"The Little Church Around the Corner"
One East 29th Street, New York
MUSIC NOTES:
Lent II - February 24, 2002
During the last 30 years of his long life, William Byrd (1543-1623) composed his three complete settings of the Mass, for three, four and five voices respectively. Byrd was a competent and prolific composer in many genres, but most of his attention, especially in his later life, was fixed on sacred music. He was haunted by the demise of the Roman Catholic Church in England, and his continuing adherence to Catholicism after the English Reformation is well-documented. The Mass settings are solemn and meditative, and continue the florid pre-Reformation style of Taverner and Tye. Most English composers of this period who continued to write Latin church music left for the continent, usually the Netherlands, but Byrd remained in England.
Byrd's Latin Mass settings were performed predominantly in recusant households. Some of these households were wealthy enough to maintain a full choir that was competent to handle the technical demands of these Masses, but more often they were performed with a small choral ensemble, or even a single voice per part. The Mass for Four Voices was the first issued of the three settings, and is considered the most polished. The Kyrie, with its elaborate imitative polyphony, lends a particularly continental flavor to this Mass.
Unlike Byrd, who was a small child at the time of the Reformation, the life of Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585) evenly spans the pre- and post-Reformation periods. His life experiences surely taught him adaptability: he wrote music for Catholic rites under Henry VIII (1509-1547); for English vernacular services under Edward VI (1547-1553); for the reinstated Latin liturgy under Mary (1553-1558); and both English and Latin works under Elizabeth I, who had some sympathies with both languages in her pursuit of ecclesiastical peace. Thus it is that the same composer who penned the monumental 40-part Spem in Alium also wrote the straightforward yet beautiful four-part setting of the Great Litany, which by tradition is sung in this church in procession on the Sundays of Lent.
The music of Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) follows an evolution that was shaped by his extensive exposure to a wide variety of musical styles. While studying at Kassel, he heard the Hofkapelle perform motets by contemporary Dutch, Italian and German composers. Later as a student of Giovanni Gabrieli in Venice, he absorbed the rich colors and textural splendor of the music of St. Mark's Basilica and the court of the Doge. Also hat Gott die Welt Geliebt is an early work from the Geistliche Chorwerk (Sacred Choral Works), and already shows a mastery of the harmonic principles that define the contrapuntal school of central Germany.
Byrd's Latin Mass settings were performed predominantly in recusant households. Some of these households were wealthy enough to maintain a full choir that was competent to handle the technical demands of these Masses, but more often they were performed with a small choral ensemble, or even a single voice per part. The Mass for Four Voices was the first issued of the three settings, and is considered the most polished. The Kyrie, with its elaborate imitative polyphony, lends a particularly continental flavor to this Mass.
Unlike Byrd, who was a small child at the time of the Reformation, the life of Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585) evenly spans the pre- and post-Reformation periods. His life experiences surely taught him adaptability: he wrote music for Catholic rites under Henry VIII (1509-1547); for English vernacular services under Edward VI (1547-1553); for the reinstated Latin liturgy under Mary (1553-1558); and both English and Latin works under Elizabeth I, who had some sympathies with both languages in her pursuit of ecclesiastical peace. Thus it is that the same composer who penned the monumental 40-part Spem in Alium also wrote the straightforward yet beautiful four-part setting of the Great Litany, which by tradition is sung in this church in procession on the Sundays of Lent.
The music of Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) follows an evolution that was shaped by his extensive exposure to a wide variety of musical styles. While studying at Kassel, he heard the Hofkapelle perform motets by contemporary Dutch, Italian and German composers. Later as a student of Giovanni Gabrieli in Venice, he absorbed the rich colors and textural splendor of the music of St. Mark's Basilica and the court of the Doge. Also hat Gott die Welt Geliebt is an early work from the Geistliche Chorwerk (Sacred Choral Works), and already shows a mastery of the harmonic principles that define the contrapuntal school of central Germany.
