Respond Motets from Matins for the Dead by Robert Parsons
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RESPOND MOTETS FROM MATINS FOR THE DEAD BY ROBERT PARSONS APPROVED: Maj or Professor Minor Professor Dean 6f the School of musit Dea o the Grad ate School /07 2 RESPOND MOTETS FROM MATINS FOR THE DEAD BY ROBERT PARSONS THES IS Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF MUSIC By Robert M, Nosow Denton, Texas August, 1984 Nosow, Robert M., Respond Motets from Matins for the Dead by_ Robert Parsons. Master of Music (Musicology), August, 1984, 155 pp., 14 figures, 30 musical examples, bibliography, 70 titles. The three respond motets from Matins for the Dead by Robert Parsons constitute an important part of the sacred Latin repertory of mid-sixteenth-century England, illustrating central features of the English mid-century style. Although he worked within a conservative musical tradition, Parsons experimented with that tradition in personal and individual ways. Specifically his modal and thematic construction as well as his practice of musica ficta are singled out for closer analysis. Consequently, a methodology for editorial decisions concerning musica ficta is developed. Two special problems, the simultaneous cross-relation and diminished fourth, are shown as the result of normative polyphonic processes and vertical structures. The thesis includes an edition of the music, along with a single motet by Alfonso Ferrabosco I for purposes of comparison. The edition is prefaced by a complete editorial commentary, Copyright $31984 by Robert M. Nosow iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The following libraries have graciously furnished manu-w script copies for use in this study: Christ Church Library, Oxford University; The British Library, London; The Bodleian Library, Oxford University; and the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, New York, TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv PREFACE . .a vii PART I Chapter I. BIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT PARSONS AND HISTORY OF THE RESPOND MOTET 2 Introduction 2 Biography . 3 The Respond Motets in England . 6 Robert Parsons' Respond Motets . 12 II. GENERAL STYLISTIC FEATURES OF THE RESPOND MOTETS OF ROBERT PARSOIS 17 III. MODE AND IMITATION 14 'PECCANTEM ME QUOTIDIE' . .! .4 .0 .b .0 .9 .4 . 34 Mode . .0 . .6 . , 0.. 34 Imitation ... .. .. 38 IV. MUSICA FICTA: EDITORIAL POLICY 51 Musica Ficta 51 General Editorial Procedure . 55 a .& . Special Problems . *.0 . 60 Simultaneous Cross -Relations Diminished Fourths V. CONCLUSION 82 APPENDIX: A CHECKLIST OF SOURCES FOR THE LATIN SACRED MUSIC OF ROBERT PARSONS ....... 87 BIBLIOGRAPHY . .a . &. .0 . 0. 92 PART II RESPOND HOTETS FROM MATINS FOR THE DEAD BY ROBERT PARSONS AND ALFONSO FERRABOSCO I 98 I. EDITORIAL COMMENTARY . 98 Key 98 Editorial Practices 99 Sources........ ........ 103 Reading the Text Commentary..... 108 Commentary on the Text 110 V 31, PECCANTEM ME QUOTIDIE . 118 III. LIBERA ME, DOMINE 127 IV. CREDO QUOD REDEMPTOR (PARSONS) . 138 V. CREDO QUOD REDE4PTOR (FERRABOSCO) . , 145 APPENDIX; CANTI FIRMI . ............. 153 vi PREFACE The present thesis is divided into two parts, Part I consists of a historical and stylistic discussion of the respond motets from Matins for the Dead by Robert Parsons. Part II contains an edition of the music with editorial com- mentary, vii PART ONE Chapter I BIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT PARSONS AND HISTORY OF THE RESPOND MOTET Introduction The subject of the following thesis is three motets by Robert Parsons, a little-known English composer of the six- teenth century. Although obscure, Parsons provided a sig- nificant contribution to English music literature through his instrumental consort music, his Latin motets, and his early examples of English church music in full, contrapuntal style. Little is known about Parsons' life. His career belongs to the middle part of the sixteenth century, the turbulent period of English Reformation. He was active during the reigns of Queen Mary (July 1553-1558), Elizabeth 1 (1559-1603), and possibly Edward VI C1547-1553), as well. He may have been born as early as 1530. When he died in 1570, apparent- ly at the height of his powers, Parsons left a small but highly interesting body of music. The wide distribution of such works as the "In nomine a 5" and "Credo quod Redemptor" testifies to the esteem in which he was held by his 1. Oliver Neighbours, in The Consort and Keyboard Music of William Byrd (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978, p. 31), states that Parsons was "slightly older" than Robert White, born c. 1537-38. Hugh Benham, however, in Latin Church Music in England c. 1460-1575 (London: Barrie 'and Jenkins, 1977; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, -1980, p. 219), sug- gests that he was nearly the same age as William Mundy (c. 1529-1591), who joined the Chapel Royal about the same time as Parsons. Were his birthdate in 1530, Parsons would have been twenty-three upon the accession of Queen Mary, placing the bulk of hIs works in the Marian and early Elizabethan periods; this estimate concurs with the available evidence. 2 3 contemporaries.2 Parsons' works exerted a musical influence out of proportion to their number. The respond motets from Matins for the Dead are consi- dered central to Robert Parsons' existing output. It is hoped that the following investigation will not only illu- minate their relative historical position, but restore an estimable part of our cultural heritage. Biography Only three facts are known concerning the life of English composer Robert Parsons. First, the Cheque-Book of the Chapel Royal records his swearing-in to the service of Elizabeth I, 17 October 1563, as a Gentleman of the Chapel. Second, on 30 May 1567, the Crown granted him a twenty-one year lease on three rectories near Lincoln--Sturton, Randbie and Stainton, "once of the Monastary of Tupholme."3 Third, the Cheque-Book records that on 25 January 1570 (N. S. ), Parsons drowned in the River Trent at Newark. His place in the Chapel Royal was taken on 22 February following by William Byrd.> We also have a Latin couplet by Robert Dow from a poem prefatory to Oxford, Christ Church MSS 984-88, the "Dow Partbooks;" Qui tantus primo Parsone in flore fuisti Quantus in autumno in morere fores. (Parsons, you who were so great in the springtime of life, How great y-ou would have been in the autumn, had not death intervened. )5 2. Philippe Oboussier, "Parsons, Robert (i)," The New Grove Dictionar of Music and Musicians, 20 vols., ed. Stanley Sadie London: Macmillan, F980), XIV, 249, 3. Ibid., 248. 4. Edward F. Rimbault, ed., The Old Cheque-Book (Camden Society, 1872; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1966), p. 2. 5. Oboussier, op. cit., 249. 24 This small store of information may be placed in a larger context. The crossing at Newark-upon-Trent was prone to floods; the town itself was the last large town on the road from London to Lincoln, Parsons may have been on his way to Lincoln when he drowned.6 Although no direct evidence is known to connect Parsons with. Lincoln, there is a great deal of evidence connecting him with William Byrd C1543,1623 1, Byrd, who became organist at Lincoln Cathedral in 1563, the year Parsons joined the Chapel Royal, took a lease that same year on land at Hainton, which lies four miles from Stainton, one of the rectories leased by Parsons. Even if the two composers did not know each other personally, it is certain that Byrd knew Parsons' music. At the end of "Deliver me from mine enemies" in :the "Chirk Castle Partbooks" (New York Public Library MS Mus. Res. MNZ), the scribe writes, "Some say mr parsons: mr Byrde affirmes it to be truth.,'" i.e., Byrd was consulted as an authority on Parsons' work. 7 Beyond this, Joseph. Kerman and Oliver Neighbours have shown on internal evidence the great debt Byrd owed to his predecessor, especially in the field of consort music. Parsons' early influence on Byrd appears as strong as anyone's except that of Alfonso Ferrabosco I (1543-88).8 The quantity of Parsons' music which survives is rather small--no more than 29 works of probable authenticity, and 7 others of doubtful or conflicting attribution.9 These 6. Joseph Kerman, The Masses and Motets- of William Byrd (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981), 65. 7. Ibid., 65. 8. Kerman, The Masses and Motets of William Byrd, 65-67; Neighbours, op. cI 4.,46-50, 7F~75, 79-80 9, Oboussier, op.cit., 249, See also the Appendix, "A Checklist of Sources." 5 works fall into four general categories: the consort song, consort music, English church music, and Latin sacred music. What is remarkable is that they cover every major vocal and instrumental genre of the period, except the Lamentation. The two genres that Parsons did not assay--of lesser impor- tance at this period--are keyboard music and the mass. Dating music from the short reign of Edward VI (1547-1553), Queen Mary (July 1553-1558), and the early reign of Elizabeth. I (1559-1575) has long been a difficult problem.- On the one hand, church music reflects the religious strife character- istic of the age. On the other, composers maintained a basic conservatism calculated to withstand the variable political climate. This religious uncertainty culminated in the de- liberately ambiguous services of Elizabeth's own Chapel Royal. Her shrewd political stance and personal appreciation of the finest polyphonic music meant the continuance of Latin com- position well into the 1580's. Very few manuscripts from Robert Parsons' lifetime sur- vive; only two actually contain pieces by him. These are the British Library MSS Additional 22597 (c. 1565-85) and Additional 30-480-84 (c.