Vespers at Hampton Court

[Nevilevelis]

The piece is also the subject of an interesting article in Early Music by Stephen Rice. John Milsom has also made an edition which was, I think, recorded by New College a number of years ago.

Interesting. Thank you. I shall look out for it. I saw a snippet of the Rice article and rather assumed he may have done one himself. I sang both the reconstructed part and the Contratenor recently in Jon Dixon's edition and was not entirely convinced either by the edition or the performance. The assembled cognoscenti thought it wasn't Tallis's best. It is not a setting which suits an army of trebles, however fine. Afterwards one of the lay clerks suggested I have a go at it m'self! I now think they are both very fine, of course.

Cheers,

NVV.

[Miles Coverdale]

I don't think John Milsom's is available to buy. The piece was also one of those studied in a very interesting reconstruction workshop held in Cambridge last November as part of the Tudor Partbooks project at which both John and Stephen were present.

I don't find Jon Dixon's version very convincing either. If I remember right (don't have a copy to hand), he used the Roman chant, not the Sarum, on the grounds that the Sarum one wouldn't have been used after the Reformation, though why he thinks the Roman one would have I don't quite understand.

[Nevilevelis]

I don't think John Milsom's is available to buy. The piece was also one of those studied in a very interesting reconstruction workshop held in Cambridge last November as part of the Tudor Partbooks project at which both John and Stephen were present.

I don't find Jon Dixon's version very convincing either. If I remember right (don't have a copy to hand), he used the Roman chant, not the Sarum, on the grounds that the Sarum one wouldn't have been used after the Reformation, though why he thinks the Roman one would have I don't quite understand.

I cannot access Rice's article on Oxford Journals - something to do with cookies.

Yes, odd reasoning in Dixon's edition. The 1559 Act of Uniformity finally abolished the Sarum rite, but not the chant itself, I would presume...

[Magnificat]

I sang New Rite Vespers at St. Paul's Cathedral a couple of weeks ago. Westm. C., Westm. Abbey & St. Paul's regularly sing their services in one another's places as part of Christian Unity Week.

I wonder why boys and men were not used for this special service? After all such would have been the forces used prior to the Reformation. Why import The Sixteen?

VCC

[ardcarp]

You're incorrigible VCC. The Sixteen were probably the Rolls Royce option....but agreed, for authenticity, maybe choristers of the Chapels Royal?

I feel a naughty urge to say that as.....

The service was recorded by BBC Radio 3 for a world exclusive broadcast

....I am surprised a certain other group of singers was not used.......

[decantor]

I wonder why boys and men were not used for this special service? After all such would have been the forces used prior to the Reformation. Why import The Sixteen?

VCC

Ecumenism, perhaps? The Sixteen as honest brokers between the service and its venue?

[Nevilevelis]

The Sixteen were probably the Rolls Royce option....but agreed, for authenticity, maybe choristers of the Chapels Royal?

Authentic? Who said authentic? New Rite Vespers wasn't big in the early 1540's.

[ardcarp]

VCC had a point...Hampton Court, Wolsey, Herny VIII, Field of the Cloth of Gold, the (portable) Chapels Royal, probably William Cornysh (younger or ellder; can't remember which), choirs on French and English sides....probably a male-ish coterie.

[Miles Coverdale]

If it's Latin it's presumably before the Prayer Book, but if it really is a pair with the Nunc it's not written fro Vespers, is it?

Let's not forget that the Liber Precum Publicarum, for use in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and schools such as Winchester and Eton, was published in 1560.

[jean]

True, places where Latin might be expected to be understanded of the people.

[Nevilevelis]

VCC had a point...Hampton Court, Wolsey, Herny VIII, Field of the Cloth of Gold, the (potable) Chapels Royal, probably William Cornysh (younger or ellder; can't remember which), choirs on French and English sides....probably a male-ish coterie.

You would say that.

[Miles Coverdale]

True, places where Latin might be expected to be understanded of the people.

And also places which may well have had choirs capable of singing polyphony.

[jean]

Well, I always rather like the theory that after the Roman rite had gone underground, such singing as was done at all was likely to have been around the kitchen table by persons of either sex (they would never have dared sing anything during an actual mass, which had to be completed as quickly as possible for fear of discovery).

[Miles Coverdale]

But the LPP wasn't the Roman rite, it was the Anglican, reformed rite, just in Latin.

My point was that it is not inconceivable that Tallis's Mag and Nunc could have been used in a service of Latin Evensong, or Vesperam, as the LPP calls it.

[jean]

Yes I know, sorry - I just went off at a tangent.