth for a final time. Sheppard’sVerbum caro 8 monumental textual edifice is full of drama and with another gimell, this time involving acclaims Mary in the words incorporated in has the same form, but the affect of the piece contrast, achieved through manipulation of divided basses. From this vision of the infernal the Ave Maria: ‘blessed are you among women, contrasts with that of Videte miraculum: this scoring, pacing, and harmony. In accordance realm the last verse – again for the full and blessed is the fruit of your womb’.

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