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Music from the Peterhouse Partbooks Richard Pygot’s Missa Veni sance siritus SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2018 SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2018 First Church in CambriDge, Congregational S. Stephen’s Church, ProviDence Music from the Peterhouse Partbooks Music from the Peterhouse partbooks, continued… Richard Pygot’s Missa Veni sance siritus With today’s program, Blue Heron continues Reformation in 1547. (Compare this to, for Kyrie fons bonitatis treble its exploration of music from one of the example, the sixteen choirbooks owned Sonja DuToit Tengblad Sarum chant largest and most important extant sources by Magdalen College alone in 1524.) Te Brenna Wells of sacred English polyphony from before rest were deliberately destroyed afer the Shari Alise Wilson Missa Veni sancte spiritus the Reformation, the Peterhouse partbooks Reformation or were simply lost to neglect or mean (so called because they are now housed at decay. Indeed, the tenor book and part of the Gloria & Credo Jennifer Ashe Peterhouse, the oldest and smallest of the Richard Pygot (c. 1485-1549) Pamela Dellal treble book of the Peterhouse set disappeared Martin Near Cambridge colleges). Te partbooks were centuries ago, and it is only through the copied around 1540 by Tomas Bull of astonishing creative eforts of the English Ave vulnus lateris contratenor Owen McIntosh Magdalen College, Oxford, for Canterbury musicologist Nick Sandon, who has restored Walter Erle (c. 1515-1581) Mark Sprinkle Cathedral, which had recently been dissolved the missing parts, that we are able to sing this by Henry VIII as a monastic foundation and music today. tenor Michael Barret refounded shortly aferwards as a secular intermission Jason McStoots cathedral that boasted a topnotch new choral Detailed accounts of the history of the bass establishment consisting of ten choristers, Peterhouse partbooks and their restoration, Cameron Beauchamp their master, and twelve professional singing as well as lengthy essays on many aspects of Missa Veni sancte spiritus Paul Gutry men. Among the twelve adult singers were performance practice of English polyphonic Sanctus & Agnus dei David McFerrin Tomas Tallis and Bull himself, who lef his music, from pitch to scoring to pronunciation, Pygot post at Magdalen College in order to join may be found on Blue Heron’s website, where Scot Metcalfe the new choir at Canterbury, bringing with one may also download PDFs of most of our director him a large repertoire of music for its use. past programs. Rather than reprint all that Te Peterhouse partbooks contain 72 works, material here, I refer the interested reader to including large-scale setings of the Ordinary www.blueheron.org. of the Mass, Magnifcats, and antiphons Missa Veni sance siritus and Ave vulnus lateris edited and resored by Nick Sandon. addressed mostly to Mary, some to Jesus or Richard Pygot to another saint. Pre-concert talk by Scot Metcalfe sonsored in part by Te Cambridge Society for Early Music Richard Pygot was a member in turn of two of Very few sources of English church music the very best choirs in England, the household Blue Heron is funded in part by the Massachusets Cultural Council, a sate agency. remain from this period. A mere three chapels of Cardinal Tomas Wolsey and choirbooks (including the famous Eton Henry VIII. He may have been a singer at Choirbook, more than one-ffh of which has Magdalen College, Oxford (the source of been lost), four sets of partbooks (including most of the Peterhouse repertoire) and there Peterhouse), and one organ book transmit caught the eye of Cardinal Wolsey, who was a almost all of the music which survives from former member of Magdalen College and the between the late ffeenth century and the founder of Cardinal College, Oxford. By 1517 Blue Heron 950 Watertown St., Suite 8, Wes Newton, MA 02465 (617) 960-7956 [email protected] www.blueheron.org 3 Pygot was Master of the Children in Wolsey’s intact, a four-voice respond and the relatively tenor, mostly in unornamented long notes. a courtier from a family of minor gentry in household chapel, responsible for the training of-performed three-voice carol Quid petis o It is heard seven times in the Gloria, seven Devon who became a chamber servant in and supervising of ten choristers. He was fli? Two large-scale pieces are transmited in the Credo, three in the Sanctus, and the households of two of Henry VIII’s wives, so efective in this job that the King became uniquely, and partially, in the Peterhouse four in the Agnus, perhaps alluding to the Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr, and jealous of the qualities of Wolsey’s boys, and in partbooks: the Missa Veni sancte spiritus, sevenfold gifs of the Holy Spirit (mentioned in those of his children Edward, Mary, and the spring of 1518 the Dean of Henry’s chapel lacking one voice of fve, and the antiphon in the Kyrie fons bonitatis) and to the three Elizabeth during their respective reigns. Erle “requested” that one of them be transferred Salve regina, lacking two. (Te later appears persons of the Trinity. Dr. Sandon remarks frst turns up in 1541 as a “page” or atendant to the royal household, assuring Wolsey on Vol. 2 of our 5-CD series Music fom the that “Pygot’s rather idiosyncratic style… in an entry-level position; likely he was in (not, perhaps, without a certain undertone of Peterhouse Partbooks.) Te bass parts of may give an impression of relaxation and his early 20s at the time, mature enough menace), that “if it were not for the personal another antiphon and another carol also waywardness; but his lines have their own as a musician to have already composed love that the King’s highness doth bear unto survive, as well as a two-voice fragment of a sense of integrity, ofen characterized by the antiphon Ave vulnus lateris, which was your grace, surely he would have out of your larger work, which was quoted without text concealed motivic argument.” He is fond copied into the Peterhouse partbooks right chapel not children only, but also men; for his by Tomas Morley in A Plaine and Easie of ornate melodic writing and busy, doted around then, but still in the early stages grace hath plainly shewed unto Cornysche Introduction to Practicall Musicke of 1597. rhythms, which feature in his Salve regina as of his career at court. He proved adept at [i.e. William Cornysh, master of the children well as in the Mass; here they are especially navigating the turbulent waters at court in in Henry’s chapel] that your Grace’s Chapel is Missa Veni sancte spiritus on display in lengthy duets between treble those years, not only surviving religious and beter than his.” Te boy was duly transferred, and contratenor in the Gloria at “Qui tollis political upheaval and serving monarchs and Pace wrote again to say that “Cornyshe Te cantus frmus or plainchant scafolding peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem both Catholic and Protestant, but rising doth greatly laud and praise the child of of Pygot’s Mass consists of the frst eleven nostram” and in the third petition of the to a position of some privilege, acquiring a your chapel sent hither, not only for his sure notes of an antiphon for First Vespers on Agnus dei. Tis is music composed on a modest fortune, and dying a prosperous man and cleanly singing but also for his good and Pentecost. Its original intent, then, was surely wonderfully spacious scale, exulting in rich in 1581. Dr. Sandon observes that his musical crafy descant and doth in like manner extol as the Mass on the great feast of Pentecost in sonorities, sometimes surprising harmonies, skill, which he exercised non-professionally Mr. Pygote for the teaching of him.” A dozen May. As usual for English polyphonic setings and long-drawn out melismas. As so ofen as a gentleman, may have assured his success years later, some time afer Wolsey’s fall from of the Ordinary, this one does not set the happens in the long Masses from the at court, but his record as a musician is grace and death in November 1530, Pygot Kyrie. In the Sarum rite, a troped Kyrie is the Peterhouse partbooks, things culminate in scant. All we know is that he owned at least followed the path taken by his erstwhile norm for all high feasts, and the rite specifes an Agnus dei that, without any change in one musical manuscript and played the charge, becoming a Gentleman of the Royal which is to be used; this perhaps explains scoring or style, feels elegaic, sweeter, and keyboards. Besides Ave vulnus lateris, the Household Chapel. He died in London in why composers opted not to set it as part of more peaceful, a powerful emotional efect only piece of his that survives is a pavan in November 1549. their festal masses, for absent the Kyrie, a accomplished by the subtlest of means both the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and two other, mass could be reused on any festal occasion. melodic and harmonic. later sources. Pygot enjoyed a very successful career and Te Sarum rite specifes that on Pentecost was a highly accomplished composer. He the troped Kyrie fons bonitatis should be sung, Walter Erle Ave vulnus lateris must have writen numerous pieces, but his as we do today to introduce our performance music almost didn’t survive at all, a fact that of Pygot’s Mass. Walter Erle the composer (spelled Erley Ave vulnus lateris is one of the last additions must be put down to the extensive loss of and Erell in the Peterhouse manuscripts to the Peterhouse partbooks, perhaps musical sources from 16th-century England.

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