Clerkes of Oxenford

[DracoM]

Have recently re-discovered several LPs of their work in a different part of my collection - Sheppard, Taverner etc etc - bought in mid-70's-mid-80s.
Re-playing them in proper LP vinyl sound has re-ignited the passion for their purity, 'straight' style, that mostly satisfying stratospheric pitch, phrasing, feeling for the music / words.
Buying them changed my whole perception of how Tudor and earlier choral liturgical music might be sung.
The debt I owe to David Wulstan and Sally Dunkley is immense!

What influence did they have on other groups? What of the scholarship in their work? How did they determine pitch decisions?

[Gabriel Jackson]

Have recently re-discovered several LPs of their work in a different part of my collection - Sheppard, Taverner etc etc - bought in mid-70's-mid-80s.
Re-playing them in proper LP vinyl sound has re-ignited the passion for their purity, 'straight' style, that mostly satisfying stratospheric pitch, phrasing, feeling for the music / words.
Buying them changed my whole perception of how Tudor and earlier choral liturgical music might be sung.
The debt I owe to David Wulstan and Sally Dunkley is immense!

What influence did they have on other groups? What of the scholarship in their work? How did they determine pitch decisions?

Peter Phillips of the Tallis Scholars and Harry Christophers of The Sixteen were both students of David Wulstan. In his rather eccentric book Tudor music Wulstan explains at some length his theory that most English music in Latin from before 1600 should be sung a minor third higher than written. That theory is pretty much discredited now and Peter Phillips and Harry Christophers are the only directors I am aware of who still favour upwards transposition (sometimes only by a tone rather than a minor third); I suspect that in Peter's case, that is as much because he likes the way it sounds as anything else.

[Roger Judd]

When I worked at St Michael's College Tenbury (1973–85) I had the run of the famous library created by Sir Frederick Ouseley, the founder of the College in 1856. Edmund Fellowes was librarian from 1918 to 1948, and he was the first to catalogue the library, and he used it extensively for his own editions of music, sacred and secular from the 16th and 17th centuries. Amongst the collection is a complete set of Tomkins Musica Deo Sacra, published by his son in 1668. The Tenbury set is unique for two things. There is an extra page bound in after the last page of music, and there is a semibreve printed with a caption in Latin (I translate) For this music to be correctly performed there should be thirty-six semibreves to the minute, one semibreve equalling two heartbeats. Then there is a pitched semibreve on tenor F, and this pitch corresponds to an organ pipe 2 foot 6 inches long. Today, if you blow a 2 ft 6in pipe it sounds the A flat, a minor third above. Fellowes published his editions at that transposed pitch, and that is where the minor third transposition all began.
Here endeth the first lesson ...!
RJ

[DracoM]

Hope there will be more, Roger!!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Hope there will be more, Roger!!

[mopsus]

On a CE-related note, Wulstan also produced a good book of Anglican chants 'The Coverdale chant book' which can sometimes be found second-hand.

[arthroceph]

kudos Roger

[Miles Coverdale]

For this music to be correctly performed there should be thirty-six semibreves to the minute, one semibreve equalling two heartbeats.

That seems extremely slow to me. I've often read that the semibreve should equal the nominal human heartrate of 72, but 36 is obviously half that speed. Are you sure it didn't say that there should be 36 breves to the minute?

[Roger Judd]

re. Heartbeats - here is the latin: Sit mensura duorum humani corporis pulsuum, vel globuli penduli, longitudine duorum pedum a centro motus. Peter le Huray comments that although that might seem slow for Edwardian and early Elizabethan music, for the more complex Tomkins that could be quite reasonable. Nathaniel was writing about his father's music and no other, so I guess he knew what worked for Tomkins senior.
Hope that clarifies.
RJ

[Vox Humana]

I suspect that in Peter's case, that is as much because he likes the way it sounds as anything else.

I am sure that I remember him saying so in print, although I can't give a reference offhand.

There is an extra page bound in after the last page of music, and there is a semibreve printed with a caption in Latin (I translate) For this music to be correctly performed there should be thirty-six semibreves to the minute, one semibreve equalling two heartbeats. Then there is a pitched semibreve on tenor F, and this pitch corresponds to an organ pipe 2 foot 6 inches long. Today, if you blow a 2 ft 6in pipe it sounds the A flat, a minor third above. Fellowes published his editions at that transposed pitch, and that is where the minor third transposition all began.

Nathaniel Tomkins's instruction gives the speed of a semibreve. This does equate to a tempo of minim = c.72 (or crotchet = c.72 if you're using an edition with halved note values) - which, as a general guide, suits Thomas's anthems very well.

Several Tudor organs from Duddyngton's of 1519 for All Hallows, Barking, to Dallam's of 1613 for Worcester Cathedral (Tomkins's organ, no less) mention pipe lengths and they all seem to suggest that throughout the sixteenth century and up to the Commonwealth there was a (no doubt not inflexible) pitch standard based on a nominal 10' or 5' pitch. The problem is that Fellowes and Wulstan took these pipe lengths literally, whereas it appears that they were no more than rounded figures, exactly as the lengths in use today are. Way back in the late '70s Andrew Parrott investigated two surviving Tudor pipes at Stanford-on-Avon and found that they were pitched a little over a semitone sharp. His measurements have been found to agree with nineteenth-century conclusions about Tudor organ pipes that have since disappeared. The current thinking on this is set out in a fascinating article by Andrew Johnstone: "'As it was in the beginning': organ and choir pitch in early Anglican church music". Early Music, Nov. 2009, pp.506-626, which is well worth hunting down. In parallel with this, research into the countertenor voice and falsetto singing by Simon Ravens and by Andrew Parrott, "Falsetto beliefs: the ‘countertenor’ cross-examined", Early Music, Feb 2014, pp.79-110, supplemented by material here, have pretty firmly (to my mind) kicked into touch any notion that any Tudor singers sang wholly in falsetto. In short the Tudor countertenor, tenor ("an ordinary voice") and bass were the equivalent of our tenor, baritone and bass. A pitch standard of one-and-a-third semitones above A=440 does seem a fraction high for such a choir today, but to my mind it otherwise makes a great deal of sense of the evidence and helps to reconcile the opposing views of Wulstan and Roger Bowers. Apart from one or two people with reputations to protect I get the impression that most scholars today broadly agree with with this scenario, at least as regards church music. Views about the pitching of music in secular contexts are more diverse, I think. I'm sure Master Coverdale will correct me if I've got anything wrong here.

[Miles Coverdale]

No, that's a good summation of the position, in my opinion, though I personally find a minim speed of 72 to be a bit ponderous for something like Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, for example. Perhaps the Jacobean heartbeat was faster than ours...

[Vox Humana]

Thank you, Sir.

I personally find a minim speed of 72 to be a bit ponderous for something like Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, for example. Perhaps the Jacobean heartbeat was faster than ours...

Well there you go. Personally I find 72 a bit fast, but that's doubtless because I first got to know the piece through Bernard Rose's recording. His version on YouTube (at 5:33 here) is at an atmospherically reverential 56 or thereabouts. YouTube also has a performance during a Choral Evensong from Hereford Cathedral which is nearer Tomkins's speed at c.68.

[Miles Coverdale]

Actually, I take that back. A speed of 68–72 is not too slow for that particular anthem (though Bernard Rose's 56 is a bit much for my liking).

I'll see if I can find any earlier references to tempo. I don't recall it being a subject that generated as much diversity of opinion as pitch.

[Vox Humana]

Returning to The Clerkes of Oxenford, I went to several of their concerts in Oxford and elsewhere and always enjoyed them. I also have all their commercial recordings and never tire of listening to them, even if, nowadays, I think the scoring and pitch are wrong. Wulstan understood the music from the inside. With many performances today I find myself thinking ,"That would have been impractical for Tudor singers", or "That goes against they way they thought". I never once felt that with the Clerkes' performances. Tempi and interpretations always felt spot on and utterly satisfying. My solitary quibble is that I have always thought his speed for the Tallis seven-part mass on the LP/CD just a little too slow. Although it does work well, it proves how important first hearings can be. I first heard this piece when the Clerkes broadcast it in a Radio 3 recital. Their speed then was a little faster and it had a great impact on me, so much so that I went and edited the piece for myself (there being no published score at the time).

[Vox Humana]

Sadly, David Wulstan's death was announced recently.

https://www.spc.ox.ac.uk/news/prof-david-wulstan-1937-2017