Also from Charivari Agréable on Signumclassics
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093Booklet 28/2/07 20:31 Page 1 Also from Charivari Agréable on SignumClassics SIGCD006 SIGCD007 SIGCD008 SIGCD009 Music for Philip of Spain Two upon a ground: Jupiter The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and his four wives Duets and Divisions for two viols SIGCD018 SIGCD020 SIGCD026 SIGCD032 Sacred Songs of Sorrow The Queen’s Goodnight Music for Gainsborough The Sultan and the Phoenix SIGCD041 SIGCD049 SIGCD069 SIGCD086 Modus Phantasticus Harmonia Caelestis Esperar Sentir Morir The Virtuoso Godfather Available through most record stores and at www.signumrecords.com For more information call +44 (0) 20 8997 4000 093Booklet 28/2/07 20:31 Page 3 THE OXFORD PSALMS Henry Purcell (1659–1695) 11. Since God so tender [3.24] Frances Withy (c.1645–1727) 12. Divisions in F [5.41] William Lawes (1602–1645) 1. The Lamentation: O Lord, in thee [5.17] George Jeffreys (c.1610–1685) 2. Psalm LI/2: Cast me not, Lord [5.47] 13. Praise the Lord, O my soule [3.57] Matthew Locke (c.1623–1677) Henry Purcell 3. In the beginning, O Lord [2.29] 14. Blessed is he that considereth the poor [5.34] Jeremiah Clarke (c.1674–1707) Albertus Bryne (c.1621–1668) 4. Blest be those sweet Regions [4.25] 15. Voluntary [1.58] Anonymous Matthew Locke 5. Miserere, from Parthenia in-violata (c.1625) [1.47] 16. Let God arise [1.25] William Lawes William Lawes 6. Psalm XVIII/1: O God my strength and fortitude [5.48] 17. The humble suite of a sinner: O Lord, of whom… [6.54] 7. Psalm VI: Lord, in thy wrath [5.43] 18. Gloria Patri et Filio [2.43] John Blow (1648–1708) Total [78.28] 8. As on Euphrates’ shady banks [4.57] Anonymous/Christopher Simpson (c.1602/6–1669), arr. K-M Ng 9. A Ground for ye Harpsicord [3.42] Charivari Agréable 10. William Child (1606/7–1697) [6.56] The First Set of Psalmes of III Voyces (Extracts) Rodrigo del Pozo & Simon Beston, tenor Psalm II: Why doth the Heathen so furiously rage Nicholas Perfect, bass Psalm X: Why standest thou so far off Susanne Heinrich, bass viol & consort bass Psalm: XI: In the Lord I put my trust Richard Sweeney, theorbo Psalm IX: I Will give thanks unto Thee dir. Kah-Ming Ng, chamber organ & harpsichord www.signumrecords.com www.charivari.co.uk 093Booklet 28/2/07 20:31 Page 5 This programme is a random sampling of made all the more curious by the presence of his heels, and when down, did unhumanly beat evidence of Lawes’s Psalmes (such as the vivid seventeenth-century English devotional chamber numerous manuscript—i.e. ‘pirated’—copies of him’. Child was buried ‘in Woollen’ in St George’s word-painting) suggests that this unique music for three men and basso continuo. A couple the first set which indicate not only the growing Chapel, and his gravestone is near the present collection of pre-Commonwealth verse anthems of coincidences define the parameters of our appetite for the new-fangled baroque declamatory entrance to the organ loft. An oil painting of Child might have been an early experiment, composed recital. Most of the composers have some idiom, but which also reveal Child’s business in his doctoral robes hangs in the Bodleian either during Lawes’s employment at the estate of connection with Oxford, be it academic, professional, acumen in not associating his works with any Library, Oxford. the earl of Hereford, or, more plausibly, during the or, more tenuously, fraternal. Also, most of the political cause. Re-issues by John Playford of the court’s exile in provincial Oxford. music on this disc represents what we believe to First Set appeared in 1650 and 1656 in the guise In contrast to Child’s longevity, William Lawes’s be a neglected genre, viz. that of sacred songs of Choise Musick to the Psalmes of Dauid, an act life was tragically cut short in 1645 in an ill-timed Forerunners of the Restoration verse anthem, and non-liturgical anthems for domestic of political expediency perhaps, as religious sortie at the siege of Chester by what was these elaborate Psalmes juxtapose high-church consumption, ‘fitt for private Chappels or other reformers (including Henry VIII) had always possibly, in today’s parlance, ‘friendly fire’. A verses in extrovert style (scored in various private meetings’, to cite a rubric from William associated themselves with David. diehard royalist, he had enlisted as a soldier in permutations for alto, tenor, and bass soloists) Child’s only publication The First Set of Psalmes of 1642, but in order to steer him away from frontline and low-church traditional hymn tunes; both III Voyces (1639). Unlike the ‘cantilenam quinque After the Restoration, Child resumed his position action, he was appointed commissary in Sir segments are set to ‘Old Version’ metrical partium’ that he was required to submit as part of as organist of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, and Charles Gerrard’s Oxford-based foot regiment. paraphrases from psalters by Sternhold and the degree of Bachelor of Music at Oxford (to was subsequently made one of the organists of Lawes was present at the siege of York in 1644, Hopkins, and others. Unusually enough, the verses which he was admitted in 1631), these were the Chapel Royal. He took his D.Mus. in July 1663 which lasted twelve weeks, tantalizingly for unison choral or congregational—or both— ‘newly composed after the Italian way’. Thus did and proceeded to supply single-handedly the coinciding with his dozen Psalmes for 1, 2 and 3 participation are indicated by the words ‘common the language of the ‘seconda prattica’ find its shortfall in the cathedral repertory caused by the partes, to the comon tunes. This has given rise to tune’ in all three solo parts, and by the incipits of (albeit somewhat anglicized) voice, namely in two Interregnum. He lived to be a nonagenarian, with the suggestion that the anthems were intended for the desired verses. The five anthems selected for ways: the first being the disposition of parts in a reputation as a much-respected and highly the Sunday services at York Minster, a conjecture this recording come from the library of Christ what would come to be identified as the trio- prolific composer of services, even if he could at abetted, albeit inconclusively, by a description Church, Oxford (MSS 768–770); they were copied sonata texture; and the second being the earliest times be cantankerous, judging by several from Thomas Mace’s Musick’s Monument (1676) c.1670 from an incomplete secondary source by use in England of the ‘continuall Base’. The incidents in Windsor. These included protracted referring to accompanied psalmody during the Oxford’s music professor Edward Lowe. The choice enterprise was exquisitely engraved on copper pay disputes, and a severe deterioration of siege. At that time Mace recalled hearing ‘the very of texts is particularly poignant, for the psalm plates, and consisted of four small (but perfectly- relations with Matthew Green, the Master of the best Harmonical-Musick that ever [he] heard’; it settings resonate with the echoes of the Civil War proportioned) part-books: ‘cantus primus’, ‘cantus Choristers, who reportedly assaulted him with was ‘in the stately Cathedral’ in which ‘before the with such phrases as ‘from dangers me defend’ secundus’, ‘bassus’, and ‘basso continuo’. The ‘uncivill and rude language while he was doeing Sermon, the Congregation sang a Psalm, together (Psalm 51/2) and ‘of force I must love thee … presumed Second Set never materialized, an anomaly his duty in playing the Organ, and … did trip up with the Quire and the Organ’. But the stylistic Thou art my castle and defence’ (Ps. 18/1). Lawes’s - 4 - - 5 - 093Booklet 28/2/07 20:31 Page 7 untimely demise caused King Charles I to institute vocal bass part from the thoroughbass. He at which candidates for degrees gave public evidence for three men and continuo ‘As on Euphrates’ special mourning for this ‘Father of Musick’. heightened the expressivity of the text by changing of their eligibility). shady banks’, taken from George Sandy’s Various laudatory publications followed, including the metre in ‘be glad and rejoice’ (‘In the Paraphrase upon the divine poems (1638). In a his brother Henry’s Choice Psalmes (1648), beginning’) and ‘be merry and joyful’ (‘Let God Lowe held the professorship of music, but this league of brutality quite different from Lawes’s containing musical tributes from colleagues, and arise’). Like Lawes and Jeffreys, Locke, too, went to fragrant title belies the actual job description of a anthems, Blow’s graphic setting rises to the other three-voice psalms by both brothers. Oxford with the court, which this time was taking mere ‘Choragus’ [Latin, in the statutes, for savagery of the metrical Psalm137, which refuge from the plague of 1665. Although he came University music master]. He was not required to bloodthirstily proclaims ‘O thrice happy they, who Like Lawes, George Jeffreys, too, was a committed as a member of the court orchestra, the Twenty- deliver the academic curriculum, his duty being shall with equal cruelty, revenge our fall, that Anglican and Royalist, answering a call in 1643 to four Violins, Locke found time to participate in simply to provide for, and to superintend, the dash thy children’s brains against the stones, and come to Oxford to assist his employer Sir some of the weekly meetings for music making Music School meetings and musical entertainment without pity hear their dying groans’. Christopher Hatton, who had become the king’s held at the Music School; he also wrote some for the Act.