George Kirbye's Clemens parody

Abstract

The recent appearance of an anthology of Jacobean Latin motets edited by Ross W. Duffin in the RRMR series focuses attention on a little-explored repertory of English music. Although the motet went into decline in the years following the death of William Byrd, there are some accomplished and interesting Jacobean and Caroline examples which repay study. George Kirbye’s two surviving motets (Quare tristis es (a4) and Vox in Rama (a6)) are among the most distinguished examples of the Jacobean motet repertory. The second of these is of particular interest, because it turns out to be closely modelled on the setting of the same text by Clemens non Papa, published by Ulhard in Augsburg in 1549. Kirbye’s motet, which survives in an incomplete set of manuscript partbooks (GB-Ob Tenbury 087-11), takes up all the main imitative points of the modal and elaborates them, removing the modal ambiguity in the original and applying techniques which Kirbye had apparently learnt from his study of the works of Byrd and the elder Ferrabosco. Kirbye’s setting, which may have been designed as a response to Weelkes’s Laboravi in gemitu meo (a6), also adds something to our knowledge of Clemens reception in England.