Abstract
William Mundy's ‘Vox patris caelestis’ must rank as one of the most opulent votive antiphons of the Marian period, not just musically, but also in terms of its text. Written for the feast of the Assumption, presumably at the Church of St Mary at Hill in the City of London, it is an extraordinarily lavish peroration from the Almighty to his spouse, the Virgin Mary. As Kerry McCarthy has shown, it is an extended trope on the Assumption Office antiphon ‘Tota pulchra es’, and one that uses frankly erotic language. Passages quote from the Song of Songs (not an especially common text in English music of the 16th century) and give them an extra personal touch: ‘the voice of the turtledove, which is my—your sweetest of lovers—only desire in your embrace, is heard in our land which rejoices at such a sound’. Commentators have not always been kind about the...
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