Tom and Will

W. Byrd (c.1543-1623)
Praise our Lord, all ye gentiles

TO FRIENDS

T. Morley (1557-1602)
O amica mea (prima pars)

T. Morley (1557-1602)
Nolo mortem peccatoris

T. Weelkes (1576-1623)
Death hath deprived me

T. Tallis (1505-1585)
“Why fum’th in fight” from Archbishop Parker’s Psalter

T. Tallis (1505-1585)
In ieiunio et fletu

W. Byrd (c.1543-1623)
Ye sacred muses

TO LIFE

T. Weelkes (1576-1623)
Hark all ye lovely saints

T. Weelkes (1576-1623)
Like two proud armies

W. Byrd (c.1543-1623)
O Lord, make thy servant Elizabeth

W. Byrd (c.1543-1623)
This sweet and merry month of May

TO ADVENTURE

T. Weelkes (1576-1623)
Thule, the period of cosmography

W. Byrd (c.1543-1623)
O salutaris hostia a 6

T. Weelkes (1576-1623)
Hosanna to the Son of David

Interval

TO GOD

W. Byrd (c.1543-1623)
Laudibus in sanctis

T. Weelkes (1576-1623)
When David heard

SONGS OF FAITH, HOPE AND HARMONY

A selection of audience favourites from The King’s Singers close-harmony library, incorporating some of their favourite spirituals and folk songs, as well as some brand-new surprises.

One of them was a celebrity in his lifetime, moving in London’s top social circles. The other lived a provincial existence, notorious in his own locale yet without the same status in the capital. But they were both visionaries: bold, imaginative characters who are now considered masters of English composition, each of them revolutionising English choral music during their lifetimes. Both died in 1623. So, 400 years later we honour their death anniversary, celebrating their lives and music. They are, of course, Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623) and William Byrd (c.1543-1623), or as we like to call them, Tom and Will.

Both of them had salaried jobs in the English church: Byrd at Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal in London; and Weelkes at Chichester Cathedral in the south of England. The two men wrote a lot of their output to fulfil the requirements of these prestigious church choirs. Weelkes was, in fact, the most prolific composer of canticles and verse anthems in early 17^th century England, and Byrd published multiple volumes of religious masses and motets, both in Latin and in English. One of his finest motets is the six-part psalm setting Praise our Lord, all ye gentiles, which opens the concert. Indeed, for Byrd, one of the great dilemmas influencing his later life and work was the juxtaposition of his personal Catholic faith with the increasingly strict Protestantism in Elizabethan England, and with it, the demand to write music fitting this new Protestant mould. What we are aiming to explore this year are the characters behind the music: the humour, anxiety, interests, beliefs and shortcomings of two remarkable musicians. For us, these characters can be found most clearly in their secular music – their “off-duty output”. It is on this that we’re focusing in the first half of the programme, structured by a set of “toasts”: To Friends, To Life, and To Adventure.

Both Byrd and Weelkes saw themselves as part of a lineage of English choral composers, and that is what we emphasise in the section To Friends. In Elizabethan times, the notion of patronage, mentorship and homage was very strong within the artistic world; Weelkes and Byrd had mentors and teachers who they also considered dear friends. Through the two elegies we have selected (Death hath deprived me and Ye sacred muses) we get a remarkable insight into their relationships with their mentors. For Thomas Weelkes, his “dearest friend” was the composer Thomas Morley (1557-1602), a composer who became particularly famous during his life for his madrigals, songs, and his influential book on music theory. Morley was equally influential on Weelkes, and when Morley died in 1602, Weelkes wrote the madrigal Death hath deprived me in his honour. The piece is a beautiful tribute from Weelkes to Morley, and to illustrate this friendship yet further, we begin this section of the concert with two works by Morley: his beautiful sacred Latin motet, O amica mea (which is in an old-fashioned polyphonic style) and his motet Nolo mortem peccatoris. Nolo mortem is unusual for its “macaronic” text: mixing Latin and English together within the same work. Despite being a simple prayer in four parts, the piece also includes several “false relations”, where the vocal lines create brief clashes between parts. This was a musical tool that was fashionable in English composition, having been used widely by another giant of English music: Thomas Tallis (1505-1585).

Tallis was perhaps the most influential English composer of the 16^th century, in no small part due to his unusually long life which covered most of the 1500s. He wrote music for the courts and chapels of four successive English monarchs – from Henry VIII through Elizabeth I – and through those decades adapted and evolved his musical writing with the tastes and demands of the time. Like Byrd, Tallis’s personal Catholic faith never seemed to waver, despite the demands of writing for the newly-established Church of England (with all of its stylistic boundaries). His psalm setting Why fum’th in fight is a perfect example of this simple style, and was one of many hymn-like settings Tallis wrote for Archbishop Matthew Parker’s Psalter in 1567. Tallis’s friendship with William Byrd is thought to have developed at the Chapel Royal, where they were both paid musicians. Yet the depth of their relationship is most easily illustrated by their joint publication project in 1575, Cantiones Sacrae. A tribute to Queen Elizabeth I, the volume contains 17 motets by each of them, and it is from this collection that In ieiunio et fletu is taken. Upon Tallis’s death at the age of 80, Byrd wrote the lament Ye sacred muses. The desperate sadness Byrd felt at Tallis’ death is captured in the final words of the piece: “Tallis is dead and music dies”. To hear Tallis’ name included explicitly in this piece is emotionally electrifying, bringing to life the tangible reality of the friendship between these two great figures of English music.

In the next section of our programme, To Life, we have chosen music that sheds some light on the daily preoccupations and personalities of the two composers. For Byrd, these preoccupations included reminding Queen Elizabeth I of his loyalty and dedication to her. In his madrigals and church anthems, Byrd’s English language output shows the extent to which he cherished, and perhaps relied on, her goodwill and patronage (particularly in the later part of his life). This sweet and merry month of May is one of two settings of the text, celebrating the arrival of Spring, and in which Byrd plays with the extremes of the madrigalian style. His motet O Lord, make thy servant Elizabeth is similarly plain in its praise of Elizabeth, taking Psalm 21 and adapting it to address the Queen directly, praying for God’s protection over her.

Weelkes’ preoccupations were rather less noble. The latter part of his life and career is thought to have been plagued by alcoholism. Weelkes was frequently reprimanded by the clergy of Chichester Cathedral for going absent when he was meant to be on duty, and for swearing and blaspheming when drunk. It can be difficult to square the beauty and elegance of his musical language with the rebelliousness of his antics in Chichester. Women and drink were certainly two of Weelkes’ weaknesses, and in Hark all ye lovely saints, the repeated “Fa-la-la” sections disguise suggestive passages of text, and keep the madrigal focused on figures from mythology and religion. In Like two proud armies, we hear Weelkes weigh up his conscience (or “reason”) against the tempting beauty of a woman, comparing them to two armies in battle. The woman’s beauty seems to win the fight, and presumably Weelkes gives in to its overwhelming power.

The following section looks at Adventure in two ways: literally, in the case of Weelkes’ Thule, the period of cosmography, and musically in the case of Byrd’s O salutaris hostia a 6. Weelkes’ madrigal was published in 1600 and captures in colourful detail the sense of wonder and mystery that came with the great exploratory voyages of the 16^th century. Explorers such as Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh (not to mention the Iberian explorers of South America) discovered and charted new fish, islands, birds, volcanoes in many parts of the world, and the news of these discoveries fired up the popular imagination in Britain through art, literature, and music. Weelkes’ madrigal is one example of this, containing mentions of “flying fishes”, “Fogo” (a West African volcano), “Etna”, and of course “Thule”, which was an Ancient Greek word for the most northerly region in the world (which, at that time, may have been perceived as an island off Norway or Scotland). The dramatic musical figures and wheeling harmonies reflect this sense of the new and alien discoveries of the time. The best counterpoint to Weelkes’ adventurous madrigal must be William Byrd’s motet O salutaris hostia a 6, which stands as a kind of anomaly in Byrd’s output for its extraordinary use of dissonance through overlapping false relations. Most of Byrd’s music was published during his lifetime, in printed books with reasonably wide circulation. O salutaris hostia a 6 is a rare example of a piece that survives only in handwritten manuscript form, and in fact only in a single manuscript source, called the Baldwin Partbooks. The striking false relations are the product of a canon which runs through three of the voice parts, bringing them into conflict with each other at regular intervals. Remembering the spirit of influence and mentorship between Tallis and Byrd, this work sees Byrd employing a technique honed by Tallis, taking it to its most expressive extreme in a harmonic experiment that sounds adventurous even to modern ears. The first half of the concert ends with one of Weelkes’ most well-known anthems, Hosanna to the Son of David, which paraphrases words from the gospels of Matthew and Luke, with the joyous refrain “Hosanna” punctuating the music at the end of each sentence.

At the opening of the second half, we allow ourselves a taste of some of the beautiful sacred works for which Byrd and Weelkes are so well known. Laudibus in sanctis is one of Byrd’s most celebrated motets: it displays him in his fully matured style, with total mastery of texture, text, and colour. Both Laudibus and Sing joyfully – another of his famous late anthems – marry up psalm texts with dance-like, madrigalian musical ideas. The text of Laudibus in sanctis is a paraphrasing of the joyful Psalm 150. By contrast, Weelkes’ motet When David heard is one of the most heartbreaking works to emerge from Renaissance England. Although the text tells the story of the biblical King David mourning the death of Absalom, his son, the inspiration for Weelkes was something more personal. In 1612 Henry Prince of Wales – young heir to the English crown – died prematurely, and the country went into a state of grief. Many musicians, including Thomas Tomkins, responded by writing music to reflect this nationwide grief, but Weelkes’ When David heard has stood the test of time perhaps better than any other.

As is customary in our concerts, we end with a selection of close harmony arrangements, which in this case is focused on faith, hope and cohesion. Our close-harmony encompasses much of the best-known and most-loved repertoire in our music library, and at each concert we pick a selection specifically for that audience. Whether it’s old King’s Singers classics that have done the rounds on YouTube, or brand-new arrangements by current members of the group, there will always be something to tickle your fancy and – perhaps – to tickle your funny-bone too.

By The King’s Singers