Give Early Music a Try: John Browne
and the Eton Choirbook
by Brian Wilson
The Eton Choirbook consists of
a collection of choral works, dating
from around 1500-1505, intended
for use at Eton College, where it
has miraculously survived the destruction
of such collections at the Reformation.
The Choirbook has been edited for
the Musica Britannica series
by Frank Lloyd Harrison (MB 10-12,
published by Stainer & Bell).
The record companies, too, have
played their part over the years
in bringing us some of the best
music from this wonderful collection
– none more so than Gimell and Coro
in the case of the six CDs which
I am recommending here.
If you asked even the musically
knowledgeable to name a composer
represented in the Choirbook, I
doubt if you would hear the name
of John Browne – you might even
be asked what The Eton Choirbook
was! Had you put the question to
me a few days ago, I’d have named
Richard Davy, whose St Matthew
Passion on an Argo LP long ago
was my introduction to the Choirbook,
together with William Cornyshe and
Robert Fayrfax, whose music turns
up from time to time in anthologies.
I’d forgotten all about John Browne,
though I’ve owned the Coro CD of
The Rose and the Ostrich Feather,
on which his music is featured,
for quite some time, and despite
the fact that his music is – or
should be – of major importance.
Playing that CD again reminded me
that I had intended some time ago
to order the rest of the series.
As well as that CD, Volume 1 of
a series of five which Harry Christophers
and The Sixteen recorded for the
defunct Collins label – now available
on their own Coro label – Browne
features on two others, Volume II,
The Crown of Thorns and Volume
IV The Flower of all Virginity.
As Musicweb appears to have reviewed
only the second CD, it seemed to
me that we ought to proclaim the
virtues of the whole series. At
the same time, I wanted to compare
these recordings by The Sixteen
with Gimell’s recording of five
pieces by Browne, performed by Peter
Phillips and The Tallis Scholars
– another ‘must buy’ that I somehow
hadn’t got round to.
The brief details of these recordings
are:
Volume 1: The Rose and the Ostrich
Feather
Robert FAYRFAX Magnificat;
Richard HYGONS Salve Regina;
Edmund TURGES From stormy
windes; John BROWNE Stabat
iuxta Christi crucem; ANON.
This day dawes; William CORNYSH
Salve Regina Coro COR16026
[62:34]
Volume II:The Crown of Thorns
Richard Davy Stabat Mater;
John Browne Jesu, mercy, how
may this be? William Cornyshe
the elder Stabat Mater; Sheryngham
Ah, gentle Jesu; John Browne
Stabat Mater CORO COR16012
[64:35]
Volume III: The Pillars of Eternity
Richard Davy O Domine cæli
terræque creator; William
Cornyshe Ave Maria, Mater Dei;
Richard Davy; Ah, mine heart,
remember thee well; Walter Lambe
Stella cæli; Richard
Davy Ah, blessed Jesu, how fortuned
this? Robert Wylkynson Jesus
autem transiens/Credo in Deum; Salve
Regina CORO COR16022
[61:14]
Volume IV: The Flower of All Virginity
Hugh Kellyk Gaude Flore Virginali
; Anonymous Ah, my dear, ah,
my dear Son! John Nesbett Magnificat
; Robert Fayrfax Most clear of
colour; John Browne Salve
Regina; Anonymous Afraid,
alas, and why so suddenly? John
Browne O Maria Salvatoris Mater
CORO cor16018 [62:52]
Volume V: The Voices of Angels
Walter Lambe Salve Regina;
William Monk of Stratford Magnificat;
John Plummer Tota Pulchra es;
Richard Davy Salve Regina;
John Plummer Anna Mater Matris
Christi; Richard Davy In
Honore Summæ Matris CORO
COR16002 [61:59]
All the above performed by The
Sixteen/Harry Christophers and also
available as a 5 CD set for the
price of 3 (COR16040).
Music by John Browne from the Eton
Choirbook
Salve Regina I; Stabat
iuxta Christi crucem; Stabat
mater; O regina mundi clara
; O Maria salvatoris mater
The Tallis Scholars/Peter Phillips
GIMELL CDGIM036 [71:25]
My colleague JP welcomed the return
of The Sixteen’s recording The
Crown of Thorns to the catalogue:
"[an] invaluable disc ... it
cannot be too highly recommended"
– see review
– but the remaining volumes of this
series seem to have slipped through
the Musicweb review net.
Just one small corrective to JP’s
review: he surmised that as the
recording venue ‘Orford’ might be
a misprint for ‘Oxford’; St Bartholemew’s
[sic] Orford has for some time been
a favourite recording location for
Chandos as well as The Sixteen.
JF gave an even more enthusiastic
welcome to the Gimell recording:
"Near perfect music from the
late fifteenth century sung in glorious
style. A most moving and satisfying
disc." – see review.
I readily concur with both colleagues.
Much more difficult is the task
of choosing between these two first-class
sets of performers – all the recordings
named above have been constantly
in play in our household since I
started this comparative review,
and the Gimell recording has joined
their version of two Josquin masses
which I recently reviewed with enthusiasm
– see review
– on my mp3 player for use in the
car.
I’ve concentrated on John Browne
because his music is common to both
recordings and because the compilers
of the Choirbook thought his O
Maria Salvatoris Mater sufficiently
superb to place it at the head of
the collection. His six-part Stabat
mater and Stabat iuxta Christi
crucem are at least equally
fine – all three works are recorded
by both groups – yet we know very
little about who he was: look in
Grove or the Oxford Companion
to Music and you’ll find that
there is little more information
than would cover the proverbial
postage stamp. The notes in the
Gimell booklet compare him, without
exaggeration, with Monteverdi and
Palestrina; his music is not only
uplifting – just about everything
by the other composers on the Coro
recordings is, too – it arguably
shows greater talent than any English
composer before Tallis: I nearly
wrote ‘before Taverner’, but I think
Browne in some respects outdoes
Taverner and Sheppard, much as I
love their music.
The following table indicates the
availability and timings of the
two sets of performances of the
John Browne items:
|
Salve Regina
Stabat iuxta
Stabat Mater
O Regina mundi clara
O Maria Salvatoris Mater
Jesu, mercy
|
The Tallis Scholars
13:25
12:25
15:56
13:55
15:44
-
|
The Sixteen
11:23
10:59
13:31
-
12:47
09:32
|
Harry Christophers’ timings are
consistently faster than those of
Peter Phillips – indeed, his tempo
for the Stabat mater has
become faster since his own earlier
recording of that work on Meridian,
when he clocked in at 15:17. My
slight preference is for the more
measured approach adopted by The
Tallis Scholars, which pays off
superbly in O Maria Salvatoris
Mater from the opening of the
Choirbook, though it is generally
hard to choose between the slightly
greater thoughtfulness of their
approach and the marginally more
energetic flow of The Sixteen.
Those who are bothered by such
things will deprecate both directors’
use of female voices in this repertoire
and will probably regard it as heretical
if I say that I truly did not find
this worrying. What matters more
is the accuracy and dedication of
the singing – two guaranteed features
of both groups.
I usually come off the fence, but
this time I’m going to do my really
annoying trick of wanting all six
CDs. I can hear you thinking that
it’s all right for reviewers, who
get free review copies or free access
to downloads, to want the best of
both worlds, but I would be genuinely
loath to have to ditch any one of
these recordings – and, remember,
I did spend my own hard-earned dosh
on Volume I of the Coro series.
Even between theme, they don’t offer
all Browne’s nine pieces in the
Choirbook; it would have been more
satisfactory had they complemented
each other, but I realise that record
companies can’t operate on such
a non-commercial basis. Coro don’t
include O regina mundi, a
really fine piece, and Gimell would
not quite have had enough space
to include Jesu, mercy on
their all-Latin disc. The vernacular
music is not actually from the Choirbook,
in any case, though Coro don’t acknowledge
the fact.
Some may be surprised to see how
much of the material on the Coro
recordings is in the vernacular.
There was, in fact, a well-developed
English vernacular tradition of
religious lyrics, much of it related
to the Crucifixion or in praise
of the Virgin Mary and often, though
by no means exclusively, translated
from Latin. There are several easily
and inexpensively obtained collections
of these lyrics – collections from
Norton, Faber and from the TEAMS
Medieval Institute (in book form
and online free of charge) should
suffice those with a general interest;
the Clarendon Press editions by
Carleton Browne are more for the
specialist. Some of these lyrics,
of course, though not any of those
included here, have been set by
modern composers as Christmas music.
Jesu, mercy is a carol only
in the original sense of that word.
While performers can make a very
fair shot at pronouncing Latin as
it would have been pronounced in
the early 16th century,
we are more in the dark about English
– we just don’t know how far advanced
the Great Vowel Shift, the process
by which English vowels became diphthongs,
was at any time, though it is now
believed that the process happened
more rapidly than was once thought.
The Sixteen employed a pronunciation
coach but, happily, they do not
attempt anything like the kind of
Mummerset that sometimes passes
for early-modern English on recordings.
The Coro recordings, of course,
contain more than just Browne’s
music – indeed, some of the works,
such as John Plummer’s Anna,
Mater Matris Christi (Volume
V) pre-date the composers represented
in the Eton collection, though his
music is still welcome despite masquerading
under slightly false pretences.
I started off by saying what a remarkable
composer John Browne was, but the
same is almost equally true of Richard
Davy, William Cornysh and Walter
Lambe. None of them may quite equal
the achievements of such internationally-renowned
predecessors as Dunstaple and Frye,
but they are not far short – and
who knows what treasures by them
may have existed only in other collections
which were lost at the Reformation:
the Eton collection survived by
the merest chance.
What a pity that the English reformers
didn’t share Luther’s love of music;
Cranmer, whose prose translations
and adaptations of Latin are a wonderful
part of our linguistic heritage,
had a tin ear for poetry – just
look at his attempt in the Ordination
Service to translate the Veni,
creator Spiritus, still preserved
in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer
as an alternative to the much better
version prepared for that revision.
All these recordings are also available
as downloads – the Tallis Scholars
version from www.gimell.com
and the Coro recordings from classicsonline.com,
theclassicalshop.net, iTunes and
eMusic.com. Gimell offer their downloads
in mp3, CD-quality and studio-quality
versions – this last, in 24-bit
sound, superior to the commercial
CDs. theclassicalshop offers the
Coro recordings in 320kbps sound,
as does classicsonline; though the
latter sell themselves short by
claiming only 192kbps quality, my
computer confirms that they are
at 320. iTunes offer these, and
most of their Coro downloads, in
the superior iTunes plus format.
Surprisingly, none of their versions
of The Tallis Scholars’ recordings
seem to be offered in the plus format.
I tried the downloads of two volumes
from theclassicalshop and two from
classicsonline and thought them
almost the equal of the CD of Volume
I. There was never any sense that
the music was too much for its carrier,
as so often used to be the case
with LPs of Tudor polyphony, with
even the best cartridges tending
to break up in the groove – you
won’t find me nostalgic for the
days of vinyl. I did think, however,
that the wma version of the Gimell
recording had a slight edge over
mp3 – there was never any sense
that this was in any way inferior
to CD sound – and I recommend that
you go for this version if you choose
to download. I didn’t try the eMusic
versions but have usually found
these to be perfectly satisfactory
– and they have very promptly added
bonus tracks to my account in compensation
for the occasional defect.
JF spoke of the sheer pleasure
of handling the Gimell CD. A hand-labelled
CDR can never provide that kind
of pleasure, but the printable booklet
which comes with the download is
very elaborate – even including
an illustration from the manuscript
for back-to-back insertion with
the rear insert. You’ll need to
have a transparent CD tray for this
to be effective, otherwise you’ll
miss the illustration of the superb
opening page of the Choirbook with
John Browne’s majestic music at
its head. Chandos’s theclassicalshop
offers the almost equally attractive
Coro booklets, though without any
rear tray inlays. Both sets of notes
are detailed and informative and
both contain full texts and translations.
Classicsonline and eMusic offer
only cover shots of the Coro recordings.
The Gimell recording is very well
filled, the Coro CDs only slightly
less so. If you buy any one, I can
almost guarantee that you’ll want
them all – in which case, let me
point out, in case it has escaped
your attention, that the complete
5-CD Coro set (around £28-£30 in
the UK) is much cheaper than buying
the individual CDs and even cheaper
than the downloads.
If you’re still looking for more
early Tudor music, Alto have just
reissued a most enjoyable 77-minute
super-bargain selection from two
recordings which the Hilliard Ensemble
made for Saga over 30 years ago
but still sounding fresh: secular
and religious music from the reigns
of Henry VII and Henry VIII by Cornysh,
Fayrfax and Sheryngham from the
Eton Choirbook composers plus music
by Henry VII, Barbireau and that
prolific composer Anon (ALC1015:
Music for Tudor Kings). The
two original recordings surfaced
briefly in Saga’s intermittent availability
on CD; together with their companion
recordings from the Elizabethan
and Jacobean periods. They aren’t
quite in the same league as these
Coro and Gimell recordings but I
have played and enjoyed hearing
them regularly. Perhaps Alto will
now oblige with the other recordings
from this source.
I chose my words carefully when
I said that John Browne was, in
my opinion, the greatest English
composer between Dunstaple and Tallis,
since he has a very serious Scottish
rival in Robert Carver (c.1487-after
1566), some of whose music has also
been recorded by The Sixteen (CORO16051
– CD and download from classicsonline,
theclassicalshop, iTunes and eMusic).
You may even find this music impresses
you more than anything in the Eton
recordings – it’s certainly very
dramatic, and I recommend this recording,
too. I’d very much like to hear
more of Carver’s music from The
Sixteen or a rival version from
The Tallis Scholars.
The notes to the Coro recordings
advertise several other recordings
by The Sixteen: there isn’t a dud
among them or the others at www.thesixteen.com.
Nor is there any better performance
of any of Taverner’s music than
the recordings which they made for
Hyperion, now available on their
inexpensive Helios label. Go for
these on CD, for around £5-£6: don’t
be tempted to download them from
iTunes, whose flat price of £7.99
for Hyperion recordings is as illogical
as the similar policy employed by
Universal on their classicsandjazz
website. You’ll find a complete
list of recordings by The Tallis
Scholars at www.gimell.com;
again, you’ll be very hard put to
find anything wrong with any of
their recordings.
Brian Wilson
