iuchair present a reflective concert of English 16th-century music for Holy Week, composed by Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal. Latin Passiontide motets by Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, John Sheppard and Robert Parsons integrated within Byrd’s rarely-performed St John Passion.

John Sheppard (c. 1515–1558), Robert Parsons (c. 1535–1571), Thomas Tallis (1505–1585) and William Byrd (1540–1623) are perhaps the four most famous English composers of music from the sixteenth century. One thing that these four men had in common was an appointment sometime as Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal, meaning that they sang, played the organ, and composed music for the monarch’s personal and, at the time, peripatetic church services. Tallis was made a Gentleman in 1543, Sheppard at or before 1553, Parsons in 1563, and Byrd in 1572.

Sheppard cannot technically be termed an Elizabethan composer as he died a month before Elizabeth’s coronation, but it is clear that his music was still performed posthumously. There was never therefore any period where all four composers overlapped within the Chapel Royal, but the long–lived Tallis must have known all of the other three at some time. We know at least that Byrd was one of Tallis’ pupils, and they collaborated on creating a publication of their music: Cantiones quæ ab argumento sacræ vocantur (1575) from which O sacrum convivium and In jejunio et fletu are taken. The publication was an absolute failure in its own time, even with the advantage of a lucrative monopoly on printing music granted by the Crown.

This performance is centred around Byrd’s rarely–performed St John Passion, with various four– and five–part motets for Holy Week integrated within the setting. To say that the Passion is Byrd’s composition is not exactly accurate. In truth, Byrd only wrote the Turbarum voces, the vibrant three–part polyphony that sets the text of when multiple characters are speaking as one: we hear the soldiers arriving to arrest Jesus (Jesum Nazarenum), the servants around the fire questioning Peter (Numquid et tu), the Chief Priests and Pharisees condemning Jesus to Pilate (Si non esset), the crowds calling for Jesus to be crucified (Non hunc), and the soldiers mocking Jesus (Ave, Rex Judæorum). The rest of the story, an almost verbatim setting of John 18–19, is set to a psalm tone. Each character has his or her own tone, and the way in which the Evangelist tone ends signals which character will speak next. The Passion text itself, designed for Good Friday, ends with a vision of the crucified Christ, His burial being reserved for Holy Saturday.

All the music you will be hearing has been newly–edited directly from the original sources, at new pitches and with new ficta from a selection of printed as well as manuscript sources: the above–mentioned Tallis/Byrd collaboration Cantiones (1575) as well as Byrd’s publication Gradualia I (1605), the Baldwin, Geare, Hamond, Wanley, Peterhouse, Sadler, Tenbury, Dow and Wilmott partbooks as well as the Baldwin commonplace book.

CD in card wallet.

CDs

Passio: Music for Holy Week [LIVE] [Physical CD]

Pérotin: The Scottish Source [Physical CD]

To Your Rude Health! [Physical CD]