Earthly Solace – Eton Choirbook reconstructions
Selene/Daniel Gilchrist
rec. January 2025, St. Martin’s East Woodhay, England
CRD 3569 [62]
I recall a lecturer when I was a student pronouncing that the greatest English composer of the early sixteenth century was one John Browne (‘what’s in a name’ he said) and whilst that remains true, the many discs of music from the Eton Choirbook which have appeared in the last decades have certainly brought forth a couple of generations of other extraordinarily talented composers whose music was so scandalously destroyed at the Reformation. This situation has developed further with the two discs of Eton Choirbook reconstructions, of which this is the second.
Here we have nine works by seven composers two of whom, Syger and Brygeman are totally new names. Five works have been brilliantly, diligently and skilfully reconstructed by Russell Blacker. Banester’s O Maria et Elizabeth and Browne’s Stabat juxta Christ Crucem are complete works the latter also recorded by The Sixteen. These two works are included because the CD has a plan, which is explained by Emma Poucefort and Daniel Gilchrist in their very personal introductory essays and by Russell Blacker himself in a more extended essay discussing the composers and some of the background to each work.
When you remove the CD from its casing, underneath is the lovely portrait of Prince Arthur, Henry VIII’s sadly ill-fated elder brother. Although there are other possibilities, the largescale motet O Maria et Elizabeth by Banester is believed to have been composed to celebrate his birth in 1486. It is in three parts and is spread across the CD, but of course, you can track them to follow each other, as I first did. The text, which is unusual as it is written in prose and which may also have been written by Banester himself, emphases the relationship between Mary and her supposed cousin Elizabeth and includes the lines, ‘O wombs of Heaven, laden with dew with whose services you devoutly greet one another’. Russell Blacker in his extended essay describes the work as serene but for me it is one of the most joyous, I have ever heard from the Choirbook. The only other work known to be by Banester is a carol ‘My feerfull dreme’ found in the Fayrfax manuscript which was recorded by Pro Cantione Antiqua (‘A Gentill Jhesu’) for Hyperion (nla); this, too, has an extended and very personal text.
However, in 1502, Prince Arthur died aged sixteen, in the still magnificent Ludlow castle. The joyous hope for a future king was destroyed, and King Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth were, we read, utterly distraught. Browne’s Stabat juxta Christi Crucem comes towards the end of the disc and it’s a passionate setting of words telling of the Virgin Mary’s pain as she watches her son die on the cross ‘she saw her son die, she saw his body scourged’. This work uses as a cantus firmus a song by his fellow composer Edmund Turges ‘From stormy winds and grievous weather’. The text prays for the protection of the ostrich feather, the emblem of Prince Arthur, as, purportedly, he set out on a sea journey. The Sixteen on their 1991 disc ‘The Rose and Ostrich Feather’ recorded this work immediately followed by Browne’s Stabat juxta. It’s now clear that this work mourns Arthur’s death, the laments of the Virgin being parallelled in the grief of Arthur’s bereaved mother as heard through, what Blacker describes, as ‘dark and affecting harmonies’.
Looking now at the reconstructed works, Blacker tells us in detail which sections and parts did not survive the iconoclasts and has unearthed some fascinating biographical details.
John Syger spent most of his life in Cambridge in the first years of the sixteenth century. In his exuberant Magnificat the text is sung ‘in alternatum’ with, unusually, the plainchant performed in a three-part fauxbourdon. In Brygeman’s Salve Regina, right from the first phrase the major key harmony seems to float in an unworldly light before the counterpoint becomes contorted in the final section with the words. He was a lay clerk at Eton from 1503. Walter Lambe is a very significant composer with twelve works in the manuscript. His O Regina Caelistis Gloriae uses two cantus firmi for the season of Epiphany. The upper overlapping parts add a brilliancy to the shimmering textures.
It’s quite odd that a whole disc has not yet been devoted to Lambe, but it has to William Cornysh the elder, as we now call him, although the secular works like ‘Ah, Robin’ may well have been composed by his son. The elder is associated with Westminster Abbey in the early 1480’s and he often has a truly extravagant style. Only the second part of his Gaude Flori Virginali has been rescued and even then, half of it was missing. Still, it was worth it, as this motet, probably written for the Assumption, is a gloriously melodic exuberance. The first part of Robert Fayrfax’s glowing Ave Lumen Gratiae was recorded on Volume 1 of this series (‘Heavenly Light crd 3555). It is less melismatic than some of the other pieces and is a hymn, one might say, to the Virgin ‘Hail dew of sweetness, mother of beauty’.
The choir does not produce the same sound as say The Tallis Scholars or The Sixteen. The voices are young and athletic. They do not eschew vibrato especially in the lower parts and their vowels are very open. Sometimes you might say that the sound is almost harsh, but it is perfectly tuned and has an open-hearted warmth which is unique to them and highly suitable for this complex music. Buy it; we may well never see its like again.
Gary Higginson
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Contents
Gilbert Banester (c.1430-1487)
O Maria et Elizabeth a5 (prima pars)
William Cornysh (c.1430-1502)
Gaude Flori Virginal a6 (secunda pars)
Robert Fayrfax (1464-1521)
Ave, Lumen Gratiae a4 (secunda pars)
Gilbert Banester
O Maria et Elizabeth (secunda pars)
William Brygeman (c.1475-c.1525)
Salve Regina a5
John Syger (fl.1490-1510)
Magnificat a 4
Gilbert Banester
O Maria et Elizabeth (tertia pars)
John Browne (1453-c.1500)
Stabat juxta Christi Crucem a 6
Walter Lambe (c.1450-1504)
O Regina Caelestis Gloriae a6
