Taverner: Sacred Choral Music

John Taverner

Sacr ed Chor al Music

Missa Corona spinea Leroy Kyrie Dum transisset Sabbatum I & II O splendor glorie

The Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh Duncan Ferguson

John Taverner (c.1490–1545): Sacred Chor al Music The Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh Duncan Ferguson 1

Dum transisset Sabbatum

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Leroy Kyrie

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Missa Corona spinea 3 Gloria 4 Credo 5 Sanctus 6 Agnus Dei

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Dum transisset Sabbatum (II)

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O splendor glorie

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Total playing time

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Recorded on 14-17 September 2009 in St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh by kind permission of the Provost Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter 24-bit digital editing: Adam Binks 24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter Photography © Colin Dickson Design: John Christ, www.johnchristdesign.com Booklet editor: John Fallas Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.co.uk Thanks are due to St Mary’s Cathedral Music Society

Notes on the music John Taverner is today regarded as the composer who brought the English florid style to its culmination and final flowering, and though he was essentially a local figure, he was able to produce music that bears comparison with any of the early sixteenth century’s continental masters. Following the deaths of Robert Fayrfax and William Cornysh at the beginning of the decade, Taverner stands alone as the English composer of the 1520s. As can be said of the greatest composers, his musical output viewed retrospectively represents not only the culmination of one period but also the beginning of something new. In the 1530s, Tye, Tallis, and Sheppard were all influenced

by Taverner and led English music into its next stage of development amidst the great religious upheavals of their time. Even when the reputations of Tallis and Byrd surpassed those of all other English composers living and dead, Taverner’s music still had its place.

Philip Brett has shown how Byrd pursued a homage to Taverner in his own mass composition at the end of the sixteenth century,1 while Taverner’s most lasting and triumphant legacy was to inspire an entirely new musical genre, the In Nomine, a form of composition which proved extremely popular with generations of composers up to and including Henry Purcell.

1 Philip Brett, ‘Homage to Taverner in Byrd’s Masses’, Early Music ix (1981).

Taverner was born around 1490 in Boston, Lincolnshire. Because biographical details are sketchy, exaggerations and false assumptions have been made about his life. The first definite reference dates from 1524/5, when he was employed as lay clerk at the Collegiate Church of Holy Trinity Tattershall. It was only after considerable persuasion that he put the good marriage he was assured of on hold to accept an offer from Bishop Longland of Lincoln to direct the choir at Wolsey’s new choral foundation, Cardinal College, Oxford, which opened its doors to scholars in October 1526. It was probably while in this role as director of the college choir that the majority of his music was written, although it is reasonable to assume that he continued some composition when he left Oxford in April 1530. By this stage the immense resources Wolsey had thrown at his new institution had started to crumble, a natural and inevitable result of Wolsey’s own demise in the court of Henry VIII and subsequent arrest in 1529.

Taverner returned to Boston as a member (probably informator choristarum) of the choir maintained in the parish church by the Guild of St Mary, but there are no records of his musical activities here or elsewhere beyond 1537. Nonetheless, few church composers can have been held in such high esteem in their local community in the sixteenth century, and he was elected an alderman in his district shortly before his death in 1545.

One of the few established ‘facts’ is Taverner’s correspondence in the 1530s with Henry’s chief minister and advocate of religious reform, Thomas Cromwell. The surviving letters detail Taverner’s role in implementing official decrees to oversee the destruction of the parish church’s rood screen, a requirement that was being made of churchmen across the country in the sweeping reforms taking place in the later years of Henry’s reign.

Coupled with John Foxe’s claim (some forty years after Taverner’s death) that the composer came to ‘repent him very much the popish ditties of his youth’, the assumption has been made that Taverner was a fervent religious reformer, who abandoned the composition of sacred polyphony at the end of the 1520s.

For the reformers, polyphonic music was bound up with all the ceremony and ritual of Roman practice. In this context it is also worth noting that Taverner’s music was among the first to be adapted to English texts in the 1540s, albeit not by Taverner himself, thereby serving as an example of how music could serve the reformed religion and meet Cranmer’s stipulation that there should be ‘as near as may be, for every syllable a note’.

That the bulk of Taverner’s compositional output dates from his early years might however more accurately reflect his immense success (not least financial) in Oxford, and a desire finally to marry and to return to

Notes on the music Lincolnshire. The expressions of concern which we can see in his surviving letters for the well-being of friars and monks are not a trait that would be expected of an extreme enthusiast for religious reform. The possibility of some compositions from his later years being lost should also be considered, and it seems improbable that the Catholic William Byrd would choose to quote a well-known Protestant reformer in the masses he composed in the 1590s for private performance by recusants, away from the ears of the Elizabethan establishment. Rather, Taverner seems to have been a pragmatist, keeping up with the mood of change and adapting as necessary, thereby keeping favour with the ruling elite as generations of composers had had to do and as would increasingly become a necessity for composers through the religious turmoil and insecurity of the sixteenth century.

It is worth viewing the works on this recording in the context of Taverner as a champion of sacred music and often as an innovator, too: often shaping a musical response to changing religious priorities, and influencing later composers in the process. His two settings of the Easter Matins Respond Dum transisset are the earliest known musical treatments of this text, of which Tye, Sheppard and Tallis all subsequently composed their own settings.

Taverner’s first setting is his most famous work today. With its chordal writing, brief

imitative points, equality of voices, and sense of harmonic cohesion throughout, the piece sounds rather more familiar to modern ears than some of Taverner’s other music. The text tells of Mary Magdalene and Mary the Mother of James heading to the tomb on the third day to anoint the body of Jesus: we know, of course, that they will find the tomb to be empty. After the great spaciousness of the opening (the piece begins with just four of the five voices singing), the shape of the lines at ‘Maria Magdalene’ and ‘Maria’ conveys the women’s vulnerability on that first Easter morning. Dum transisset II is quite different: where the first setting has obvious stopping points for the insertion of the plainsong, which alternates with the full choir sections throughout, the second is effectively throughcomposed like a Latin motet (with the exception of the incipit ‘Dum transisset’).

This second setting lacks the shining brilliance of the first, and the ‘alleluia’ naturally evolves out of the preceding melodic lines and imitation rather than mirroring the forthright, striking statement of the more famous setting.

The Kyrie did not usually form part of English festal masses. It was, however, part of the liturgy at the daily celebration of the Lady Mass. Taverner’s polyphonic setting, the so-called Leroy Kyrie, consequently exists on its own rather than as part of any of his settings of the Ordinary of the Mass, and

draws on a melody known to have been used at the Lady Mass, a ‘square’. Squares were secular melodies derived from part of a polyphonic composition of the late fourteenth century onwards, perhaps so-called because of the appearance of the notation. ‘Sqware note’ was taught along with plainsong, polyphony, and improvisatory techniques.

The melody used in Taverner’s piece appears in one fifteenth-century source and is labelled ‘le roy’ (‘the King’, presumably Henry).

Taverner places this melody as cantus firmus in the highest part, which in this instance is the mean part (unlike all the other works on this recording, the Leroy Kyrie does not employ the high treble voice), with the lower voices reflecting some of the rhythmic interest of the square.

The Missa Corona spinea, one of Taverner’s three six-part masses, probably dates, along with the Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas, from Taverner’s Cardinal College days in the 1520s.

The Corona spinea might be said to represent the apex of the English florid style before closer imitation and more modern techniques take root in the Gloria tibi Trinitas. But despite this, it is unclear which is the earlier mass, and in many ways the Corona spinea smacks of innovation. Scored unusually for two basses, the work is a real tour de force for the choir, not least the upper voices – the treble line is particularly taxing. The treble

part is notable for its sequential patterns, as well as for the division into two equal treble parts (a device known as ‘gimel’) in the Benedictus and Agnus Dei. In the latter, where the parts split at ‘qui tollis’, Taverner unusually employs a ‘double gimel’, with the alto dividing into two as well. The result is a section of exquisite beauty. The cantus firmus – whose originating plainsong, unusually, remains unidentified – is placed in the tenor throughout the work, the rock around which all the motivic material, largely in the upper voices, is built. Taverner exploits the possibilities for textural contrast to the full with several sections for solo voices and striking peculiarities such as the ‘et exspecto’ of the Creed, where the scoring is for one treble and two bass parts. The spacing of the final chord of the Creed is exceptional.

The title of the Mass, ‘Corona spinea’ (‘Crown of Thorns’), may hold some clue to the work’s origins. Catherine of Aragon is known to have been devoted to the cult of Christ’s passion, one of whose emblems was the Crown of Thorns; her own personal motto (‘Not for my crown’) has similar resonance. Hugh Benham has consequently speculated at a possible first performance not at Cardinal College but in the Chapel Royal.2 Certainly even the extensive resources of Wolsey’s new choral 2 Hugh Benham, John Taverner: his life and music (Ashgate, 2003).

Notes on the music foundation in Oxford would have been stretched to perform this demanding work.

The unparalleled resources of the Chapel Royal might therefore have had the honour of performing it for the first time at some grand occasion. For Benham, the Missa Corona spinea is not only Taverner’s most extended work but also ‘his finest achievement’, a judgement with which few Taverner scholars would disagree.

Doubts over the authorship of the five-part votive antiphon O splendor glorie remain.

Hugh Benham and Colin Hand were happy to ascribe the work solely to Taverner,3 but today opinion is generally slanted in favour of the sixteenth-century copyist John Baldwin, who claimed the work was by ‘mr iohn tavernor et doc tye’. The ‘stylistic unity’ Benham and Hand ascribed to the work is in truth far from obvious. The point of imitation at ‘te prece’ is strikingly similar to Christopher Tye’s Missa Euge bone, which, together with the strong cadences, angular melodic lines and dissonant preparations of suspensions, supports the claim for dual authorship.4 Collaboration on a work seems extraordinary, though it is known to have happened in at least 3 Hugh Benham (ed.), ‘John Taverner: Votive Antiphons’, Early English Church Music Vol 25 (Stainer and Bell, 1981).

Colin Hand, John Taverner: his life and music (Eulenberg, 1978).

4 John Milsom, review of H. Benham, ‘John Taverner: Votive Antiphons’, Early Music x (1982).

Texts and translations one other instance. The text to O splendor is anonymous but has been identified as an antiphon of the Trinity. There is no cantus firmus, and even in the sections agreed to be by Taverner (including the very opening) the style is without parallel in the other works presented in this recording.

The text reflects not just an adherence to the traditional Catholic subjects but also a thorough understanding and appreciation of Biblical events. Taking Christ as its subject first and foremost, with the first treble entry being at the supremely delicate ‘Jesu Christe’, O splendor glorie reflects the religious mood of the 1530s or even later, when Jesus antiphons were already well established in England and the desire for Biblical understanding and clarity of words in music was a growing concern of the reformists.

Given the relatively few melismas, the scriptural references, and the close imitation underpinning the work, it is appropriate to pay particular attention to the text in performance, thereby reinforcing the sense of the private devotion. However the work came to be written, and even if it is not just the work of Taverner, it nonetheless demonstrates his ability to adapt and change as the movement for religious reform gathered confidence and momentum. © 2009 Duncan Ferguson

1

Dum transisset Sabbatum Dum transisset Sabbatum: Maria Magdalene et Maria Jacobi et Salome emerunt aromata, ut venientes ungerent Jesum. Alleluia.

And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary mother of James and Salome bought spices, that coming they might anoint Jesus. Alleluia.

Et valde mane una sabbatorum, veniunt ad monumentum orto iam sole ut venientes ungerent Jesum. Alleluia.

And very early on the first day of the week they came to the tomb, the sun now being risen, that coming they might anoint Jesus. Alleluia.

Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto.

Alleluia.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. Alleluia.

Mark 16: 1–2 (Third Respond at Matins on Easter Day)

2

Leroy Kyrie Kyrie eleison.

Christe eleison.

Kyrie eleison.

Lord have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

Lord have mercy.

Texts and translations Missa Corona spinea 3

4

Gloria Gloria in excelsis Deo: et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.

Laudamus te. Benedicimus te.

Adoramus te. Glorificamus te.

Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam.

Domine Deus, Rex caelestis, Deus Pater omnipotens.

Domine Fili unigenite, Iesu Christe.

Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris.

Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.

Qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram.

Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, miserere nobis.

Quoniam tu solus sanctus, tu solus Dominus, Tu solus altissimus, Iesu Christe.

Cum sancto Spiritu, in gloria Dei Patris.

Amen.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.

We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you.

We give you thanks for your great glory.

Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty.

Lord, the only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.

Who takes away the sins of the world, receive our prayer.

Who sits at the right hand of the Father, have mercy upon us.

For you alone are Holy, you alone are Lord, you alone are Most High, Jesus Christ.

With the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

Credo Credo in unum Deum: Patrem omnipotentem, factorem caeli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium.

Et in unum Dominum Iesum Christum, Filium Deum unigenitum.

Et ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula.

Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero.

Genitum non factum, consubstantialem Patri, per quem omnia facta sunt.

Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis.

Et incarnatus est de Spiritu sancto ex Maria virgine: et homo factus est.

Crucifixus etiam pro nobis: sub Pontio Pilato passus et sepultus est.

Et resurrexit tertia die, secundum scripturas.

Et ascendit in caelum: sedet ad dexteram Patris.

Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, iudicare vivos et mortuos: cuius regni non erit finis.

Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.

Et vitam venture saeculi. Amen.

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds.

God of God, light of light, Very God of very God. Begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven.

And was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.

And who also was crucified for us: who suffered under Pontius Pilate and was buried.

And who rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures.

And ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father.

And shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead: and his kingdom shall have no end.

I await the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Texts and translations 5

Sanctus Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth.

Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua.

Osanna in excelsis.

Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.

Osanna in excelsis.

6

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts.

Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.

Agnus Dei Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: dona nobis pacem.

7

8

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

Dum transisset Sabbatum (II) Dum transisset Sabbatum: Maria Magdalene et Maria Jacobi et Salome emerunt aromata, ut venientes ungerent Jesum. Alleluia.

And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary mother of James and Salome bought spices, that coming they might anoint Jesus. Alleluia.

O splendor glorie O splendor glorie et imago substantie Dei Patris omnipotentis, Jesu Christe, unice eiusdem fili dilecte, totius boni fons vive, redemptor mundi, servitor, et Deus noster, salve!

O radiant light and image of the nature of God the almighty Father, Jesus Christ, his beloved and only Son, living fountain of all good,redeemer of the world, our saviour and our God, hail!

Gloriosa, Domine, tua est majestas, et opera mirabilia: tu celum et terram cum omnibus que in eis sunt creaturis divino tuo verbo ex nihilo fecisti; que sapientissime mox disponens, nobis quos adimaginem tuam novissime formasti, ut deservirent, benignissime cuncta subdidisti.

Glorious, O Lord, is your majesty, and marvellous are your works: you made heaven and earth with all the creatures in them from nothing by your divine word; then, having ordered them by your great wisdom, to us, newly fashioned in your own image, so that they might serve us, you graciously subjected all things.

Mortem intulerat protoplasti inobedientia; sed quo facture tue vitam redimeres, de Maria Virgine humillima, Jesu, sumpsisti carnem: ex qua enim, de Spiritu Sancto conceptus, natus es Deus et homo, ac illa tua mater integra permansit et perpetua virgo.

The disobedience of your first creation brought death; but, that you might redeem the life of your creation, from Mary, humble virgin, Jesus took human flesh: for of her, conceived by the Holy Spirit, you were born of both God and man, and she, your mother, remained pure, ever a virgin.

Et cum pro nobis duram tolerasses vitam, flagris cesus et tormentis lacerates, qui peccatum non feceris, incorpore tuo scelera nostra per ferens, ac eadem tuo pretiosissimo sanguine effuso abluens, mortem denique infamem, agnus mitissimus, passus es et crudelissimam: hinc, tuo Patri suavis hostia oblatus, pro nobis miseris peccatoribus es afflictus.

And when for us you had borne a hard life, scourged with whips and lacerated by tortures, you who had committed no sin, bearing our sins on your body, and also washing them away by the effusion of your most precious blood, finally you, the gentle lamb, suffered a most cruel and degrading death: hence, offered to your Father as a pleasing sacrifice, you were afflicted for us miserable sinners.

Texts and translations

Biographies

Dein, tertia die a morte exsuscitatus, ad celestem Patrem cum gloria, summa es elevatus, ut illi dexter assideas; inde sanctum Paracletum nobis dedisti, qui ut nostra celesti doctrina confirmet pectora,te prece precamur humili. Amen.

Then, awoken from death on the third day, you were raised in glory to your heavenly Fatherthat you might sit at his right hand; after this, you gave the holy Spirit to us, and that we may strengthen our hearts by his heavenly teaching we now humbly pray to you. Amen.

The Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh Senior Choristers Aaron Akugbo Sally Carr Clara Hyder* Jenny Jackson Rebecca Johnstone* Electra Lochhead* Alexander Maclaren* William Neville-Towle Antonia Smart Oliver Spencer

Altos Judy Dennis Faith Fairbairn Rory McCleery* Duncan Parry* Tenors Andrew Bennett Oliver Brewer* David Lee Benjamin Tambling

* soloists in Mass and O splendor glorie

Baritones Martin Hurst Joseph Payne* James Skuse Basses James Birchall* Matthew Davies* Laurie Martin

The Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh is regarded as one of the UK’s finest cathedral choirs, and is unique in Scotland in maintaining a daily choral tradition. The Cathedral was the first in the United Kingdom to allow girls to join the boys as trebles in 1978. The choristers (aged 9 -14) are educated at St Mary’s Music School, Scotland’s specialist music school, while the lay clerks of the choir consist of undergraduate choral scholars alongside more experienced singers.

The Cathedral has been at the forefront of commissioning new works: Kenneth Leighton and Francis Jackson, and more recently Gabriel Jackson, James MacMillan, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Arvo Pärt and Howard Skempton, have all written substantial pieces for the choir. The Cathedral’s music list is diverse, with music ranging from the 15th to the 21st century. The choir gives regular concerts, tours, and radio and television broadcasts, and its recordings have met with critical acclaim. During the Edinburgh Festival the choir is in residence to sing the daily services as well as to perform at a number of high-profile events including live broadcasts on BBC Radio. The choir has close links with the Dunedin Consort under the directorship of John Butt, with its choristers singing in Dunedin performances of J.S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion.

In 2008, the thirtieth anniversary of the choir’s admission of girl choristers was marked by an article and editorial in The Times, and the choir also featured on BBC television programmes. In summer 2008 the choir toured New York, Buffalo, Toronto, and Ontario, performing at the Stratford Summer Music Festival and live on Canadian radio. Its 2008 Christmas concert was broadcast by Classic FM on Christmas Eve. The choir’s extensive discography for Delphian Records includes critically acclaimed discs devoted to the music of Gabriel Jackson (DCD34027) and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (DCD34037), as well as a disc of new and familiar choral works (A Gaelic Blessing, DCD34007), a collection of liturgical music (Ascension, DCD34017), and the DVD An Edinburgh Christmas (DCD34901).

More choral music on Delphian

Biographies Duncan Ferguson was appointed Organist and Master of the Music at St Mary’s Cathedral in 2007 at the age of 26. He trains the choristers and directs the choir in its busy schedule of services, recordings, concerts and broadcasts.

He was formerly the Assistant Organist at St Mary’s, where he was appointed following organ scholarships at Magdalen College, Oxford, and St Paul’s Cathedral, London. While at Magdalen he played for the premiere of Ecce Cor Meum, an oratorio written for the choir by Sir Paul McCartney.

He remained at Magdalen to read for a Master of Studies degree in musicology and was awarded a Distinction for his research into the changing music and liturgy during the 1540s at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster.

In 2001 he toured Antigua, Trinidad, and Barbados as an accompanist and organ soloist. At St Paul’s Cathedral he worked with John Scott and then Malcolm Archer and played the organ at a number of national and diocesan services as well as performing regular recitals, assisting in the training of the choristers, and directing the Cathedral Choir.

He was also Assistant Director of Music at St Michael’s Cornhill, the Sir George Thalben-

Ball Memorial Organ Scholar, a tutor at King’s College London, and a busy freelance organist and conductor throughout London.

Thomas Weelkes (c.1575–1623): Sacred Choral Music Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum / Benjamin Nicholas DCD34070

In addition to his work with the Cathedral Choir, Duncan is the organ tutor at St Mary’s Music School and has recently started an outreach programme with local primary schools. He regularly directs choral societies and ensembles in the Edinburgh area and is touring the US as organ soloist in summer 2010.

Born around 1575, Thomas Weelkes is remembered as one of the outstanding English composers of the seventeenth century. This survey of Weelkes’ services, verse anthems and sacred madrigals features first recordings of several works in new reconstructions by scholar Peter James. Benjamin Nicholas’s Tewkesbury choir delivers telling performances passionately conveying the range, imagination and technical accomplishment of Weelkes’ settings.

‘Weelkes is a composer to make you think again, and Tewkesbury Abbey currently has the choir to present him in strongest colours and with the most personal accent. … Under Benjamin Nicholas, the choir has developed a strong style, remarkable for its sense of personal (or corporate) commitment as for the sonority of its tone and the assurance of its delivery.’ — Gramophone, April 2009 Michael Wise (c.1648–1687): Sacred Choral Music Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge Geoffrey Webber conductor & solo organ DCD34041 Chastised for ‘excesses in his life and conversation’, Michael Wise lived a notoriously dissolute life which ended when he was hit about the head and ‘kill’d downright’ by the night watchman in Salisbury Cathedral. Thus was St Paul’s Cathedral robbed of its forthcoming Master of the Choristers, and history of one of the period’s most prolific and respected composers. In this recording, the first dedicated to his music, Geoffrey Webber’s Caius choir pays testament to the more respectable music-making that is Wise’s legacy.

‘A composer … of some significance, as this CD superbly illustrates’ — The Scotsman, June 2008

DCD34023