Music and History: 1554-1555

From Gallicantus and Gabriel Crouch comes another historically themed CD of music at the Court during Queen Mary I's phantom pregnancy of 1554-1555:

Long-awaited news of a Tudor royal birth winged its way to London on 30 April 1555. A male heir had been born: a pledge of dynastic fertility after decades of royal stillbirths, miscarriages and marital misadventures. This was surely a sign of God’s pleasure with Mary I (1516-1558) and a vindication of her mission to restore Catholic religion, reverse the doctrinal experiments of the previous two decades, and return England to its historic place in Europe. The bells of London accordingly rang out while Te Deum laudamus, the traditional hymn of thanksgiving, was sung by the city’s choirs.

The festivities came to an abrupt end on 1 May. Yesterday’s news had been a mere rumour: there was to be no royal birth, not yet at least. ‘It turned out otherwise to the pleasure of God’, wrote the merchant-tailor Henry Machyn, assuring himself that the birth would happen ‘whenever it pleases God’. At thirty-nine years old Queen Mary was superannuated by sixteenth-century obstetric standards, but her pregnancy was generally deemed credible and she had not yet come to term by 1 May. The summer months drew on, but still no news. Long after the original due date, Mary eventually gave up hope, withdrawing from Hampton Court to Oatlands Palace in the first days of August.

There would be no apotheosis in 1555, but it had been tantalizingly imminent. This disc explores the musical traces of an extraordinary year of hopes raised and dashed. The music performed here resonates with the circumstances of the mid-1550s, even if some of the items were composed outside Mary’s own reign; some pieces stemmed from the royal ceremonies in which Mary participated as queen; and some of the music sung here can be directly tied to the specific events of 1554-5, including a newly-reconstructed Litany which was performed during Mary’s assumed pregnancy. The viewpoint shifts from the streets of London and its suburbs, through the ceremonial grandeur of the royal palaces and their chapels, to the intimacy of the queen’s birthing chamber.

You may listen to samples here and read the entire booklet here. Several of the compositions are by John Sheppard, and Hyperion offers this biography:

John Sheppard (c1515–1558) is thought to have been a chorister at St Paul’s Cathedral in or around 1530, although information supporting this theory has proved difficult to come by. By Michaelmas 1543 he is known to have been Informator Choristarum (director of music) at Magdalen College Oxford, where he is reputed to have blotted his copybook through various misdeeds. On further investigation, this mistaken allegation has arisen from a misreading of the college’s records: it was Richard Sheppar (and not Sheppard) who was the culprit. Sheppard later appears in the records of the Chapel Royal (from 1547).

Sadly, much of Sheppard’s music has been lost. His compositions survive in partbooks at Christ Church Oxford, and testify to the elaborate style of church music from the reign of Mary Tudor (1553–1558). . . . 

He is best known today for his Media Vita ("In the midst of life"), an appropriate antiphon for Lent.

John Sheppard on BBC 3

You may listen to the Sunday, February 28 BBC3 Early Music Program on-line here for the next 27 or so days. The subject is John Sheppard:

No-one knows for sure the birth-date of Tudor composer John Sheppard, but it is thought to have been around 600 years ago in 1515-16. Lucie Skeaping is joined by singer and musicologist Sally Dunkley to explore the life and work of one of England's finest composers, with performances by The Sixteen, The Tallis Scholars, Stile Antico, the Gabrieli Consort, The Clerkes of Oxenford and the Choir of Westminster Abbey.

John Sheppard: Libera nos I
The Sixteen
Harry Christophers (director)

John Sheppard: Verbum caro (excerpt)
The Clerkes of Oxenford
David Wulstan (director)

John Sheppard: The Lord's Prayer
Stile Antico

John Sheppard: Magnificat (from Second Service)
The Choir of Westminster Abbey
James O'Donnell (director)

John Sheppard: Agnus Dei (from Missa Cantate)
Gabrieli Consort
Paul McCreesh (director)

John Sheppard: Libera nos II
The Sixteen
Harry Christophers (director)

John Sheppard: Media vita
The Tallis Scholars
Peter Phillips (director).

Stile Antico explored his works on one of their CDs, too:

Winner of the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, Stile Antico’s fourth recording is entirely devoted to the remarkable music of John Sheppard. Once overshadowed by his illustrious contemporary Thomas Tallis, Sheppard is now recognised as a composer of extraordinary originality. The disc explores his achievement in wide range of forms, from enchanting English miniatures written during the Protestant reign of Edward VI to great Latin hymns, antiphons and responsories – chief amongst them the outstanding Media vita, one of the longest and most emotionally involving works of the entire Renaissance.

Sheppard, Davy, and Mundy from The Sixteen

On their new CD and in their 2014 Choral Pilgrimage:

The Sixteen returns to its grass roots and revisits the golden age of Renaissance polyphony in England for the repertoire of its latest disc. In this new programme the award-winning ensemble presents a stunning selection of music by Richard Davy, John Sheppard and William Mundy.

Little is known about the life of Richard Davy. He is, however, the second most represented of all the composers in the Eton Choirbook and wrote in the beautifully florid style so characteristic of 1490s English music. The mere fact that his music survived the Reformation is nothing short of a miracle. He was a scholar of Magdalen College, Oxford, where he acted as choir master and organist and it is believed that he wrote the monumental O Domine caeli terraeque creator in the span of a single day during his time at the college.

John Sheppard's musical style contains all the grandness and idiosyncrasies of English harmonic invention, as is aptly displayed on this new recording which includes one of the gems of Tudor music - the glorious seven-part Trinity antiphons Libera nos with their ethereal combination of upper voices balanced with an even-note cantus firmus in the bass, as well as one of the most grandiose of Sheppard’s responsories, Gaude, gaude, gaude Maria, a magnificent setting of the responsory and prosa for Second Vespers for the Feast of the Purification.

William Mundy was one of the few composers whose career bridged the Reformation and allowed him to develop his style through a variety of important periods. His Votive antiphon,Vox patris caelestis, probably written for the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the reign of Mary Tudor, can be considered as the culmination of the great antiphon tradition with its elaborate and virtuosic vocal writing and daunting extended range.

The track listings are:

John Sheppard (c.1515-58/9)
1. Gaude, gaude, gaude Maria
William Mundy (c.1530-before 1591)
2. Adolescentulus sum ego
Richard Davy (c.1465-c.1521)
3. O Domine caeli terraeque creator
Sheppard
4. Libra nos I & II
5. In manus tuas I
Davy
6. Ah, mine heart, remember thee well
Sheppard
7. In manus tuas III
Mundy
8. Vox patris caelestis

While enduring withdrawal symptoms from the football season Sunday night, I watched the first episodes of Music and Monarchy again--with performances from Eton College, King's College, Cambridge, et al. I enjoyed again how David Starkey and his experts demonstrated the arrangements of College choirs around the huge choir book; then showed the changes made in the composition of music and the membership of the choir during the Tudor Reformation transitions, etc.

Something I did not comment on when I posted my review of Music and Monarchy is the other gradual transition Starkey demonstrates. From the Tudors to the Stuarts to the Hanoverians to the Windsors, the purpose of music at Court, Chapel Royal, and Cathedral changed. First, as Starkey showed particularly with the example of Henry V and Henry VI, the purpose was worship of God. Then, with the Restoration of Charles II and particularly the coronation of James II, the purpose was supporting the monarchy and king, which Purcell continued with the odes to Mary, for example, during the reign of William and Mary. After William curtailed music at Court, English music was revived during the Hanoverian dynasty by the German Handel--and George III supported his music and talent so much that the focus of the musical performance for the monarchy became recognition of the composer. With the Windsors, the purpose of music for the monarchy was patriotism or even nationalism: "Land of Hope and Glory", the Proms, the processional hymn by Ralph Vaughn Williams at Elizabeth II's coronation, "All People That On Earth Do Dwell", the focus was on the people and the glories of being English!

From God, to the King, to the composer, to the people.