Courts of Heaven Music from the Eton Choirbook Volume 3
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Courts of Heaven Music from the Eton Choirbook Volume 3 John Hampton (b. c.1455, d. after 1520) 1 Salve regina a 5 15.37 Edmund Turges (b. c.1450) 2 Gaude flore virginali a 4 13.43 Richard Fawkyner (fl. c.1480) 3 Gaude virgo salutata a 5 18.49 John Browne (fl. c.1490) 4 O mater venerabilis a 5 14.18 Robert Wylkynson (b. c.1475–80, d.1515 or later) 5 Salve regina a 5 13.19 BONUS TRACK Walter Lambe (b. ?1450/51, d. after Michaelmas 1504) 6 Nesciens mater a 5 5.26 81.15 The Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford Stephen Darlington Director of Music 2 Introduction This collection of Eton Choirbook music is the third volume in a series which has proved a thrilling encounter with the remarkable world of the liturgy of Eton College Chapel in the late 15th century. This is sumptuous music of huge complexity, ranging from the rich sonority of Wylkynson and Hampton to the contrapuntal intricacy of Fawkyner and Turges. However, it is also clear that this music was firmly rooted in the daily devotional life of the College, appreciated by all and not just a worshipping elite. The boys and men of Christ Church Cathedral choir maintain just such a tradition, which is why we feel a special affinity with this glorious repertoire and are committed to its performance. Ꭿ Stephen Darlington, 2014 Courts of Heaven It has been estimated that the manuscripts which have survived from 15th- and 16th-century England represent only about ten per cent of those in circulation at the time. The Eton Choirbook itself has not been immune from depredation, for of the 93 pieces it originally contained, fully 50 are now defective in some way or have been lost altogether, and works such as the seven-part Magnificat by John Browne will sadly have to be left to the imagination. There is still much to discover, though, for despite the renewed interest shown in the music of the Eton Choirbook in recent years, a number of works have yet to be committed to disc, even though this series alone has included no fewer than nine premiere recordings. One rather frustrating aspect of the music in the Eton Choirbook is the fact that, in general, we know very little about the men who composed it. In many cases it is not even clear when they were born or when they died. Perhaps we should be grateful that their names are known at all. About a century before the choirbook was copied, composers were usually seen as anonymous artisans whose skill went unacknowledged, and it is only in the early 15th century, in sources such as the Old Hall Manuscript, that composers emerged from the shadows of anonymity and received the recognition they deserved. John Hampton was appointed as master and organist of the Lady Chapel choir at Worcester Cathedral in 1484. Among his duties were the teaching of plainsong and polyphony to the boy choristers and the directing of the singing of the antiphon Salve regina each evening during Lent. The communal act of devotion performed at Eton College each evening took its name from this text, and was known as the ‘Salve ceremony’. The Eton Choirbook contains no fewer than 15 settings of the antiphon (more than any other text except the Magnificat), all but one of them surviving complete. The version of the text set by Hampton and his contemporaries includes a number of tropes, extra passages inserted between the invocations ‘O clemens’, ‘O pia’ etc. The words of these passages are almost always written in red ink in the choirbook. This is usually taken to denote the use of a reduced number of singers, a practice which very probably derives from the late medieval monastic tradition, where tropes were sung by soloists. Hampton’s five-part setting uses the plainsong melody Gaudeamus omnes as its cantus firmus. This chant was sung on four of the Marian feasts in the Church’s year, including that of the Assumption of the Virgin (15 August), to which Eton College was dedicated. 3 Only two pieces by Edmund Turges survive complete in the Eton Choirbook, both settings of the text Gaude flore virginali. One, in five parts, is for full choir with divided trebles, while the other (the one recorded here) is a four-part setting for men’s voices. The text enumerates the seven spiritual joys of the Virgin Mary, each verse beginning with a celebratory ‘Gaude’ (‘Rejoice!’): 1 Mary’s special place in the company of the saints; 2 Mary as spouse of God; 3 Mary’s veneration by all the courts of heaven; 4 Mary’s role as intercessor with Christ; 5 The benefits conferred on those who venerate Mary; 6 Mary’s place alongside the Trinity; 7 Mary’s certainty that these joys will remain with her for ever. The text achieved widespread popularity and was frequently included in Books of Hours (devotional texts used by the laity in private prayer) in medieval England, where it was commonly ascribed to St Thomas of Canterbury (Thomas Becket). As Hugh Benham has shown, the work employs a complex numerical structure, based appropriately around the number seven. In the first section, which is in triple time, the full choir sings for 56 (8 × 7) breves (168 semibreves), while sections for two or three voices take 49 (7 × 7) breves. In the second section, in duple time, the full choir sings for 42 (6 × 7) longs (again, 168 semibreves), while passages for reduced voices occupy 49 longs. Thus the passages for full choir last for 98 (56 + 42) bars, as do those for reduced voices (49 + 49). Note also that the passages for full choir under the two time signatures are in the ratio 4:3 (56:42). Such numerological devices are, of course, impossible for the listener or even the singer to discern, but serve as earthly reflections of divine order. As with Turges, only two antiphons by Fawkyner now survive in Eton, and were probably composed by the Richard Fawkyner who had associations with King’s College, Cambridge in the early 1480s. (His setting of Gaude rosa sine spina is recorded on the first volume in this series, More Divine Than Human.) A third work, the six-part Salve regina vas mundicie, was added to the choirbook fairly soon after it was initially copied, but has since been lost. Gaude virgo salutata has as its cantus firmus the chant Martinus Abrahe sinu, which was sung on the Feast of St Martin (11 November). Quite why a composer would choose this melody as a basis for an antiphon in honour of the Virgin Mary is not immediately clear. Perhaps the answer lies in the possibility that this choice of cantus firmus would have rendered the antiphon suitable for performance at the Salve ceremony around the time of that particular feast. The college statutes decreed that Salve regina should be sung during Lent, but at other times of the year different texts could be used instead, so perhaps composers chose seemingly unlikely chants to use as the basis for antiphons with this in mind. Nowhere is the lack of detail about a composer’s life referred to above more regrettable than in the case of John Browne, for he is surely the pre-eminent figure in the Eton Choirbook, both in terms of the number of his works it contains, and in their quality. One source refers to him as ‘Johannes Browne Oxoniensis’ (‘John Browne of Oxford’), and he may be the John Browne from Coventry who was elected a scholar at Eton in July 1467, but nothing can be said for certain. His five-part antiphon O mater venerabilis is scored for men’s voices and sets a sombre text (not set by any other composer) relating to the Passion of Christ, which unusually quotes directly from the Bible and in a language other than Latin. 4 It would have to be said that from a literary point of view the text is rather confused, being a mixture of trochaic (long–short), iambic (short–long) and dactylic (long–short–short) metre, and the fifth stanza does not follow the prevailing syllable-pattern of 887887. The text also makes pointed reference to the part played by the Jews in the Passion story. This anti-Semitic finger-pointing was by no means uncommon at the time, and persisted long after the Reformation in certain quarters. Robert Wylkynson probably spent the whole of his working life at Eton, rising to the post of informator choristarum by the time the choirbook was copied at the very beginning of the 16th century. Although he is probably best known for his sumptuous nine-part setting of Salve regina (recorded on Choirs of Angels, the second volume in this series), the five-part setting heard here, brilliantly scored for five voices, is no poor relation. Walter Lambe served as a clerk and then as master of the choristers at the nearby St George’s Chapel, Windsor. He was clearly a highly skilled composer and only John Browne is represented by more compositions in the Eton Choirbook. Lambe’s Nesciens mater is one of the shorter works in the collection, scored for the full choir combination of five voices. Its cantus firmus, unusually, is the chant of the same name, which was sung after Matins and Vespers in the period immediately following Christmas, and at Vespers of the Blessed Virgin at certain times of the year. Ꭿ Timothy Symons, 2014 5 Salve regina sic tu facis orbem vere even so dost thou cause questionless 1/5Salve regina mater misericordie; vita, dulcedo, Hail queen, mother of mercy, our life, our tue pacis resplendere the world to flourish in quietness et spes nostra, salve.