English Church Music Research Articles

Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary According to the Use of Salisbury,I:Introduction and Choir Book;II:Priest's Book, Directory and Ordinal, ed. John Harper with Sally Harper and Matthew Cheung Salisbury, Early English Church Music 59–60. London: Stainer & Bell for the British Academy, 2019. lxxxvi + 392 pp. £165. ISMN 979 0 2202 2556 7, ISBN 978 0 85249 937 3,

Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary According to the Use of Salisbury, I: Introduction and Choir Book; II: Priest's Book, Directory and Ordinal, ed. John Harper with Sally Harper and Matthew Cheung Salisbury, Early English Church Music 59–60. London: Stainer & Bell for the British Academy, 2019. lxxxvi + 392 pp. £165. ISMN 979 0 2202 2556 7, ISBN 978 0 85249 937 3, ISSN 0424 0359. - Volume 30 Issue 1

O Sing Unto the Lord: A History of English Church Music

O Sing Unto the Lord: A History of English Church Music

William J. Summers and Peter M. Lefferts, English Thirteenth-Century Polyphony: A Facsimile Edition. (Early English Church Music 57.) London: Stainer and Bell for the British Academy, 2016. Pp. 53; many color plates. £180. ISBN: 978-0-85249-940-5.

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsWilliam J. Summers and Peter M. Lefferts, English Thirteenth-Century Polyphony: A Facsimile Edition. (Early English Church Music 57.) London: Stainer and Bell for the British Academy, 2016. Pp. 53; many color plates. £180. ISBN: 978-0-85249-940-5.Gillian L. GowerGillian L. GowerUniversity of California, Los Angeles Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 94, Number 1January 2019 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/700705 Views: 46Total views on this site Copyright 2019 by the Medieval Academy of America. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

O Sing unto the Lord: A History of English Church Music. By Andrew Gant. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. x + 454 pp. $35.00 hardcover.

O Sing unto the Lord: A History of English Church Music. By Andrew Gant. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. x + 454 pp. $35.00 hardcover.

Fifteenth-Century Settings of the Gloria and Credo

FIFTEENTH-CENTURY SETTINGS OF THE GLORIA AND CREDOFifteenth-Century Liturgical Music VIII: Settings of the Gloria and Credo. Transcribed and Edited by Peter Wright. (Early English Church Music, 55.) London: Published for the British Academy by Stainer & Bell, 2013. [Foreword, p. v; acknowledgements, p. vi; contents, p. vii-viii; abbrevs. & list of plates, p. ix; introd., p. xi-xxiv; score, p. 1-303. ISMN 979-0-2202-2349-5, ISBN 978-0-85249-933-7. £95.]Anonymous music, especially polyphonic music from before 1600, creates endless problems for the musicologist. Unlike paintings, there are no x-rays to reveal ear- lier layers of composition, or paint pig- ments to analyze via mass spectrometry. The tools for analyzing stylistic features re- main unrefined, compared to the elegant assessments of brush strokes, perspective, color, and narrative typical of art history. For fifteenth-century Latin music, musicol- ogists rely on large-scale markers including genre, mensuration, text distribution, and cantus firmus treatment to determine the origins of anonymous works. This is true for English music, which retained distinc- tive characteristics even as it circulated anonymously across Europe, often with the ascription Anglicanus or de Anglia. During the same period, virtually no music from the Continent was copied in England itself.These circumstances inform Peter Wright's impressive edition of individual Gloria and Credo movements for the series Early English Church Music. The volume is divided in four parts: complete settings of the Gloria and Credo, followed by fragmen- tary settings of the Gloria and Credo. Only five of the nineteen complete works have composer attributions, to which Wright provisionally adds two more. Three of the twenty-nine incomplete settings survive with attributions. The edition prefaces each work with an editorial commentary that in- cludes easy-to-read critical notes, plainsong cantus firmi, and an individual discussion of text setting. In keeping with the current editorial policy of the series, the music is rendered in diplomatic notation, but tran- scribed in score, to the extent of displaying coloration and conflicting mensurations among voices, of which there are many. Each part has measure markers to denote the length of one breve. Because mensural notation is contextual in orientation, the length of individual notes and the coordi- nation among voices are shown by their rel- ative spacing on the page. Conceptually, this editorial method offers a strong visual representation of the separate, yet interde- pendent voices that sound in performance.The parameters of the edition-the de- termination of which settings are English- are based on the work of a small cadre of scholars, notably Brian Trowell (Music un- der the Later Plantagenets [Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge, 1960]), Charles Hamm (A Catalogue of Anonymous English Music in Fifteenth-Century Conti- nental Manuscripts, Musica Disciplina 22 [1968]: 47-76), Gareth R. K. Curtis (Stylistic Layers in the English Mass c. 1400-1450, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 109 [1982-83]: 23-38), and Andrew Wathey (Gareth R. K. Curtis and Andrew Wathey, Fifteenth- Century English Liturgical Music: A List of the Surviving Repertory, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 27 [1994]: 1-69). It is disappointing that the introduc- tion sidesteps a discussion of thirteen ex- cluded works, which are listed only in foot- note 27. As Wright notes, however, views of what defines a musical composition as English are bound to change as our un- derstanding of English style increases (p. xiv). It is to this understanding that the edition makes its greatest contribution.The inclusion of the twenty-eight frag- ments is important from a historical point of view; all occur in sources of English provenance. Of these, only Gloria no. 27 has questionable origins. A single voice part in alto clef, it possesses a bouncy tune- fulness more characteristic of Latin music from Italy. …

The Gyffard Partbooks, 1 and 2 (review)

A SIGNIFICANT SOURCE OF ENGLISH POLYPHONY The Gyffard Partbooks, 1 and 2. Transcribed and edited by David Mateer. 2 vols. (Early English Church Music, 48, 51.) London: Published for British Academy by Stainer and Bell, 2007-9. [Vol. 1: Foreword, p. [v]; contents, p. [vii-viii]; introd., p. ix-xv; score (with crit. notes preceding each work), p. 1-314. Vol. 2: Foreword, p. [v]; acknowledgements, p. [vi]; contents, p. [vi-vii]; introd., p. ix-xv; score (with crit. notes preceding each work), p. 1-256. ISMN M-2202-2160-6, ISBN 978-0-85249-892-7 (vol. 1); ISMN M-979-0-2202-2234-4 [sic], ISBN 978-0-85249-910-8 (vol. 2). £70 each vol.] One of most important sources of Tudor music, Gyffard partbooks (British Library Add. Mss. 17802-5) contain, as editor David Mateer describes (1:ix), broad and representative selection of sacred Latin polyphony produced in England just before Reformation. Given editorial decision to omit from these two volumes those works from Gyffard partbooks that have already appeared in composer-based volumes of Early English Church Music (EECM)-everything by Taverner and Tye, for example-the present edition might perhaps be more accurately described as selections from Gyffard partbooks. The decision to reproduce remainder of works in manuscript order is an excellent one that stays close to source itself. Noting where works previously published in EECM volumes would appear in a complete, continuous edition of partbooks would be a welcome inclusion, however, if only in table of contents. This would allow readers a complete overview of content and organization of source, which one would assume is reason for presenting editions in manuscript order. Mateer's introductory essay dates manuscripts to relatively late window of the 1570s and early 1580s (1:x). By relying heavily on watermarks, biographical evidence, and ownership of manuscripts, he dispels common misconceptions and flawed theories that date sources to 1550s, and offers more recent dates as a convincing alternative. In tracing Gyffard partbooks' provenance and ownership, Mateer offers an engaging narrative that also draws reader into a world of political intrigue in both government and academy. He begins by disputing early attributions of partbooks' ownership to a certain Dr. Philip Gyffard, asserting that this incorporeal figure (1:x) was a conjuration of misinterpreted evidence. Instead, a flesh-and-blood Dr. Roger Gifford (ca. 1536-1597) is identified as likely owner of partbooks, and his biography fills bulk of introduction. Mateer compares Gifford's biography to repertoire contained in each layer of partbooks, linking Gifford's time in Oxford to earliest layer of manuscripts. The second layer contains many works by composers working in or connected to London; Gifford was appointed one of Censors of Royal College of Physicians there in 1570. Mateer successfully links repertoire of final layer to social circles in which Gifford traveled, in spite of challenges presented by large number of anonymous works. The scribes of Gyffard partbooks cannot yet be identified conclusively, but editor suggests that Roger Gifford was not one of them (though he likely instructed them on what repertoire to copy), pointing to Latin mistakes that learned doctor would certainly not have made. He identifies two scribes, second of whom likely began work on partbooks much later than first. The discussion that follows details qualities of both hands and role each scribe played in text underlay, music copying, and other responsibilities. Taken as a whole, introduction provides a compact overview of Gyffard partbooks and their contents, as well as a persuasive argument for rethinking dating, provenance, and ownership of manuscripts. …

Studies in English Church Music, 1550–1900 (review)

Studies in English Church Music, 1550–1900 (review)

Medieval polyphony in technicolour

The editorial board of Early English Church Music has celebrated the publication of its 50th volume by producing a lavish colour facsimile of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Ms.473. Familiarly (and appropriately, as Susan Rankin shows) known as the Winchester Troper, the manuscript contains a tonary together with a repertory of alleluias, Proper and Ordinary tropes, sequences, proses, and organa for the Mass and Office of the Old Minster, Winchester. Rankin dates the main copying of the manuscript to the 1020s and 1030s on the basis of palaeographical evidence, and traces subsequent layers of emendation and addition through to the early 12th century. The value of the facsimile speaks for itself. The openings are reproduced in high-quality colour photographs at life-size (with two openings reproduced per page of the large-format book, but with sufficient white space between them that there is no visual confusion). This would, even without any introduction, be a hugely valued resource for scholars in the field as well as being appreciated by those who value sumptuous presentations of beautiful medieval artefacts.

Who is the Father? Changing Perceptions of Tallis and Byrd in Late Nineteenth-Century England

The extensive prefatory material of the Cantiones sacrae of 1575 casts Tallis and Byrd jointly as the parents of English music, but during the nineteenth century Tallis’s position as ‘Father of English Church Music’ was undisputed, while Byrd’s music was relatively neglected. The turn of the twentieth century, however, saw the beginning of a re-evaluation of the respective merits of the two composers. This article examines the nineteenth-century reception of Tallis and Byrd, paying particular attention to the change in attitude that occurred towards the end of the century, and to the role of Roman Catholicism in the early twentieth-century Byrd revival.

William Byrd and his Contemporaries: Essays and a Monograph. By Philip Brett and ed. by Joseph Kerman and Davitt Moroney.

The original purpose of this collection of the late Philip Brett's writings was to amalgamate the remarkable series of prefaces that he had published in the five volumes devoted to the Gradualia in the Byrd Edition (BE). These contained a wealth of research and insights, much of the impact of which was dissipated, because what was relevant to a particular volume had to be presented along with matters that needed to be repeated in each. Brett himself had been contemplating a monograph bringing all this material together. The ‘monograph’ contained in the present book is the response of the editors, both long-standing friends and associates of his, to this idea. The opportunity was then taken to reprint a selection of his scattered essays on music of the period to form the first half of the compilation. The editors contribute a preface in which they show well how the various strands in Brett's life and work as musician, scholar, and activist related to one another. At one point they remark that it is as an editor that he will principally be remembered in Renaissance studies, and indeed nearly all his articles arose from or were connected with his editorial work. They form a somewhat disparate group, but their value individually makes their easier accessibility in book form very welcome. Brett's research originated in preparation for his doctoral dissertation ‘The Songs of William Byrd’ (University of Cambridge, 1965), undertaken under the eye of Thurston Dart. As a necessary preliminary he scored up virtually the whole surviving repertory of consort songs. Those not by Byrd were later published in Musica Britannica (MB) 22, one of the invaluable volumes in that series, and in Early English Church Music, presenting repertories in various genres comprehensively, and so making informed study of the period possible. It contains some seventy songs, and he followed it up with a like number by Byrd in BE 15 and 16.

More on the Lambeth Choirbook

InEM, xxxiii/1 (Feb 2005), p.155, Dr David Skinner wondered about the reasoning informing some observations arising tangentially in the course of my review of Early English Church Music, xliii (Robert Fayrfax I: O bone Iesu, ed. Roger Bray), published in EM, xxxii/3 (Aug 2004), pp.471–3. These concerned the provenance of the Lambeth Choirbook; the identification of the category of liturgical use intended for the anonymous setting of Resurrexio Christi; and the origins of the composition by Robert Fayrfax of his Mass, Magnificat and antiphon O bone Iesu. Only brief comments are possible here; I hope to amplify my response to the first and third into journal articles in due course, fully annotated and referenced. In short, however: (1) there can be found no good reasons whatever to associate the Lambeth Choirbook with either Arundel College or Edward Higgons; (2) there appear to be no good reasons to believe that Resurrexio Christi was created to be an ‘elevation motet’, rather than a simple votive antiphon; and (3) there appear to be no good grounds for belief that the London Fraternity of the Holy Name of Jesus had anything to do with Fayrfax's creation of his three O bone Iesu pieces.

The arcane colours of Fayrfax

One of Tudor England's most eminent composers, Robert Fayrfax (1464–1521), is at last fully emerging from the shadows, thanks to a variety of recent enterprises. First came a series of recordings of his complete works, sung by The Cardinall's Musick and issued on the ASV label during the later 1990s. In 2003 the Roxburghe Club published a luxurious full-colour facsimile of The Arundel Choirbook (better known as the ‘Lambeth Choirbook’; London, Lambeth Palace Library, Ms.1), in which most of Fayrfax's sacred music is to be found. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Roger Bray has long been at work on these same pieces, editing them for the series Early English Church Music. Volume 1 of his edition was welcomed in this journal last year (see Roger Bowers's review in EM, xxxii/3 (Aug 2004), pp.471–3), and volume 2 must now be greeted with equal warmth—not only for its own sake, but also for the way it complements the other enterprises. With recordings, facsimile and editions all now readily to hand, the resources needed to explore Fayrfax's music could hardly be bettered.

John Taverner: His Life and Music (review)

John Taverner: His Life and Music. By Hugh Benham. Burlington, VT: Ashgate , 2003. [xvii, 332 p. ISBN 0-7546-0142-0. $94.95.] Music examples, illustrations, notes, appendices, bibliography, index. John Taverner (ca. 1490-1545) gained a degree of unexpected notoriety in the twentieth century when Sir Peter Maxwell Davies wrote his opera Taverner based on the Tudor composer's life. While biographical clarification was not the result of that work, the long-term interest in Taverner's music was affirmed. Hugh Benham, arguably one of the most notable Taverner scholars, has provided an intensely detailed study of Taverner's music in the publication under review. While this monograph can stand alone, its strength is increased when used in conjunction with volumes 20, 25, 30, 35, and 36 of Early English Church Music (London: Stainer & Bell, 1962- ) in which the full musical scores edited by Benham can be found. Directed at the informed amateur, student, and scholar, this publication will also find a welcome place in the hands of choral directors who seek to present informed and accurate performances of Taverner's music. In this publication, Benham places emphasis on the music with only one chapter devoted to biographical material. While this may seem a shortcoming, detailed information regarding Taverner's life is simply not available. For example, an exact birth date cannot be established. Nonetheless, it is known that he was born in Lincolnshire where he received a good musical education and established his reputation. This, ultimately, led him to a musical position in the highly regarded Cardinal's (now known as Christ Church) College, Oxford that was under the direct patronage of Cardinal Wolsey, who was, until his demise, arguably the most influential and powerful figure in England aside from the king. While there, he became indirectly involved in a Lutheran controversy connected with singers he had recruited from Lincolnshire. Subsequently, after Wolsey's fall from favor, and as a result of the lack of financial support given to Cardinal's College, Taverner returned to Lincolnshire. There he became successfully involved in music and also became a civic leader. Under Henry VIII, life in England was uncertain due to the political climate, itself inseparable from the religious pluralism that was evolving as a result of the religious reformation taking place in Europe. In the present publication, Benham does not deal with this at any length. While this exclusion does not diminish the value of the book in any way, it would have been helpful to have a summary of the social, political, and religious uncertainty of the time in order to better contextualize Taverner's life and music. As it is, this information will have to be found elsewhere in a work such as G. R. Elton's book on the Tudors (G. R. Elton, England Under The Tudors, 2d. ed. [London: Methuen, 1974]). Conversely, the author may assume that the reader already has this knowledge. Organizationally, the book is divided into two large sections. Chapters 1 through 5 provide a background against which details of style and technique are discussed in chapters 6 through 12. The introduction gives a concise synopsis of each of the chapters and Benham's editorial policy regarding music examples, Latin translations, spelling, manuscript references, and collected editions. Preceding the introduction are complete lists of plates, tables, music examples with measure numbers from the relevant score editions, and abbreviations including library sigla. Performance issues are clearly addressed by dealing with such questions as modern editions, pitch, reduced passages for semi-chorus and chorus, as well as the lack of evidence about sixteenth-century rehearsal techniques, tempi, time signatures, text underlay, and Latin pronunciation. …

Early Masses and Mass-Pairs (review)

Reviewed by: Early Masses and Mass-Pairs J. Michael Allsen Early Masses and Mass-Pairs. Transcribed and edited by Gareth Curtis . ( Fifteenth-Century Liturgical Music, 4.) ( Early English Church Music, 42.) London: Published for the British Academy by Stainer and Bell, c 2001. [Foreword ( John Caldwell ), 1 p.; acknowledgments, 1 p.; contents, 1 p; introd., p. ix–xiii; scores (each preceded by sources and crit. notes), p. 1–177 Cloth. ISMN M-2202-1931-3; ISBN 0-85249-846-2. £55.] This volume of early Masses and Mass-pairs edited by Gareth Curtis is the start of a new editorial direction, and a distinctly new "look" for the venerable series Early English Church Music, inaugurated in 1963 with John D. Bergsagel's edition of the first volume of Early Tudor Masses (London: Stainer and Bell) to make available church music by British composers of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in a form designed to serve both scholarly and practical needs. The series is intended to complete the publication in modern editions of all early sacred music in Britain from the Norman Conquest to the Commonwealth. (vol. 1 of series, p. iv) Since then, Early English Church Music has proved to be a valuable resource for students and performers of this music, providing a clear and well-edited entry into this large repertory. The first forty-one volumes comprise many subseries, including five volumes devoted to the sacred music of John Taverner (ca. 1490-1545) and six to Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656). Curtis's new volume is a continuation of another of these subseries devoted broadly to fifteenth-century liturgical music. These volumes, including Curtis's previous edition of the Brussels Masses from the manuscript Bibliothèque Royale Albert 1er 5557 (Early English Church Music, 34; hereinafter EECM), as well as two volumes published much earlier (Antiphons and Music for Holy Week and Easter, ed. Andrew Hughes, EECM, 8 [1968] and Four Anonymous Masses, ed. Margaret Bent, EECM, 22 [1979]), cover repertory that would otherwise fall through the cracks of editions of collected works and monuments devoted to a single manuscript: anonymous and occasionally fragmentary music, as well as works by composers who are largely unknown aside from a piece or two. With the exception of a single volume devoted to facsimiles of late medieval fragments (Manuscripts of Fourteenth Century English Polyphony: A Selection of Facsimiles, ed. Frank Llewellyn Harrison and Roger Wibberley, EECM, 26 [1981]), and the recent edition of Thomas Morley's (1557/8- 1602) Services edited by John Morehen (EECM, 41 [1998]), the series has heretofore been weighted toward the "practical." Volumes appeared in a roughly octavo-size [End Page 219] format in paper covers, with large, clear typography eminently suited for singers. The music itself was presented in modern notation and clefs, with bar lines, two-to-one or four-to-one reductions of note values, and the standard equipment of scholarly editions (brackets above ligatures, barring that reflects modus-level notation, etc.). Though each volume included a full critical apparatus, and occasionally appendices with plainchant sources, the music itself seems to have been set out primarily with performance in mind. Many of the volumes, for example, include a keyboard reduction to facilitate rehearsal and performance. Along with Morehen's Morley edition, Curtis's Early Masses and Mass-Pairs represents a new style for Early English Church Music editions (see Lionel Pike's review of the Morley in Notes 58, no 1 [September 2001]: 176-79). It is a weighty, large-format (9" X 12.5"), hardcover volume. Critical notes are now integrated into the edition, directly preceding each piece or set of pieces. The most important change, however, is in the method for transcribing the works. While score format and modern treble and bass clefs are retained, the music itself appears in the original mensural notation. In his foreword to the edition, John Caldwell, general editor of Early English Church Music, explains this change in editorial procedure (p. v): It was widely felt that traditional methods of transcription . . . were no longer adequate to convey the essential nature of this freely flowing yet mensurally disciplined music. In these new editions, note-values will be unreduced, the...

Early English Masses

An extended review of Fifteenth-century liturgical music, iv: Early Masses and Mass pairs, ed. Gareth Curtis, Early English Church Music, xlii (London: Stainer & Bell, for the British Academy, 2001), £55

Fifteenth-Century English Liturgical Music: A List of the Surviving Repertory

The Early English Church Music Committee of the British Academy plans a series of volumes devoted to the music of the fifteenth century, to be supervised by a separate sub-committee. While not constituting a publication list as such, the present enterprise has been commissioned to facilitate the speedier publication of this repertory. Hence, its purpose is to assemble as full as possible a catalogue of the surviving liturgical music that is now thought to be (or has, with varying degrees of certainty, been thought to be) English or to have been written in England. Accordingly, it draws on the work of a considerable number of scholars. The compilers wish to acknowledge the contributions generously made by other members of the EECM fifteenth-century sub-committee, and they also extend a fervent invitation to others to contribute further.

MUSIC

MUSIC Get access English Anthems; Liturgical Music THOMAS MORLEY Transcribed and edited by John Morehen Stainer e Bell, London, 1991 (Early English Church Music, xxxviii), £45 Judith Blezzard Judith Blezzard Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Early Music, Volume XX, Issue 3, August 1992, Pages 492–493, https://doi.org/10.1093/earlyj/XX.3.492 Published: 01 August 1992

MUSIC

MUSIC Get access Five-part Masses JOHN TAVERNER Edited by Hugh Benham stainer and Bell, London, 1990 (Early English Church Music, xxxvi), £50 Roger Bray Roger Bray Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Early Music, Volume XIX, Issue 1, February 1991, Pages 124–125, https://doi.org/10.1093/earlyj/XIX.1.124 Published: 01 February 1991

MUSIC

Journal Article MUSIC Get access Ritual Music and Lamentations ROBERT WHITE Edited by David Mateer Stainer & Bell, London. 1986 (Early English Church Music, xxxii), £39.50 Judith Blezzard Judith Blezzard Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Early Music, Volume XV, Issue 2, May 1987, Pages 271–272, https://doi.org/10.1093/earlyj/XV.2.271 Published: 01 May 1987

Music

Journal Article Music Get access Musica Deo Sacra IV THOMAS TOMKINS Edited by Bernard Rose Stainer & Bell, London, 1982 (Early English Church Music, 27), £26.25 DENIS STEVENS DENIS STEVENS Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Early Music, Volume 11, Issue 4, October 1983, Pages 553–556, https://doi.org/10.1093/earlyj/11.4.553 Published: 01 October 1983