Byrd migration

[Despina dello Stagno]

It may well be that that is what the devil would advocate, but I do believe that even the devil would agree that


might be allowed a Latin qua rather than some ersatz Spanish (or whatever it was).

Blimey!!! Bit early for the nuclear response of the spelling correction surely.

Luckily I never had the Latin. Had I so done I could have applied a trite tag to your post: Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus for example.
And equally luckily, since I am trying to make a point, rather than score one, I will decline such a posting.

I am sorry if I have offended you. All I can see that could remotely be construed as offensive is the word *eft-footer (usually referred to in P.C. circles as the L word), which I used to amplify historical attitudes to a minority faith community.

Nevertheless, I still maintain that the Byrd is a poor and ill-considered choice for Magdalen. I shall address your reponse, and that of Miles Coverdale anon.

Pax?

[jean]

I certainly wasn't offended - but I did assume you were joking, and if I was wrong, the joke's on me.

[Despina dello Stagno]

I did assume you were joking

The message was valid: shoot the messenger for paraphrasing it incompetently.

I think the Byrd (and the de Monte is also not without sin) an unnecessary choice for a liturgical context. If he had considered it theologically to be a goer he would have offered it for publication in his lifetime. Because it has in modern times gained notoriety as a pointy-headed, tortured-artist protest song does not for me seem adequate reason to incorporate it into an evensong. It is as completely unsuitable as an offering of Boney M's treatment of the subject would be. That is my specifically political point.

Singing in church of any kind only just survived the Commonwealth. Singing in Latin played no part in Anglican worship thereafter. Latin was revived in the concert hall for antiquarian interest or instruction, or contrafacts were revived. Oddities like John Alcock's Miserere (?1751) were just that: oddities. Latin was restricted to the illegal (but tolerated) catholic enclaves such as The Chapel of the Portuguese embassy; composers associated therewith such as Samuel Webbe did not have their works (although published) taken up elsewhere. Not until the Oxford School. the race towards Rome and the appearance of grade one retro-nutter Robert Lucas de Pearsall (attempting to do for music what the PRB were doing in painting) was Latin rehabilitated. Latin in HIPP context should be reserved for the concert hall, not for divine service. That is my general political point.

All of the above is of course pretty well irrelevant today. But it grates when a solecism such as the Byrd, unthinkable when I was a choirboy, should be made today. I have no quarrel with that item in a recital, only when a crowd pleaser has been chosen in preference to an item reflecting a living culture.

Magdalen's greatest scion (laying aside Bernard Rose) is Benjamin Rogers ( he of the Latin Hymnus Ecclesiasticus sung from Magdalen Tower on May Morning)***. I should like to see one of his all too rarely performed anthems resurrected at that establishment. And that is my argument for localism on C.E.

***From the 1670s perhaps (only from 1844 for sure). Have I undermined my own argument?
His only other claim to fame is to prompt the eternal question "Who is Benjamin, and whom does he roger?"

I hope this has been sufficiently prolix to avoid charges of trolling.*

* Declension: I post interestingly, trying to avoid the hackneyed opinions of the common herd; You have an uneasy relationship with the moderators; he posts hate crimes on Twitter

[Miles Coverdale]

I think the Byrd (and the de Monte is also not without sin) an unnecessary choice for a liturgical context. If he had considered it theologically to be a goer he would have offered it for publication in his lifetime. Because it has in modern times gained notoriety as a pointy-headed, tortured-artist protest song does not for me seem adequate reason to incorporate it into an evensong. It is as completely unsuitable as an offering of Boney M's treatment of the subject would be. That is my specifically political point.

This is completely groundless speculation. How can you infer from the fact that Quomodo cantabimus was not published the notion that Byrd knew it would have been considered theologically suspect? A number of his other 'political' motets were indeed published during his lifetime, of which Ne irascaris is perhaps the most obvious one. How is that text less 'suspect' than Quomodo cantabimus?

Given the frequency with which it is performed, I'm not sure it's acquired any particular reputation, certainly not as a 'protest song'.

Singing in church of any kind only just survived the Commonwealth. Singing in Latin played no part in Anglican worship thereafter. Latin was revived in the concert hall for antiquarian interest or instruction, or contrafacts were revived. Oddities like John Alcock's Miserere (?1751) were just that: oddities. Latin was restricted to the illegal (but tolerated) catholic enclaves such as The Chapel of the Portuguese embassy; composers associated therewith such as Samuel Webbe did not have their works (although published) taken up elsewhere. Not until the Oxford School. the race towards Rome and the appearance of grade one retro-nutter Robert Lucas de Pearsall (attempting to do for music what the PRB were doing in painting) was Latin rehabilitated. Latin in HIPP context should be reserved for the concert hall, not for divine service. That is my general political point.

All of the above is of course pretty well irrelevant today. But it grates when a solecism such as the Byrd, unthinkable when I was a choirboy, should be made today. I have no quarrel with that item in a recital, only when a crowd pleaser has been chosen in preference to an item reflecting a living culture.

That must be the first time I've seen Quomodo cantabimus referred to as a 'crowd-pleaser'.

Latin was not restricted only to the places you mention. There was an edition of the Book of Common published in Latin for use in the chapels of Oxford and Cambridge, so Magdalen are on fairly safe ground.

Magdalen's greatest scion (laying aside Bernard Rose) is Benjamin Rogers ( he of the Latin Hymnus Ecclesiasticus sung from Magdalen Tower on May Morning)***. I should like to see one of his all too rarely performed anthems resurrected at that establishment. And that is my argument for localism on C.E.

***From the 1670s perhaps (only from 1844 for sure). Have I undermined my own argument?

John Sheppard? Richard Davy? And yes, you have. In any case, you are fortunately (for me, at any rate) in a rather small minority. I'll take Ne irascaris or Laudibus in sanctis over any of the offerings of Stanford (there's a good Irish Protestant for you) any day of the week.

[french frank]

This thread may fly in any direction people wish. Could we keep the Choral Evensong thread to the programme itself?

[Despina dello Stagno]

This thread may fly in any direction people wish. Could we keep the Choral Evensong thread to the programme itself?

Yes.Sorry, ff. This seems, like Topsy, to have growed, and I would like to treat Miles Coverdale's lengthy effort with the respect it deserves. I haven't mastered the art of generating multiple quotes in a single reply (perhaps someone can give me some tips), so I shall have to fake it by constructing a dialogue.

This is completely groundless speculation. How can you infer from the fact that Quomodo cantabimus was not published the notion that Byrd knew it would have been considered theologically suspect? Quite. All my information on this piece is gleaned from CD liners and youtube. I am merely retailing a groundless response to a groundless history. To my mind the correspondence with de Monte has been sexed up unwarrantedly to portray Byrd as a man of mystery. From this perceived sexing up, and the anachronistic creation of a refusnik early music sacred classic, my other charges of "protest song" and "crowd pleaser" flow.

A number of his other 'political' motets were indeed published during his lifetime, of which Ne irascaris is perhaps the most obvious one. How is that text less 'suspect' than Quomodo cantabimus? They were published in his lifetime and like so many political pieces of this century instantly fell on sleep. As far as I know, very few have been resurrected to be incorporated in modern worship; merely for home listening (entertainment).

Latin was not restricted only to the places you mention. There was an edition of the Book of Common published in Latin for use in the chapels of Oxford and Cambridge, so Magdalen are on fairly safe ground.
I didn't know this. But Oxford was a hotbed of Jacobitism and home to many obscurantist antiquarian affectations (plus ca change!). You haven't persuaded me that Latin was sung.
Indeed if Oxford colleges were akin to Cathedral churches then it is quite possible that nothing was sung. Winchester and Worcester suffered particularly from absentee choirmasters: the worst and last example was the simonist Samuel Sebastian Wesley (with a latterday reputation based upon his talent, not his ethics).

John Sheppard? Richard Davy? Yes. Unforgivable ellipsis. But I was addressing the Anglican settlement, 1660, and in liturgical terms these two are prehistoric. If the Eton Choir Book had remained relevant to subsequent Anglicanism, the choir school would not have been disbanded in the mid 1960s.

any of the offerings of Stanford (there's a good Irish Protestant for you) I am no Orangeman. "Here's to the glorious, pious and immortal memory of the great and good King William III, Prince of Orange, who saved us from rogues and roguery, slaves and slavery, knaves and knavery, Popes and Popery, brass money and wooden shoes. And whoever denies this toast may he be slammed, crammed and jammed into the muzzle of the great gun of Athlone, and the gun fired into the Pope's belly, and the Pope into the Devil's belly, and the Devil into Hell, and the door locked, and the key in an Orangeman's pocket, and may we never lack a brisk Protestant boy to kick the arse of a Papist, and here's a fart for the Bishop of Cork" is just awful.

And yes, you have.In that case I'll rest it.

[jean]

This thread touched on the question of whether Latin was actually sung anywhere in the post-Reformation period in this country.

...I have a copy of my College's statutes, dated 1844, and all in Latin. These statutes were drawn up by Elizabeth I in accordance with her father's wishes, and were reaffirmed by Queen Victoria - hence my copy. Within the statutes, the grace before meals is ordained: the usual "Benedic Domine nos et dona tua", together with some Greek (the Kyrie). Does this count as liturgical use?...

[DracoM]

Well said, jean, beat me to it!

[Despina dello Stagno]

This thread touched on the question of whether Latin was actually sung anywhere in the post-Reformation period in this country.

Thank you for that reference, Jean. I can't see that it proves the point either way. As interesting was the link in the first posting therein http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...nciation+Latin It appears that the sexing up occurred at the commencement of a promo tour.

( edit half an hour later, after reading that thread carefully) Hah! I never had you down as a Chelmsford 123 fan! Wonderful programme.

[Vox Humana]

Latin in HIPP context should be reserved for the concert hall, not for divine service.

If HIPP were a ladder you've just removed most of the bottom rungs.

As for Latin been sung post Reformation, Cambridge Uni still has a set of partbooks which was used at (I think) Peterhouse and which contains Latin service music by such as Child, Loosemore and Ramsey and, yes, even a couple of Byrd motets. And better not mention Stanford's Latin motets.

John Barnard's "The First Book of Selected Church Music", which was used after the restoration to re-establish church repertoire, has several contrafacta of motets by Tallis as well as Byrd's Ne irascaris/Civitas sancti tui - and it seems they were sung, so the music was obviously deemed passable, even in an age that on the whole regarded historical music as just that.

Anyway, that's all irrelevant. I am still looking forward to enjoying de Monte's and Byrd's selections from the perfectly biblical and Lent-worthy psalm 137 and I am sure it will be a more seasonally numinous experience than most of the competition from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - though I'll happily make room for Purcell any day, especially Jehova quam multi - except I suppose I'm now going to have to do it in English. Damn.

[jean]

I'm very interested in what people sing in church, and what language they do it in, and how they pronounce it. It's no business of mine (especially as I'm not an Anglican) to tell them what should be the matter of their singing, according to whichever settlement they consider themselves bound by.

I admit I observe with amusement High Anglicans who regularly pray fro the Pope but never mention the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other High Anglicans who seem remarkably close to the extreme evangelicals in regarding the Pope as almost the Antichrist and the Church of Rome as an invention of the Counter-Reformation.

There are really only two points to be made about the choice of motets for this service.

The first is that whatever ulterior motive Byrd might have had for choosing that particular text, and however that might have been perceived by recusant Catholics in the know, what we have is indeed

...the perfectly biblical and Lent-worthy psalm 137...

And the second is that whenever I've been to a cathedral service where a setting of a Latin text has been sung, there's been a bit of paper with a translation helpfully provided in case I needed it.

[mopsus]

And the second is that whenever I've been to a cathedral service where a setting of a Latin text has been sung, there's been a bit of paper with a translation helpfully provided in case I needed it.

You have been fortunate. A few years ago I sang evensong at a major Cathedral in the South of England, and our anthem was introduced with the words 'The anthem is Rheinberger's Abendlied'. That was it. No translation of the title, let alone the text! Not everyone knows German, and the text was not in the pew sheet or one of those helpful books of anthem texts. I think, however, that this was old school service-taking (the clergyman concerned died soon afterwards) and clergy are better now about making sure that the congregation have some idea of what the anthem is about.

[Magnificat]

[QUOTE=jean;384384
And the second is that whenever I've been to a cathedral service where a setting of a Latin text has been sung, there's been a bit of paper with a translation helpfully provided in case I needed it.[/QUOTE]

jean

What you often get on the service sheet, however, is the Latin title of the anthem only and the English translation of the anthem in full so if you don't know the language it is impossible, apart from the first few, to follow exactly the words the choir are singing!!

VCC

[Despina dello Stagno]

SPOILER: PROLIXITY AHEAD

If HIPP were a ladder you've just removed most of the bottom rungs.

As for Latin been sung post Reformation, Cambridge Uni still has a set of partbooks which was used at (I think) Peterhouse and which contains Latin service music by such as Child, Loosemore and Ramsey and, yes, even a couple of Byrd motets.

I haven't denied that Latin was sung in this period. It would be crazy so to do. The ladybird book of history (correct in all essentials) would have it thus: Henry VIII; positive action against liturgical change (from Latin): Edward VI violent swing to English prompting the Prayer Book rebellion; Mary I: violent swing back to Latin; Elizabeth I; fudged settlement reining in catholic and extreme protestant wings: JamesI/Charles I, a curdling of the Elizabethan settlement with increasing polarization, ending in cataclysm. Charles II; right of centre lasting settlement. I have complete respect for composers creating during this period (Roberts White and Parsons are two of my longest-standing enthusiasms).

The Peterhouse partbooks should be treated with caution. It is not certain that they represent choir usage at Peterhouse (the earliest are thought to come from Canterbury). They cover a period of 130 years, an accretion of pieces rather than a coherent collection. The earliest items are a similar and rival source to the Eton choir book: the last items reflect Caroline taste. I have seen them online in the past, but cannot now find them. DIAMM would be a likely candidate, but doesn't appear to offer them. http://www.diamm.ac.uk/ What is browseable on DIAMM is the Dow partbooks, another of the great primary sources for this period. A modern list of the contents is here http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Dow_Partbooks A snapshot of taste in the 1580s covering sacred and profane, english and foreign. Arguably too much Byrd to be truly representative, but nevertheless a fantastic resource.
There is no Child in Latin in the Peterhouse partbooks. I have edited Mag & Nuncs (?Mags and Nunc) by Ramsey http://www.notamos.co.uk/146005.shtml and by Loosemore http://www.notamos.co.uk/145674.shtml and am familiar with their works. Ramsey wrote one (atypical) Latin piece, Loosemore none.

Barnard should also be treated with caution. It was first printed in 1641, and was allegedly the sourcebook for the post-restoration repertoire. But the paucity of copies (nowhere has a complete set, and most partbooks have single extant examples) suggest that it cannot have been used widely. The closure of the choir schools in 1644 brought the English style to an end. How much traditional repertoire was destroyed is unquantifiable (the Peterhouse partbooks were preserved by being hidden behind panelling). In addition, the teaching of composition was halted, for 16 years. Posr-restoration a new English style was forged from French models: Humfrey, Wise, Blow (the mainspring of most subsequent style), all taught at the Chapel Royal, created a new style. One or two older composers provided continuity (Child, 1605 - 1697, a pupil of Tallis' pupil is the principal example), but many had simply died or entered their dotage in those 16 years*. The truth is, that no-one knows what the repertoire was in the 1660s-1680s, particularly in the provincial cathedrals and collegiate churches. Pretty well all we do know is that cornetti replaced trebles in the period that it took to re-establish the choir schools.


*The exception to this generalization, and what a wonderful exception he is, is George Jeffreys. Learning his trade along side the Lawes brothers at the Oxford court in the mid-1640s (as organist to Charles I) he retired Cincinnatus-like to Little Weldon in Northants and produced intense latin motets, for private consumption, in the stile moderno (think late Monteverdi). It is a scandal that his works remain pretty well ignored and undisseminated.

My original point, and it has been garbled over the thread, was that THAT Byrd piece is as inappropriate, if you are historically attuned, in an establishment building as the Sex-Pisols' "God save the queen" would be at a coronation or jubilee celebration, or as Channel 4's alternative Queen's Speech is on Christmas Day.

[ardcarp]

I can remember a time when in all parish churches save the most high, bowing to the altar and crossing oneself were considered Popish practices. As for incense and genuflecting, well...

In other words, in the first half of the 20th century, there were still strong anti-Catholic sentiments expressed in the mainstream of Anglicanism.

Are you trying to rekindle such bigotry in the first half of the 21st?

IMV

THAT Byrd piece is as inappropriate, if you are historically attuned, in an establishment building as the Sex-Pisols' "God save the queen" would be at a coronation or jubilee celebration, or as Channel 4's alternative Queen's Speech is on Christmas Day.

is arrant nonsense, as is your 'original point'.