Stile Antico: Toward the Dawn St Martin-in-the-Fields Trafalgar Square London Available to watch as many times as you like WC2N 4JJ from 7.30pm, Thursday 4 March 2021, 020 7766 1100 and available for 30 days. www.smitf.org PROGRAMME Draw on, sweet night – John Wilbye (1574-1638) Christe qui lux es IV – Robert White (c.1538-1574) Come, sable night – John Ward (1571-1638) Vigilate – William Byrd (c.1539/40-1623) Toutes le nuitz – Orlande de Lassus (1530/32-1594) Laboravi in gemitu meo – Philippe Rogier (1561-1596) / Thomas Morley (c.1557-1602) Gentle sleep – Nico Muhly (b.1981) O nata lux – Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585) Ecco mormorar l’onde – Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) Ave Dei Patris filia – John Taverner (c1490-1545) Stile Antico (c. Marco Borggreve) PROGRAMME NOTES by Sarah Maxted In this programme, Stile Antico chart a course through the music of night-time, from dusk to dawn. For poets and musicians of the sixteenth century, the themes of darkness, dreams and sleep were a rich source of inspiration. The cover of darkness was an invitation to secrecy – illicit longings, clandestine religion, political stirrings, unspeakable grief – whilst sleep brought the sweetness of repose and dreaming, but also profound danger. Sleeping bodies were vulnerable to attack and disease, just as sleeping souls were susceptible to sin and supernatural threats. The hours of darkness were a time when our mortal souls were most in need of divine protection, awaiting the illuminating and redeeming rise of the morning sun. John Wilbye (1574-1638) was born in the Norfolk market town of Diss, son of an amateur lutenist, and worked as a household musician to prominent noble families in Norfolk and Suffolk. Draw on, sweet night is from the second set of Wilbye’s madrigals, published in 1609 with the support of his patrons. The text by an unidentified poet invites the solace of night, wherein darkness is the perfect companion for contemplating the day’s woes and finding some relief. It is perhaps more poetically sophisticated than many similar English madrigal texts of the time, demonstrating Wilbye’s discerning eye for literary quality and emotionally affecting poetry. Christe qui lux es is a hymn for compline, the final service of prayers at the end of the Christian day. This is the fourth of four settings of the same text by Robert White (c.1538- 1574), each of which alternates traditional plainchant with polyphonic verse. It is a tranquil prayer, beseeching the light of Christ to protect us from the perils of night and allow us peaceful sleep. White was a London-born composer, who studied at Trinity College, Cambridge before holding positions at Ely and Chester Cathedrals. Highly esteemed by his contemporaries, he became master of the choristers at Westminster Abbey, but held the role for only a few years until his death during the city’s plague outbreak of 1574. Come, sable night is from a set of madrigals by John Ward (1571-1638) published in 1613. Ward was born in Canterbury and was patronised by the family of Sir Henry Fanshawe. Much like the Wilbye madrigal which opened tonight's programme, Come sable night welcomes the darkness of night for its suitability for grief. The text refers to the traditional pastoral figure Amyntas who, according to the lamentations by poet Thomas Watson, mourned the death of his beloved Phyllis for eleven wretched days before his eventually taking his own life. Just as we might be succumbing to sleepiness, the rousing motet Vigilate by William Byrd (c.1539/40-1623) is a reminder to stay awake and watchful. Byrd takes the biblical text about the destruction of the temple in Mark 13 and imbues it with urgency and vivid word- painting. Listen for the florid call of the cock crowing (‘galli cantu’) and the drowsy lethargy that almost overwhelms the descending vocal lines on the word ‘dormientes’ (‘sleeping’). In the political context of post-Reformation England, Byrd was one of many Catholics forced to conceal his religious life, worshipping secretly and in fear of persecution, with a very real need for vigilance. Orlande de Lassus (1530/32-1594) was a Flemish composer who worked extensively in the most vibrant musical cities of sixteenth century Europe. Like Byrd he was a lifelong Catholic during this period of religious turbulence, but his oeuvre was far from being exclusively devout. Lassus embraced secular styles freely and lavishly, as can be heard in his chanson Toutes le nuitz. The anonymous poem offers yet another reason to long for slumber – this time not for grief or prayer, but for the opportunity to dream passionately about an absent lover. Laboravi in gemitu meo is a six-part motet, attributed to Thomas Morley (c.1557-1602) in two seventeenth century English sources, but likely to have been written by the Franco- Flemish composer Philippe Rogier (1561-1596). The music is characterised by undulating, imitative vocal lines, evoking floods of tears and groans of sorrow. The text isolates a single line from Psalm 6, a psalm of David, which begins as an anguished plea for God’s mercy but ends in firm conviction that the Lord has heard and accepted the prayer. Gentle sleep is a Shakespeare setting by American composer Nico Muhly (b. 1981), premiered by Stile Antico at Wigmore Hall in 2015. The text is from William Shakespeare’s history play Henry IV Part Two, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1599. The troubled King Henry laments that sleep comes so easily to the poorest of his subjects in their humble and uncomfortable dwellings, whilst he himself is ensconced in luxury but remains fretfully awake. Muhly’s setting diffuses the text in insomniac fragments amid the contemplative vastness of a sleepless night. After a long disquieting night, the first hints of daylight shine through in O nata lux by Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585). Tallis was one of the most influential composers of Tudor England, serving in the court and Chapel Royal of four consecutive monarchs from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I. With a text celebrating the redemptive light of Christ, O nata lux remains one of his most beloved choral pieces. The harmonies have a beautiful luminosity but also reveal a haunting, awestruck reverence through false relations and metrical shifts. The dawn madrigal Ecco mormorar l’onde by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) paints a gentle wash of radiance, as the natural world greets the morning light. The sea and sky are balanced in symmetrical ease and a cool breeze soothes the fevered hearts who suffered during the night. The evocative poetry is by Torquato Tasso, an accomplished writer favoured by Monteverdi for many of his masterful madrigal settings published in the final decades of the sixteenth century. The glorious light of day is fully realised in Ave Dei Patris filia by John Taverner (c.1490- 1545). Taverner was an English composer and organist, known for his vast output of masses and motets. This work is the largest-scale of Taverner’s several votive antiphons, Latin devotional songs marking the end of office services. The resplendent text is in seven stanzas, a number associated with the Virgin Mary, praising her virtues in turn and comparing her immaculate light with that of the sun, moon and stars. TEXTS & TRANSLATIONS Draw on, sweet Night, best friend unto those cares That do arise from painful melancholy. My life so ill through want of comfort fares, that unto thee I consecrate it wholly. Sweet Night, draw on! My griefs when they be told To shades and darkness find some ease from paining, And while thou all in silence dost enfold, I then shall have best time for my complaining. Anon. Christe qui lux es et dies, Christ, who art the light and day, Noctis tenebras detegis, You drive away the darkness of night, Lucisque lumen crederis, You are called the light of light, Lumen beatum praedicans. For you proclaim the blessed light. Precamur Sancte Domine, We beseech you, Holy Lord, Defende nos in hac nocte, Protect us this night. Sit nobis in te requies, Let us take our rest in you; Quietam noctem tribue. Grant us a tranquil night Ne gravis somnus irruat, Let our sleep be free from care; Nec hostis nos surripiat, Let not the enemy snatch us away, Nec caro illi consentiens, Nor flesh conspire within him, Nos tibi reos statuat. And make us guilty in your sight. Oculi somnum capiant, Though our eyes be filled with sleep, Cor ad te semper vigilet, Keep our hearts forever awake to you. Dextera tua protegat May your right hand protect Famulos qui te diligunt. Your willing servants. Defensor noster aspice, You who are our shield, behold; Insidiantes reprime, Restrain those that lie in wait. Guberna tuos famulos, And guide your servants whom Quos sanguine mercatus es. You have ransomed with your blood. Memento nostri Domine Remember us, O Lord, In gravi isto corpore, Who bear the burden of this mortal form; Qui es defensor animae, You who are the defender of the soul, Adesto nobis Domine. Be near us, O Lord. Deo Patri sit gloria, Glory be to God the Father, Eiusque soli Filio, And to his only Son, Cum Spiritu Paraclito, With the Spirit, Comforter, Et nunc et in perpetuum. Amen. Both now and evermore. Amen. Compline hymn Come, sable night, put on thy mourning stole, and help Amyntas sadly to condole. Behold, the sun hath shut his golden eye, the day is spent, and shades fair lights supply. All things in sweet repose their labours close; Only Amyntas wastes his hours in wailing, whilst all his hopes do faint, and life is failing.