Programme at Greenwich Early Music Festival 2004
Ergo laudes John Taverner
Du mal que j'ay Philip van Wilder
Though Amaryllis dance in green William Byrd
A major discovery during the project has been the music of Philip van Wilder (d1553). Van Wilder rose to an important position in the court of Henry VIII, being a gentleman of the privy chamber as well as director of music, chief administrator, organiser of the chapel choir and tutor to both Princess Mary and Prince Edward. Of course being a foreigner, he was less of a threat to Henry, having no English noble family members to advance at court, but he made the most of his opportunities and died a wealthy man, even taking English nationality in order to qualify for owning land. And on top of all this he was a composer to be reckoned with, both in his chansons and his sacred choral works. This is an opinion obviously shared by his contemporaries as an anonymous elegy was published in 1557 in Tottel's Miscellany extolling his virtues. The songs we are performing today have all been published recently by the Lute Society and are available from their stand
.
Included in this collection is an untexted piece, to which we have set the above-mentioned poem as a tribute to van Wilder.
The music by Willam Byrd in the programme is all represented in the Paston books and we have been told that our recording of the two consort songs is a premiere, and that The nightingale so pleasant has only previously been recorded on vinyl.
We make no such claims or excuses for ending with Holborne, but doesn't everyone? We hope you enjoy the programme.
Sunday November 14th
The Power of Music behind the Throne
The nightingale so pleasant William Byrd
Prostrate, O Lord, I lie William Byrd
Lord, in thy wrath, rebuke me not William Byrd
Nam qui corde John Taverner
Pour vous aymer Philip van Wilder
Pour vous aymer (lute solo) Philip van Wilder
L'homme banni Philip van Wilder
Je file Philip van Wilder
Je file (organ solo) Philip van Wilder
Bewaile with me
words from Tottel's Miscellany, music by Philip van Wilder
The faerie-round Anthony Holborne
The programme
The music performed today forms part of Cantiones Renovatae's current programme, Paston Present, which is based around music found in the Paston Lute Books. Edward Paston (1550 – 1630) was an amateur lutenist who copied out a vast amount of music, much of which was not intended for lute, including madrigals, mass extracts, motets, in nomines, consort songs, solo songs and fantasies. A lot of it was arranged for the lute with the top part missing, so that it could accompany singers. The pieces by Taverner are included to reflect one end of the wide range of music which Paston included, taking short snippets out of a mass simply because they were in three parts,
completely out of context. Very few of Paston's arrangements have to-date been published. Our project is an attempt to recreate some of the music as it might have been performed to the lute by Paston and his friends, using whichever instruments and voices were to hand. Indeed most of the pieces have undergone transformations according to how many people we have in the group for each performance, as indeed must have been the case in the Paston household.
Return to Home Page
Bewaile with me all ye that have profest,
Of musicke tharte by touch of coarde or winde:
Laye downe your lutes and let your gitterns rest,
Phillips is dead whose like you can not finde
Of musicke much exceadyng all the rest.
Muses therfore of force now must you wrest
Your pleasant notes into an other sounde,
The string is broke, the lute is dispossest,
The hand is colde, the bodye in the grounde.
The lowring lute lamenteth now therfore,
Phillips her frende that can her touche no more.
Poem in praise of van Wilder from Tottel's Miscellany
GREENWICH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF EARLY MUSIC
Friday November 11th, 2005 Admiral's Room, 3pm
Tregian's Underground - a look at "What the dissolution did for us" and an introduction to music produced by Roman Catholic composers under a Protestant rule
As I went to Walsingham (trad)
Walsingham (lute solo) (Francis Cutting)
Up I arose (anon)
In nomine (John Taverner)
Ecce tempus idoneum (Thomas Tallis)
Ecce tempus idoneum (Thomas Tallis)
Weep, weep O Walsingham (trad)
Allemanda Tregian (Peter Phillips)
Aria del Gran Duca (Peter Philips)
The noble famous queen (William Byrd)
Tregian's Ground (organ solo) (William Byrd)
Time's eldest son (John Dowland)
When griping griefs (Richard Edwards)
The Background to the Programme
Henry VIII’s break from Rome, despite its non-religious origin, had far-reaching consequences for musicians throughout the rest of the century. Some of these were disastrous at a practical level, such as loss of earnings and the curtailing of liberties, but some were the catalyst for a surge in musical composition for the Catholic rites, despite the “underground” nature of having to be performed in private. The story of Francis Tregian, a devout Catholic and musician, being incarcerated in the Fleet Prison and producing the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book is legendary, if not entirely accurate. What is clear, however, is that by far the majority of composers represented have Catholic connections, some dangerously so. What is also significant is that the innocent little folk song with which we begin our programme, with verses too numerous to be performed here, appears at the start in the Fitzwilliam, not just as a pretty tune on which to write variations, but as a focus for all that the shrine of Walsingham had represented to the followers of the old faith, as the words of the second, later version of the song, testify. The Henrician ditty Up I arose was typical of the songs and stories about how corrupt the clergy were, and therefore ripe for reform. The Taverner and Tallis pieces redress the balance for the Roman side, the In nomine taken from Taverner’s own Gloria Tibi Trinitas mass and the Tallis piece written for the first Vespers of the 3 rd Sunday in Lent. Incidentally Tallis is buried in Greenwich! The two short instrumental pieces are taken from the Tregian manuscripts. Peter Philips fled from England in 1582, according to his documentation, “pour la foy Catholique”, to go to the English College in Rome, where he was joined by another refugee, Lord Thomas Paget, to whom he also dedicated music. It is not clear whether Tregian composed his “Ground”, or whether it was another dedication. The Noble Famous Queen is better known as While Phoebus us’d to Dwell, the words here referring to Mary Queen of Scots, put to death for her suspected treason by Elizabeth, appearing solely in the Paston manuscript. Both Tallis and Byrd managed to avoid too much open religious controversy whilst maintaining their own Catholic faith. Dowland, having failed to gain a post as one of the Queen’s lutenists, went travelling to Florence and became involved with a group of exiled Catholics plotting the assassination of the queen. Sensibly, he left them to it and it is believed that he repeated all he knew to the English court presumably in hopes of advancing his career (which never really happened), despite his avowed Catholic sympathies. Richard Edwards’ plaintive song, When Griping Griefs, with its powerful words and diminished octave leap in the melody, sums up what seems to have been the philosophy of Catholics forced to go underground during these troubled times:
Of troubled minds in every sore,
Sweete musicke hath a salve in store.
Preface to this Edition
The previous mention of choral conductors could give the false impression that these pieces have limited uses. Bearing in mind that the words were most probably written in exile and that no doubt plenty of clandestine psalm singing went on, it would be perfectly valid to try them with solo singers, some parts played instrumentally, a mixture of both, or with the tenor line sung either by a soloist with instruments or by the people at both octaves with the other parts around it, as suggested in the first edition:
hec quicunque legis, tu flexu et acumine vocis
And if ye spie: as much ye may,
But reade it round: and hacke it not,
Accent in place your voice as needth,
Reade oft inough: well spell the lyne,
But princepall thing: your lute to tune,
an instrument so namde:
For that the psalmes; most commonly,
to it were tuned and framed.
I have placed the bar lines so that even those choral conductors who are least familiar with renaissance music cannot fail to put the word stresses in the correct place. This has resulted in a great diversity of bar lengths. This in its turn has resulted in none of the pieces having a time signature, which is a good thing. Original note values have been retained. All we have to remember is that a minim is a minim (unless it's a semibreve), to go with the rhythm of the words, and stop counting!
Psalm 95 / the Fourth Tune
Psalm 42 / the Fift Tune
Psalm 5 / the Sixt Tune
The eyghte goeth milde: in modest pace
Another famous tune, known as Tallis' Canon. This version from the Psalter retains the false relations never heard in its modern counterpart.
in numeros numeros doctis accentibus effer,
affectusque impone legens, distinctio sensum
auget, et ignavis dant intervalla vigorem.
To the Reader
Of thee good frend: thus much I crave,
These few requestes I say:
No browes to bend: but first withsave,
To judge by like assay.
Where strayed amisse I have:
To mend where I went out of way,
With art more sad and grave.
As jumbling short with long:
Expresse them sound: and racke them not,
As learners use among.
Note number, poynte and time:
Both lyfe and grace good reading breedth,
Flat verse it reysth sublime.
Observe the trayne: the ceasure marke,
To rest with note in close,
Rhythme dogrell playne: as dogs do barke,
Ye make it els to lose.
Less jarr to heare by use:
If verse be rough, no fault is myne,
If ye the ear abuse.
That hart may sing in corde:
Your voyce and string, so fine to prune,
To love and serve the Lorde.
Kathleen Berg 2006