Queen Mary's Big Belly: Gallicantus; Lunchtime Concert 27 March

[Gabriel Crouch]

Hello all - I'm here following the example of my friend and colleague Chris Watson, who i gather is an occasional visitor and spirited contributor. I thought I might attempt a little defence of the title and the chosen repertoire, since it seems to have caused a little harrumphing in certain quarters (and not just here):

The headline 'QM'sBB' does indeed come from the time of James II - more than a century after the period in question - and is used in vaguely insulting terms to accuse Mary of Modena (like her namesake from Tudor times, a Catholic), of faking a birth in order to produce an heir loyal to Rome. But the primordial 'big belly' is Mary Tudor's, hence the pamphlet's full title of 'The History of...' (in effect: "something fishy happened back in the 1550s and you'd be silly to imagine that it couldn't happen again...")

The decision to actually use the title was not taken lightly, and was for a time resisted by several, including my wife. My reason for sticking with it is that it reflects an uncomfortable truth - that in the eyes and hearts of the Catholic community, Mary was little more than a vessel for England's Roman lineage. If you read Hugh Weston's prayer for Mary's 'quickening', recited twice-daily per his instructions, there is an evident misogyny to it ("...for the offence of the first woman has threatened unto all women a common, sharp and inevitable malediction..." - apparently relishing the various tribulations which women endured in the pursuit of conception and childbirth. It is a shocking objectification to modern eyes, and it convinced me that such an objectifying and gratuitous title was perhaps appropriate. For Mary, everything hinged on this pregnancy, on this big belly, from her personal happiness and the validity of her marriage (and don't forget how incredibly powerful this child would have been, as the product of the union of England and Spain) to the spiritual salvation of her people. Without a child, she was just an empty vessel - a lonely middle-aged woman, abandoned by her husband and hemmed in by the silent Protestant majority, waiting for her demise. I have no wish, nor right, to ask for a wholesale reassessment of the character of Mary's rule, but for me at least, I do understand a little better why she might have been the bitter queen we were all taught about in school through what I have learnt in preparing this music.

On which subject: anyone with an iPhone and 5 minutes to spare can come up with 2 or 3 CD's-worth of music from the mid 16th Century which refers to a child expected, in miraculous circumstances, from a woman called Mary. Much of it is heard every Advent and has been recorded every year for the last decade, including 'Videte Miraculum' which, to the inevitable disappointment of one of the posters above, is not included on the recording because enough's enough. We were trying to do something a little different here, and it might be that the full CD and it's wonderful liner note by Magnus Williamson makes this a little clearer than I can here, or certainly than Monday's flawed recital did. Or it might be that our effort to create a sort of 'soundtrack' to these 9-or-so tumultuous months in Mary's life, based around this just-restored Sarum Litany which was heard specifically for Mary's expected offspring, might not quite do it for you. That's fine of course... but I wanted you to know my thinking. At least there's some unrecorded music for you to discover!

Grateful that there are so many discerning listeners out there, and for the opportunity to say my bit.

Gabriel

[jean]

Thank you for the explanation. I understand and sympathise with what you say about poor Mary Tudor. But I still wince at your title!

I did hear your Dialogues of Sorrow programme twice (in London and in Chester) and thought it was wonderfully devised and performed. So you had a lot to live up to.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Many thanks, Gabriel - and I hope that you will continue to follow the example of Chris Watson and continue to take the opportunity to say more "bits" as a frequently occasional visitor and spirited contributor.

I greatly enjoyed the programme and performance, and coming just a couple of days after I'd watched the repeat of Helen Castor's programme on Mary and Elizabeth Tudor I found it particularly serendipitous. And how right you are to consider how powerful a son of Mary and Philip would have been: how the separation of Philip from any power in England would have become irrelevant to a son who was heir to the thrones of both England and Spain! European - and American, of course - history would have been completely different.

But I still think that it was a cumbersome title - as suggested by the paragraph you needed here to explain it!

[french frank]

Grateful that there are so many discerning listeners out there, and for the opportunity to say my bit.

Delighted to be able to provide a platform for you to say it!

[Richard Tarleton]

Gabriel - a warm welcome, and thank you so much for this expanded education. That bit of bantz with Ms Klein clearly did not do the subject, or your thinking, full justice . You are addressing a small but devoted early music audience on the forum. I'm the least expert amongst us on vocal matters, though I'm probably the house Renaissance plucker, if I could put it like that.

Do I gather that your wife has since softened her view?

My feelings on Mary were formed while reading history at university, though my landlord for two years, himself a history don, was the brother of a biographer of Cardinal Pole!

[Gabriel Crouch]

Thank you for the explanation. I understand and sympathise with what you say about poor Mary Tudor. But I still wince at your title!

I did hear your Dialogues of Sorrow programme twice (in London and in Chester) and thought it was wonderfully devised and performed. So you had a lot to live up to.

Happy memories of those gigs, and of that wonderful music. I try to forget that Chester Festival never paid us...

[Richard Tarleton]

And how right you are to consider how powerful a son of Mary and Philip would have been: how the separation of Philip from any power in England would have become irrelevant to a son who was heir to the thrones of both England and Spain! European - and American, of course - history would have been completely different.

One of history's what-ifs - different how, is another matter entirely - Spain and England being such utterly different entities, socially, economically, culturally, linguistically and in just about every other way it wouldn't have held together very long. Don't forget the war in the Netherlands, for a start. Few English Protestants (by then) would have acquiesced in Spain's war there.

For anyone inclined to speculate further along these lines, the best place to start is Gerald Brenan's The Spanish Labyrinth. Trevor-Roper used to recommend students of 16th and 17th century Spain read this "astonishing book", as he called it, as the most profound analysis of the period, ranging as it does across the centuries in its exploration of the origins of the Spanish Civil War over four centuries later. One of my tutors at Oxford regarded it as one of the finest works of history in the English language.

[Vox Humana]

Welcome, Gabriel, and thank you for your explanation.

wonderful liner note by Magnus Williamson

Definitely. Available here under the "Artwork" tab for anyone interested.

[Gabriel Crouch]

Do I gather that your wife has since softened her view?
!

That probably depends on whether she ever reads this forum...

I distinctly remember being encouraged as a boy to see Mary's 'cruelty' and 'catholicism' as entirely the same thing. Amazing to think how different it all could have been... Would the biographer of Pole be Thomas Mayer? It's on my reading list...

[Richard Tarleton]

No, this one was by William Schenk - probably quite out of date by now.

[doversoul1]

Hello all - I'm here following the example of my friend and colleague Chris Watson, who i gather is an occasional visitor and spirited contributor. I thought I might attempt a little defence of the title and the chosen repertoire, since it seems to have caused a little harrumphing in certain quarters (and not just here): l

Welcome to the Forum and especially to the EMS Board. Your thoughts and knowledge will be hugely appreciated. Nothing is too basic or obvious for a beginner like me, so I do hope you’ll be able to pop in here as often as your busy schedule will allow it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

One of history's what-ifs - different how, is another matter entirely - Spain and England being such utterly different entities, socially, economically, culturally, linguistically and in just about every other way it wouldn't have held together very long. Don't forget the war in the Netherlands, for a start. Few English Protestants (by then) would have acquiesced in Spain's war there.

Indeed - but an actual son of Mary Tudor and Philip of Spain: how might that have altered things?! Would Philip/Spain have agreed to the first son not being King of Spain? How would the English parliament have "considered" a son of Mary (which was the object of the marriage in the first place) being also the heir to the crown of Spain? The transformation back to Roman Catholicism - what chance would English Protestants have had? A son born in 1555 becoming King of Spain in 1598, having been King of England forty years earlier - the necessity for a Lord Protectorate for twenty years or so: the attempts to move the young King to Protestantism? An earlier Spanish invasion of England - before the Dutch Revolt - without God's "breathing"? England under Spanish rule until the son comes of age? No Jacobeans? No Civil War? It is indeed a fascinating and rich source of idle speculation!

For anyone inclined to speculate further along these lines, the best place to start is Gerald Brenan's The Spanish Labyrinth. Trevor-Roper used to recommend students of 16th and 17th century Spain read this "astonishing book", as he called it, as the most profound analysis of the period, ranging as it does across the centuries in its exploration of the origins of the Spanish Civil War over four centuries later. One of my tutors at Oxford regarded it as one of the finest works of history in the English language.

Many thanks for this suggestion, Richard - I'd not heard of the book before

[Vox Humana]

I'm probably about to say something very silly...certainly un-learned and unsupported by evidence. But it struck me during this recital that secular music of the period sounds more forward-looking than liturgical music...which seems somehow bound to its Medieval roots. I also think of Ah Robin and Woefully Arrayed by Cornysh. Both seem advanced for their time. (I should perhaps define the word 'secular' in this context as meaning 'non-liturgical'.)

As I have suggested before, William Cornysh junior had more of the Renaissance about him than most of the other composers with whom his music appears in the sources - one reason why I don't sign up to the theory that the Latin music is by his father. Works like Woefully arrayed and Hoyda Jolly Rutterkin, speak much more "popularly" to the emotions than, say, Fayrfax's Somewhat musing. The secular music in Henry's court came to be much influenced by Philip van Wilder and the chanson. The result was the evolution of partsongs in a simpler, imitation-led form. This was one of the styles to which composers turned when required to simplify their church music under Edward VI (sometimes simply by replacing secular texts with religious ones). Obviously there was a chronological development of musical style, but it probably wasn't so linear as we have tended to assume. The main point of the Early Music article that I cited was that Tallis's O sacrum convivium, which had generally been assumed to be an Elizabethan work (at least in its vocal form) on grounds of style (expression, imitation), already existed in 1554/5. Elsewhere in that journal it is pointed out that Tallis's Gaude gloriosa, previously assumed to be a mature, Marian work, is even earlier. Tudor composers did not necessarily have just one style of writing at any given date.

[Richard Tarleton]

Indeed - but an actual son of Mary Tudor and Philip of Spain: how might that have altered things?! Would Philip/Spain have agreed to the first son not being King of Spain? How would the English parliament have "considered" a son of Mary (which was the object of the marriage in the first place) being also the heir to the crown of Spain? The transformation back to Roman Catholicism - what chance would English Protestants have had? A son born in 1555 becoming King of Spain in 1598, having been King of England forty years earlier - the necessity for a Lord Protectorate for twenty years or so: the attempts to move the young King to Protestantism? An earlier Spanish invasion of England - before the Dutch Revolt - without God's "breathing"? England under Spanish rule until the son comes of age? No Jacobeans? No Civil War? It is indeed a fascinating and rich source of idle speculation!

Indeed, you make a persuasive case ferney . Alternative scenarios - Mary has a daughter (seemed to run in the family), Mary and/or the child die in childbirth (Mary was 37, quite old for a Tudor primigravida), Mary has a sickly son who dies young, like his uncle Edward...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]