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IN THE MIDST OF LIFE The repertory of Latin sacred works by Tudor England over several decades, and the range Music from the Baldwin Partbooks I composers is one of the musical glories of of religious themes encompassed by the the Renaissance, but the survival of much of contents is extremely wide. Baldwin did not that repertory has hung by a strikingly slender organise his collection by composer or by genre. thread, namely a few manuscript collections Our approach in this series of recordings is of polyphony compiled late in the sixteenth twofold: first, to reflect in our selection of music century, at a time when a significant portion of for each disc the panoply of styles in the 1 Circumdederunt me dolores mortis William Byrd [5.04] the music concerned had lost its original partbooks, ranging across the half century or so 2 Libera me Domine Robert Parsons [7.29] liturgical and devotional contexts as a result of musical history which is represented there; of the Reformation in England. This recording second, so that each disc is coherent, we focus 3 Audivi vocem de cælo William Byrd [4.15] presents music from the greatest of these in turn on several of the prominent religious 4 William Mundy [3.31] Sive vigilem Elizabethan manuscript compilations, the themes represented in Baldwin’s anthology. 5 Peccantem me quotidie Robert Parsons [6.08] Baldwin partbooks, and is the first of a series On this first disc we perform works concerned 6 Quemadmodum John Taverner [6.30] of recordings by Contrapunctus which will with mortality: the fear of death and eternal 7 Nunc dimittis Thomas Tallis [3.14] present a broad selection of music from the torment, anticipation of the Day of Judgement, collection. This huge anthology – containing and the soul’s longing to meet God. 8 Sive vigilem Dericke Gerarde [6.13] almost 170 works – was copied by John 9 Robert Parsons [2.44] Credo quod redemptor meus vivit Baldwin between about 1575 and 1581, during The Baldwin partbooks are particularly 0 Media vita John Sheppard [23.09] the period that he held a tenor lay clerkship valuable because they preserve numerous in the choir of St George’s Chapel, Windsor. pieces which survive in no other source, and Total timings: [68.18] Baldwin would later go on to join the most also because the repertory covers such a long prestigious choir in Tudor England, the Chapel period, extending back well before the Royal, and as a Gentleman of that chapel he Reformation in England to the music of John sang at great state occasions such as the Taverner (d. 1545). Taverner – the foremost funeral of Queen Elizabeth I and the coronation of English composer active near the end of Henry King James I. He died in 1615. VIII’s reign – is abundantly represented in CONTRAPUNCTUS the partbooks. Without these partbooks we OWEN REES DIRECTOR The Baldwin partbooks present a wonderfully would have lost a major portion of the work rich survey of Latin-texted music composed in of John Sheppard (who was active in the 1540s www.signumrecords.com - 3 - and 1550s), including his epic Media vita which as in most of Media vita – the Tenor carries occurrences of it in the Lamentations of Tallis The three works by Robert Parsons on the is presented on this disc. Baldwin’s collection the chant associated with the relevant text and Robert Whyte and in motets by these recording, Libera me Domine, Credo quod also provides us with numerous pieces by a as a long-note cantus firmus, so that the two composers setting texts of mourning or redemptor meus vivit, and Peccantem me younger generation of musicians composing modern editor can simply rebuild the Tenor penitence. It is possible that Byrd’s Audivi quotidie, are all settings of responsories for the during the middle decades of the century and part using that chant melody, and be confident vocem, with its impassioned setting of ‘Blessed service of Matins of the Dead, and Libera me well into Elizabeth’s reign, such as Robert that the music has thus been faithfully restored. are the dead who die in the Lord’, was written also occurs during the ceremony of Absolution Parsons and William Mundy. However, by far to commemorate one of the Catholic martyrs after the Requiem Mass. Parsons was appointed the most famous composers represented are Awareness of mortality was a constant in Tudor executed in the early 1580s, at around the a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1563, and Thomas Tallis (whose extraordinarily long society, and the townscape and soundscape time that Baldwin was compiling his partbooks. died by drowning in the River Trent In January career stretched from the middle of Henry presented ubiquitous reminders of death. These Such use of music in support of the Catholic 1571/2. (William Byrd succeeded to his place VIII’s reign to the 1580s) and Tallis’s pupil included (to cite just a few) the tolling of cause was common in Byrd’s output: although in the Chapel Royal.) In Libera me Domine and William Byrd. The partbooks include a great funeral bells, public executions, and processions the composer served as Gentleman and Peccantem me quotidie Parsons incorporates many motets by Byrd, and a copy of Tallis’s taking the body of the deceased from their Organist of Elizabeth’s Chapel Royal, and was the relevant plainchant melody, laid out as and Byrd’s joint printed collection of motets, house through the streets to the church for clearly one of the most valued musicians in a cantus firmus in equal note-values, and Cantiones sacræ (1575), is bound into the end burial. In the period before the Reformation her household, he remained loyal to the Catholic assigned to the Tenor in Libera me Domine of the manuscripts. We are thus extraordinarily the fear of purgatory had led to a great faith, and maintained close associations with and to one of the Contratenor parts in Peccantem fortunate that Baldwin’s anthology survived proliferation in Requiem rites and the music Catholic members of the nobility and with me quotidie. It is likely that Parsons wrote (it is preserved today in the library of Christ associated with them. The texts of several of Jesuits working in England. More than any these works as liturgical items, before the Church, Oxford), although sadly one of the six the works on this recording – all three of the English composer of the period, Byrd was able relevant rites of the dead were swept away partbooks which made up the set – the Tenor items by Robert Parsons and one of those by to mould imitative polyphonic textures to with the reestablishing of the English Book of book – has been lost for some time. Since William Byrd – are from the Catholic liturgies project the sense of a text with rhetorical Common Prayer in 1559: although we do not many of the pieces in the collection are known for the dead. In setting Audivi vocem de cælo, power: in his motet Circumdederunt me the know when he was born, it seems probable only from this source, their Tenor parts have to an antiphon for Vespers of the Dead, Byrd marks prayer for release (‘libera animam meam’) that he was already active as a composer be reconstructed editorially, and this applies dramatically the point at which the ‘voice from when surrounded by the fear of death and during the brief reign (1553–1558) of to four of the ten works on this recording: heaven’ speaks the words ‘Blessed are the dead’, damnation which concludes the piece provides Elizabeth’s sister, Mary I, a period when the Peccantem me quotidie by Parsons, Gerarde’s introducing these words with a startling change a wonderful example of such music ‘framed official religion of the country returned to Sive vigilem, Tallis’s setting of the Nunc of harmony, and turning to chordal writing to the life of the words’, as Byrd himself put it. Catholicism. In his copy of Libera me Domine, dimittis, and Media vita by Sheppard. The task but with the topmost voice anticipating the made decades after the liturgical usefulness of reconstruction is made much easier when – others: his use of this specific device recalls of this piece had disappeared in England, John - 4 - - 5 - Baldwin nevertheless indicated the original contemplates the Day of Judgement. While in the (probably) 1591. Gerarde, a Flemish composer Collins suggested that the opening two verses liturgical repetition of part of the text (from first of these pieces the end of days is pictured working in England, was associated with two of the psalm could satisfactorily be fitted to ‘quando cæli movendi sunt’) after the ‘Dies with hope – ‘on the last day I shall arise of the most important musical patrons of the Taverner’s music, and that the piece should iræ’ verse. Parsons likewise allowed for such out of the earth, and in my flesh I shall see Elizabethan period, Henry Fitzalan, Earl of therefore be regarded as a vocal work rather a repetition in his setting of Peccantem me God’ – in Libera me Domine we are presented Arundel, and his son-in-law Lord Lumley, and than for instruments. In fact, although the piece quotidie, but here the verse has to be supplied with a frightful vision of the ‘day of wrath’ the composer’s music is mainly preserved in seems very likely to be vocal in origin, there in plainsong, as is done on this recording. The when God will come to judge the world manuscripts from their great collection which are passages in which it is far from obvious repeated final section of polyphony includes the through fire.

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