Program Notes

	In 1533, Henry VIII divorced Catherine of Aragon and married 
Anne Boleyn.  In doing so he broke formally with the papacy and, surely
without intending to, set England upon its tortuous path to official
Protestantism.  Henry, "whose will was to himself as the oracles of God"
averred he sought only a queen who, by bearing him a son, would ensure
the continued hold of the Tudor house upon the throne.  In seeking an
end to the wars of succession that had burdened the realm during the
latter half of the 15th century, he instead plunged his people into a 
morass of religious and civil strife which would not end until the 
beginning of the 18th century.

	Parliament, driven by anti-clerical sentiment and with Henry's
assent, mandated the dissolution and plunder of some 600 monasteries,
and forbade contact between the English Church and the Roman See.  These
deeds, virtually unprecedented in Christendom before the time of Luther,
cut at the roots of a system which had nurtured generations of musicians
and composers.  Until this time, almost all musicians in England and 
Europe began their careers as choirboys and were trained in religious
establishments.  Now, this vast and wealthy institution was stripped of
its land and possessions, its clergy were humiliated, and its many 
dependents and servitors were dispersed and cheaply pensioned off or
discharged.  In this light, even without consideration of the more 
subjective and complex issues of personal faith and fealty in that age, 
it is not surprising that most of the English musical establishment 
remained loyal to the old religion through the end of the 16th century, 
despite increasingly trying circumstances.  And although the roots had 
in a sense been cut, the tree had been so well nourished that it 
continued to flower with amazing luxuriance, and bore fruit in the work
of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd, as well as that of many now less
well-known masters like John Sheppard, and Robert White.

	England's earlier isolation and musical conservatism (in some
respects) had allowed the development of a truly indigenous and 
distinctive "dialect" of the central musical language in Europe.  In 
the realm of sacred choral music, an art had arisen, characterized by
rhapsodically flowing melismas; full, often elaborate textures; emphasis
more on free counterpoint and less on pervasive imitation; a certain 
expansiveness of mood; the leisurely, at times even wayward, movement 
of underlying harmony; a preoccupation with sonority for its own sake; 
and a most peculiarly English love for certain harmonic effects that 
sometimes sound strange and idiosyncratic to our ears today.  Although 
continental influences began to flood in during the mid-sixteenth 
century, the insular distinctiveness of the English School was only 
very slowly submerged.

			Composers and the Music

	It is a privilege to be able to present some of the works of
John Sheppard (c. 1512? - 1560?), a gifted composer whose music reveals
a many-faceted and versatile spirit.  Due to an accident of history his 
considerable legacy of works, second in quantity only to Byrd's, has 
been neglected until recently.  Sheppard may have been a choirboy at 
St. Paul's Cathedral, and by 1543 took a post teaching choristers at 
Magdalen College, Oxford.  Although probably still a Roman Catholic, 
he was able to join the list of the Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal during
the reign of Edward VI (1547-1553), a time of the vigorous advance of 
Protestantism.  He retained this position of esteem through the five 
year reign of Queen Mary, which saw the ruthless reinstatement of 
Catholicism, and until his death.

	Of Sheppard's music, Peter Phillips has said that "...some of 
his harmonies were especially daring by the standards of the time."  
Sheppard's flair for unusal, almost Romantic harmonic motion results 
from an unorthodox but imaginative treatment of dissonance and sus-
pension.  This is most apparent in his cantus firmus pieces.  Verbum
caro factum est, the final responsory for Matins on Christmas Eve, is
an excellent example.  Most likely written during the reign of Queen Mary,
it has much of the robust and extravagant character of the pre-Reformation
English musical tradition, with its melismatic counterpoint and brilliant
sonority produced by the employment of high treble voices.  The incipit
and responsory verses are left to be chanted by cantors, alternating with
tutti responses, just as in the Gregorian tradition; there the chant appears,
cloaked in polyphony, as a slow-moving monorhythmic tenor cantus firmus.
Although imitation is employed continuously, the melismatic lines and 
continuous thick texture of the polyphony give Verbum caro an archaic
flavor.  This is typical of works in this genre, and results from the 
relation of the polyphony to the cantus firmus; the five highly independent
contrapuntal parts are suspended in motion until the tenor part reaches the
end of each phrase in the plainchant.  There all voices cadence together,
facilitating the "telescoped" repetition of the polyphonic sections 
according to the traditional form: (incipit)ABC(verse)BC(verse)C.

	In pace, in idipsum, a short responsory to be sung at compline,
is quite different.  There is no cantus firmus, and its four-part texture
is clear and open, frequently using paired voices in the Flemish manner.
The phrases are tuneful and rhythmically concise, and are introduced and
developed imitatively.  There is a nice balance between the use of melis-
matic phrases and homophony.  In pace belongs to an earlier tradition in
which it is the soloists' chant which is replaced by polyphony; thus the
whole choir sings the incipit, "In pace", and the response "in idipsum"
is chanted.
 
	The long career of Thomas Tallis (c. 1505-1585) shows a clear 
development from the florid, somewhat discursive style exemplified by 
Taverner, to the more concise, post-Reformation idiom with its emphasis 
on textual declamation and melodic economy.  Of Tallis' life little is 
known, despite his great reknown as a composer.  In 1577, in a petition 
to Queen Elizabeth for assistance, he described himself as "verie aged" 
and reminded her that he had "served your Majestie and your Royall 
ancestors these fortie years", a reference to his tenure in the royal 
household since King Henry VIII.  His epitaph bore verses that revealed 
that although childless, he had "Lyv'd in Love ful three and thirty 
Yeres" with his wife Joan, and "As he did lyve, so also did he dy, in 
mild and quyet sort (O! happy Man)".

	Dum transisset Sabbatum is also a matins responsory for Easter.
But unlike Verbum caro, it is written in a modern idiom in which the polyphony
is afforded more independence from the cantus firmus, here appearing in
the top voice.  The melodic lines are more concise, and homophony is used at
"et Salome" and at "ut venientes", as well as in the concluding chorus of
alleluias.  The plainchant melody is carried in the highest part 
in notes of equal value, while the lower four converse polyphonically in
support.  The beginning section is suffused with a quiet joy 
anticipating the miraculous discovery of the first Easter morning, and 
the warmth and subtle sensuousness of the music, while appropriate for 
this celebration, is otherwise unusual for the period.  Although this 
composition lacks the occasional harmonic shocks often found in English 
sacred music, the underlying progressions lead us on strange paths: the 
piece begins (in contemporary musical terms) in C major, eventually 
settles into A minor, and concludes on a B major chord.

	O sacrum convivium is a mystical celebration of the highest 
sacrament of the Roman and Anglican rites.  The piece has the clear ABB 
form of the early anthem, and despite the repeat of the last section and
the anthem-like simplicity of the phrases, this is a true polyphonic 
motet in which the five voices share equally in musical importance.  
There are numerous "cross" or "false" relations harmonically, in which 
an augmented or diminshed octave, fifth or fourth is produced by the 
raising or lowering by a semitone of a note in one part, which then 
sounds dissonantly against an unaltered note in another part.  This 
effect is highly characteristic of English Renaissance music, and was so
loved that it was often indulged in purely for its own sake.  

	It has been suggested, based on certain details of the text 
underlay, that the version with an English text on the same subject,
I call and cry to thee, is the original one.  Tallis, like Byrd and 
others, supplied innovative music in the vernacular for the Reformed 
service.  It seems ironic that these Catholic composers laid the 
foundations of Anglican church music, but it is to their accomodation
in this respect that they owe their enduring reknown, as their music in 
English continued to be sung in the churches of their homeland up to the
present day.  One could argue that these composers, whose Anglican 
compositions kept the sounds of 16th-century music familiar to English 
ears, may thereby have played an indirect role in the revival of "early
music", at first largely a British phenomenon, in the twentieth century.

	Robert White (c. 1538-1574) has suffered a fate opposite to that
of Tallis and Byrd, whose careers flourished later in their lives.  We 
can only speculate as to the gifts that might have been bequeathed to us
by White had he not been carried off, together with his wife and three 
daughters, by the plague in November 1574.  The mere 27 of his sacred 
compositions which survive reveal a highly individual and inventive 
musical gift, which justifies the esteem in which he was held by his
contemporaries.

	White's five-voice Lamentations of Jeremiah are a masterpiece.
The scribe who copied it out added a couplet at the end: "Not even the
words of this mourning prophet sound so sad as the sad music of my
composer."  Within a carefully sustained atmosphere of desolation and 
penitence White continually finds fresh ideas and nuances of expression,
and appears conscientiously to avoid cliches and habitual formulae 
in the writing.  The music for the Hebrew letters at the head of each 
verse is particularly free and "vocal" in its elaborateness, with much 
use of very long notes in the bass, over which the other parts flow.
Here still, the melismatic indulgence of older English music is 
beautifully in evidence, and here too are found the occasional harmonic
surprises referred to earlier.  The underlying rhythmic pulse also is 
notably free in this music; in the modern edition are measures of two, 
three, four, five, and six beats.

	It is not known precisely when Lamentations was composed, but 
by the later years of White's life "Papists" had come under increasing 
pressure to conform.  In 1570, Elizabeth was excommunicated by the Roman
Church (as her father had been), and faithful Catholics understood that 
their obedience to her put them in an intolerable position with respect 
to their faith.  The many texts, chosen by these Catholic composers,
that refer to the destruction of Jerusalem and plead for divine 
forgiveness and "restoration" must be taken to allude, with only slight
ambiguity, to the tragic condition that had befallen the nation in 
their eyes.

	Of William Byrd (c. 1543-1623) the historian Paul Henry Lang 
wrote: "After Shakespeare, Byrd is without a doubt the most imposing 
figure of the English Renaissance, towering above all his 
contemporaries."  Certainly he stands as at least the equal of 
Palestrina and Lassus as one of the great composers of later 
Renaissance music.  In 1563 he was appointed choirmaster and organist
at Lincoln Cathedral, near the place of his birth, but by 1570 he had 
moved with his family to London, where he took up the post of organist
at the Chapel Royal, a position he shared with the illustrious Tallis.
Despite his staunch Catholicism, and the heavy fines he endured in 
consequence, he was held in such high esteem by the Queen (herself an
accomplished keyboard-player), the court, and the whole nation, that he 
seems to have remained relatively secure in this position, which he held
until his death.  He somehow managed to succeed in those perilous times 
at being both "a stiff papist and a good subject", to use Elizabeth's 
own words.  Byrd was "of him selfe naturally disposed to Gravitie and 
Pietie", and the evidence shows him as a man of more than usual tenacity
and perisistence in all matters: as a friend, in his faith, and to a 
surprising degree as a litigant in his later years.  Unusual for a 
musician, he died with property and some wealth.

	In one of his prefaces Byrd reveals something of the 
quasi-mystical process he empployed in composing.  He speaks of his 
belief in "the profound and hidden power" of sacred words: "to one 
thinking upon things divine, and diligently and earnestly pondering 
them, all the fittest measures [i.e., musical ideas] occur as of 
themselves..." (his Latin words in translation).  The funeral motet 
Libera me, Domine, et pone me, one of his most celebrated pieces from 
the joint 1575 publication with Tallis, illustrates the development and 
sophistication the mature composer had brought to the motet form.  The 
succession of musical subjects, their expressive appropriateness to the 
words, their variety and originality, together with the overall large 
scale of conception, invite appropriately qualified comparison with the 
genius of J. S. Bach in this genre.  In particular, the constant 
juxtaposition and simultaneous development of contrasting phrases 
anticipate the dialogue of subject and countersubject in the Baroque 
fugue.

	Another work giving ample evidence of Byrd's profound and 
searching engagement with a text is his most famous, Ne irascaris, 
Domine, which in a 17th century English version "O Lord, turn thy wrath"
has been heard in English cathedrals to the present day.  Published in 
1589, at a time when Catholics must have felt especially desperate and 
embattled, with the ruthless suppression of the Jesuit mission to 
"convert" the nation and the defeat of the Armada in 1588, it is one 
of the "Jerusalem" motets pleading for divine mercy and deliverance.  
Byrd employs the five voices in contrasting groups of three and four 
in a manner derived from the contemporary madrigal, and highly effective
chordal passages alternate with the polyphony.  It is outstanding in its
perfect balance of drama and prayerful restraint, and for the directness
of its simple and obviously personal sincerity.

	Between the careers of Peter Phillips (c. 1560-1628) and Richard
Dering (c. 1580-1630) there are many parallels.  English Catholics had 
hoped that the accession to the throne of James I in 1603 would bring a 
relaxation of the oppressions to which they had been subjected, but the 
failure in 1605 of the famous "Gunpowder Plot", an attempt by Catholic 
extremists to blow up Parliament and the King, resulted in redoubled 
persecution.  Many musicians like Phillips and Dering sought refuge in 
the Spanish Netherlands, where both settled as organists and 
choirmasters in Brussels.  Both were prominent as composers of madrigals
in the Italian style, and both also wrote estimable sacred music 
influenced by the former genre.  

	Phillips' well-known Ascendit Deus, for five voices, comes from 
his Cantiones sacrae, published in Antwerp in 1612.  It has a fine 
balance of polyphony and homophony, as well as intermediate textures.  
the "fanfares" illustrating the sound of the trumpet just after the 
beginning, and the vigorous "alleluias" at the end are particularly 
striking.  Although in output as well as reputation the lesser of the 
two composers, Dering provided in his six-voice Factum est silentium
(Antwerp, 1618), something of a small-scale masterpiece of depictive 
music.  The hush in heaven during the opening moments, the battle with 
the dragon, and the brilliant concluding "alleluias" are wonderfully 
dramatic.

				-- Joel van Lennep and Mike Terranova