The recent very welcome
resurgence of the Lyrita label coincides
with an equally welcome revival in the
fortunes of Nimbus, both now distributed
from Wyastone Leys. Having done my small
share in Musicweb’s charting the progress
of Lyrita’s rebirth, I was delighted
to be offered for review a set of Nimbus
recordings, featuring the Christ Church
Choir and the Martin Best Ensemble.
I must declare a small
interest in the Christ Church recordings:
as an undergraduate, almost half a century
ago, most Sundays found me in attendance
at Sung Eucharist or Choral Evensong,
or both, at the House, as it is commonly
known from its Latin name, Ædes
Christi. Whenever I have cause to
be back in Oxford, I always dust off
my MA gown, to ensure a good seat. As
I sit back and listen to these recordings
I can imagine that the years have rolled
back.
It is not some fanciful
enchantment, however, that leads me
to recommend this recording of several
pieces by John Taverner. As informator
choristarum, or master of the choristers,
at the recently founded Cardinal College
– renamed Christ Church after the fall
of its patron, Cardinal Wolsey – from
its official opening in 1526 for about
four years, he was director of a choir
of exactly the same proportions as those
of the present-day cathedral. Far be
it from me to dissuade you from the
likes of The Tallis Singers and The
Sixteen but, whatever the merits of
rival recordings, Christ Church choir
can claim a special affinity with this
composer.
It used to be thought
that all of Taverner’s music must have
been composed before 1528 when, along
with several others at Cardinal College,
he was charged with being infected with
Lutheranism. Several of those accused
were imprisoned in a cellar full of
putrid fish, some of them actually dying
because of the "noisome smell".
Taverner got off lightly because he
was a ‘mere’ musician – "unlearned
and not to be regarded" was the
official verdict. The belief that he
forswore the writing of "Popish
ditties" thereafter and even became
a government agent in the dissolution
of the monasteries is, as Grove
reminds us, at best unproven; there
is no evidence that he ceased composing
when he left Oxford to become a lay
clerk at St Botolph, Lincoln.
The programme on this
recording is an excellent combination
of the better – at least, better-known
– and other works.
Stephen Darlington
and the Christ Church Choir recently
returned to Dum transisset sabbatum
(I) (When the Sabbath had passed),
as one of the fillers to their Avie
recording of Taverner’s Missa Gloria
Tibi Trinitas (AV2123). On the new
recording they are, as Gary Higginson
notes in his recent review,
noticeably faster than on their earlier
recordings. He makes the point in respect
of the Mater Christi motet (NI5216,
with the Missa Mater Christi,
no longer available) but it is also
relevant to Dum transisset –
6:54 on the newer version, against 7:21
here. GH thought Mater Christi
not only faster but more interesting
than before. I haven’t heard the Avie
recording, but I cannot imagine that
anyone would find the rendition of Dum
transisset on the Nimbus version
sluggish. Leisurely, yes, but that allows
us to savour some fine singing of fine
music.
This first setting
of the Easter respond is Taverner’s
best-known piece – certainly the most
often recorded – and it is easy to see
why. The way in which the voices toss
the word aromata, the spices
which the women were bringing to embalm
the body of Jesus, from one to the other
is especially delightful, particularly
when it is sung as well as it is here.
The Tallis Scholars are more in line
with Darlington’s Nimbus performance
at 7:10 (Gimell CDGIM004, coupled with
the Missa Gloria Tibi Trinitas,
etc.) The Sixteen at 6:43 are fastest
of all (Hyperion Helios CDH55054, coupled
with Missa O Michael, etc.) All
of these performances are excellent
in their own terms – a reminder that
timings tell only part of the story.
If the first setting
of Dum transisset is the best-known
piece on this CD, Kyrie Le Roy
is not far behind. Once again, Darlington’s
Nimbus performance of this music for
Ladymass looks slow at 5:19 against
the Tallis Scholars’ 3:45 (CDGIM004
again). The Sixteen, at 5:14 (CDH55054,
as above) are close to the Christ Church
tempo. Again, Christ Church are leisurely
rather than slow. I was about to write
that the Tallis Scholars really are
too fast for a piece with penitential
words until I listened again to their
recording and found their singing as
measured as I could wish – and slightly
more intense than the Christ Church
version. Yet another case where the
internal logic of a performance is more
important than tempo.
In the five-part Magnificat,
Darlington’s time of 12:05 is very similar
to that of The Chapel Musick, directed
by Philip Cave (Authenticka [sic] AS004)
This recording, formerly distributed
by Tring, is deleted but worth looking
out for, as it offers the only recording
of the Meane Mass or Missa
Sine Nomine.
At 4:13, Darlington’s
tempo for the beautiful Audivi vocem
(I heard a voice from heaven) almost
exactly matches that of The Sixteen
(Hyperion Helios CDH55052, with Missa
Gloria Tibi Trinitas.) This, the
eighth lesson for Mattins on All Saints
Day, would be sung alternately by five
choirboys facing the altar on the choir
steps and the rest of the choir. The
engineers achieve the effect by making
the boys sound more distant – a little
disconcerting, perhaps, but effective
in making the boys sound as other-worldly
as the Wise Virgins, now members of
the communion of saints, whom they represent.
You may have noticed
that purchasers of the Hyperion Helios
series of Taverner Masses will have
collected several of the works on this
Nimbus CD as fillers. That series, at
budget price, is one of the outstanding
bargains of the catalogue: I recently
took the opportunity of correcting the
wrong cover-shot on the Musicweb review
of the Western Wynde Mass in
this series (CDH55056) to make that
CD my Bargain of the Month and to remind
readers of the virtues of the whole
series. As well as the recording mentioned,
the series contains: Missa Corona
Spinea (CDH55051); Missa Mater
Christi sanctissima (CDH55053) and
Missa Sancti Wilhelmi (CDH55055).
Does that make the
current Nimbus CD redundant? Emphatically
not. The Nimbus versions are competitive
with the Hyperion and several substantial
works, including the title piece on
this CD, are not included on any of
the recordings listed above.
Ex eius tumba (From
his tomb distils a holy essence) is
probably an early work, perhaps composed
as early as 1514 for the London musical
Fraternity of St Nicholas, a respond
for Mattins of that saint's day, with
an interpolated prose Sospitati dedit
ægros (The anointing of his
oil gave health to the sick.) The miracles
recounted here, much fleshed out in
the prose addition, represent just the
kind of late-medieval 'popery' that
Taverner is supposed to have recanted
later; he lavishes a wealth of elaborate
polyphony on it of a kind different
from his later works. The Sixteen take
this piece at a slightly more leisurely
pace on CDH55055.
Ex eius tumba
begins with plainsong, a wonderfully
quiet and serene opening to this recording,
from which the polyphony miraculously
arises. Thereafter, as with several
of the pieces on this CD, chant and
polyphony alternate very effectively
- seamlessly interwoven, especially
in Dum transisset (I).
Alleluya. Veni
mea electa (Come my beloved and
I shall place you on my throne), a Marian
antiphon from the Office of Our Lady,
is another work unlikely to have been
composed after (and if) Taverner subscribed
to reformist views. Like Kyrie le
Roy, it probably formed part of
the daily devotions in the Lady Chapel
at Cardinal College. The Sixteen are
again slightly more leisurely on CDH55056.
Of the pieces not recorded by The Sixteen,
in the Magnificat alternate verses are
sung in chant and polyphony, a common
practice.
Ave Dei Patris filia
nobilissima (Hail most worthy daughter
of God the Father) is another Marian
text, one of the most popular in early
16th-Century England. Taverner’s
setting employs part of the plainsong
Te Deum, sung at Mattins, as
cantus firmus in the second tenor,
an unusual practice in England after
about 1500, making this again probably
an early work. The notes in the booklet
demonstrate hidden references to the
number 3 and its multiples, cryptic
references to the Trinity – the first
half of the work contains 333 semibreves
– but the music can be enjoyed without
reference to any such mathematical considerations.
The second version
of Dum transisset, recorded here
without plainsong as a short Easter
motet, is a less elaborate setting in
the plainer manner more favoured after
Henry VIII’s break with Rome, but still
very attractive.
The boys’ voices lose
out against adult singers in terms of
virtuosity and experience, with an occasionally
flat high note, but they gain in terms
of vocal purity – a cliché, but
certainly true of this recording. One
reviewer in 1993 noted a fluffed entry
at implevit in the Magnificat,
but one really has to listen hard to
spot it. After an elaborately drawn-out
esurientes, missing the opening
of the next word is hardly a cardinal
sin. There is never any sense that they
are over-parted by the music and the
same is even more true of the men’s
voices – hardly surprising when they
include singers of the calibre of Andrew
Carwood, himself now the director of
the Cardinalls Musick. The boys’ and
men’s voices blend at climaxes in an
assured manner born of their performing
together regularly. Occasionally clarity
of diction takes second seat to tonal
beauty, but that is a common problem
with rich polyphony.
In saying that I can
imagine myself listening to these works
in Christ Church itself, with a nice
distance, but not too great a distance,
between listener and choir, I have already
implied that the recording is very good.
In fact, Nimbus recorded this music
in the friendlier acoustic of Dorchester
Abbey. Listening from the ‘privileged’
pews at the House, between the choir
and the altar, gives one a strange reverse
perspective on the singing; this recording
restores the normal perspective.
I don’t know if the
engineers realised it, but they were
recording in the place which had been
the Episcopal seat in Anglo-Saxon times.
Before Christ Church became one of the
new foundation sees, Oxford had been
in the diocese of Lincoln but, in the
time of King Alfred, the see was transferred
to Dorchester-on-Thames because the
Danes had overrun Lincoln, and the bishop
temporarily became bisceop æt
Dorceceastre. (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
897, MS A)
The booklet is excellent,
with informative notes by David Skinner.
One minor correction: it can hardly
be the case that "In 1548 Henry
refound [sic] the college ..."
when he died in 1547! The error is repeated
in the French and German versions.
The Nimbus and Avie
recordings both feature the same depiction
of St Frideswide, the patron saint of
Oxford – not identified by Nimbus, but
the ox and the capital F are a give-away
– from Wolsey’s Epistle Book, on their
covers.
Until recently this
recording was available as part of a
budget-price set of English music from
the 16th and 17th
Centuries. Though it is deleted in that
form, some dealers still seem to have
stocks. I shall be reviewing the remainder
of the recordings in their individual
guise coming weeks but you may take
it that the set as a whole is worth
acquiring if you can find it – but hurry.
Brian Wilson
Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford/Stephen
Darlington 
