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Reviewer: Barry
Brenesal Now, here’s excellent news: Owen Rees and Contrapunctus have begun a series of recordings based on works found in the Baldwin Partbooks. They’re one of the main repositories of what we might term the glories of Tudor choral culture. John Baldwin, in the late 1570s a tenor lay clerk at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, copied out roughly 170 works at a time when much of the music had lost its original liturgical function. (We owe yet more to Baldwin, who in 1591 would copy out in a fine, neatly legible hand 42 of William Byrd’s keyboard works as My Ladye Nevells Book.) There was a strong likelihood that little of it would have survived otherwise, given the increasing intolerance towards Roman Catholics in England through the 17th century; and the musical holdings of many cathedrals and churches during that period have long since vanished. Several of the pieces copied by Baldwin while at St. George’s Chapel consequently survive as unica. Of five original partbooks, all but the tenor have been preserved at Christ Church (Mus 979-983), and in fact can be viewed online. Those works where the tenor sings the chant as an equal note cantus firmus in augmentation can be reconstructed with little difficulty, but the rest are considerably more problematic. Owen Rees has decided to provide as broad a stylistic reach as possible for each disc, while keeping them distinct through a series of discrete themes. This CD focuses on works dealing with Roman Catholic views of mortality: the transience of life, the fear of torment, and the promise of salvation. Some of the works are well known, such as John Sheppard’s magnificent Media vita, which presumably rates inclusion because it is an unicum. Three other selections are, as well: Tallis’s Nunc dimittis is similarly not unknown, but Dericke Gerarde’s Sive vigelem and Robert Parsons’s Peccantem me quotidie are seldom heard, be it on record or in performance. The former is a spacious work of dramatic power that slowly unfolds through a brilliant layering of imitative points; the latter, an appropriately restrained piece that makes poignant use of Josquin’s so-called Miserere motif, followed by an anguished stepwise descent on the words “et salva me.” Contrapunctus remains an SATB choir, in structure identical to its composition in its earlier Libera Nos: The Cry of the Oppressed recording (Signum 388): four sopranos, two male altos, two tenors, and two basses. I described its performances at the time as “a very fine, medium weight choir, with a blend that doesn’t compromise clarity,” and much the same can be said of this release. If you can physically sample Rees’s fine work in advance of purchase, be sure to listen to the Credo quod redemptor meus vivit of Parsons as an example that shows both the finish of the singers’ phrasing, and the passion they supply through varied dynamics. With full texts and translations, as well as solid liner notes, this comes heartily recommended. | |
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