Music from the Peterhouse partbooks
See detailed listing below
Choir of Peterhouse College, Cambridge/Simon Jackson
rec. July 2023 at St George’s Church, Chesterton, Cambridge, UK
Naxos 8.574700 [51]

Choristers in the medieval and Renaissance periods did not sing from choral scores, as their successors do today, but from partbooks. A partbook contained the musical line for one voice type only. Few of the original choral scores survive: what we mostly have are sets of partbooks. The voice types were also differently classified from those of today: they tended to be Triplex, Medius, Contratenor, Tenor and Bassus with a separate organ part where required. Some of these partbooks survive though not always in complete sets. The ones we are concerned with here were prepared for the chapel of Peterhouse College in Cambridge, and were hidden away when the Protestant Reformers came along to destroy ‘idolatrous and superstitious images’ – which included music. They are now in the Cambridge University Library. However, the sets are not complete, and reconstruction is necessary if some of the works are to be performed.

The Peterhouse partbooks fall into two groups. The Henrician set was prepared between 1539 and 1541, during the reign of Henry VIII. These are Latin-texted works for the pre-Reformation liturgy; the Blue Heron ensemble, based in Boston, USA, has recorded a number of these in a five-disc set (review). The Caroline set was assembled between 1625 and 1640, during the reign of Charles I, and is more diverse, with pieces both in Latin and in English. This is a large collection, from which the present disc is a selection. Some of the works are also preserved in other collections of partbooks.

Some of the composers represented here are well known: Tallis and Byrd wrote both for the older liturgy in Latin and for the newer one in English. The difference is not only in language: the older idiom was elaborate and florid, with frequent melismas and intricate polyphony. There are several Latin-texted pieces here in the older style, notably Giovanni Croce’s Omnes gentes plaudite, which is Venetian. However, the Protestant Reformers wanted music that could more easily be followed, with simpler settings in English and much more use of homophony. Tallis and Byrd each have two pieces here, and for each of them one is an adaptation of a Latin motet in the older style, and the other an English setting in the newer one. Other composers represented include Tomkins and some much less well-known names such as John Amner, Adrian Batten, William Child and William Smith. The last of these is represented not only by his Preces and Responses for Morning Prayer, still widely used, but also by a motet, Lord though art become gracious unto thy land, of which this is a first recording. We also have four pieces by Thomas Wilson, much the youngest of the composers here and one whose work is uniquely preserved in these partbooks; his four motets here are all premiere recordings. There are also two short organ voluntaries by Tomkins.

When these collections were made, church choirs would have been exclusively male, with boy trebles and altos on the higher lines. Here the works are performed, most appropriately, by the current choir of Peterhouse College, which is a mixed one, with women on the top two lines, Members of the choir come forward as required for solo passages. They have been well prepared, with accurate intonation and most expressive singing, and the whole disc is a pleasure to hear. The recording is good and the booklet has a useful essay and all the texts, with translations of the Latin where used. I hope the choir goes on to record more from their partbooks: there is a large repertory waiting to be rediscovered.

Stephen Barber

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Contents
Giovanni Croce (1557-1609) Omnes gentes plaudite
William Byrd (1540-1623) Prevent us, O Lord
Thomas Wilson (1618 (?) – after 1647) Prevent us, O Lord
John Amner (1579-1641) Lift up your heads
Thomas Tallis (c. 1505-1585) O God be merciful to us
Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656) Clarifica me Pater
Richard Farrant (c. 1525/30-1580) Call to remembrance, O Lord
William Byrd Behold, I bring you glad tidings
Thomas Tomkins Jesus came when the doors were shut
Thomas Tallis Verily, verily, I say unto you
Adrian Batten (1591-1637) Deliver us, O Lord our God
Thomas Wilson Behold, how good and joyfuil a thing it is
Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) Te Deum
Thomas Tomkins Ut, re fa, sol, la for a beginner
William Child (1606/7-1697) Jubilate Deo
Thomas Wilson Behold, now praise the Lord
William Smith Preces and Responses,  Lord, thou are become gracious unto thy land
Robert Stone The Lord’s Prayer
Thomas Wilson Evening Service in C – Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis