medieval.org
Alto ALC 1015
2008
grabaciones de 1977 y 1978
Songs from the time of Henry VII
Fayrfax Ms. (mainly)
01 - Robert FAYRFAX. I Love Unloved [1:49]
soprano, tenor, baritone
02 - William CORNYSH. Woefully Arrayed [8:23]
soprano, counter-tenor, tenor, baritone
03 - Robert FAYRFAX. That Was My Woe [2:11]
counter-tenor, tenor
04 - SHERYNGHAM. Ah Gentle Jesu [7:39]
counter-tenor, 2 tenors, baritone
05 - Robert FAYRFAX. Most Clear of Colour [2:02]
counter-tenor, 2 tenors
06 - William CORNYSH. Hoyda Hoyda, Jolly Rutterkin [4:09]
2 tenors, baritone
Songs and music from the time of Henry VIII
Scotland
07 - O Lusty May [1:55]
counter-tenor, tenor, baritone, tenor shawm, tenor & bass
sackbuts
Fayrfax Ms.
08 - This Day Daws [4:37]
counter-tenor, tenor, baritone
Scotland
09 - Begone Sweit Night [3:02]
tenor (PE), lute
Henry VIII's Book
10 - HENRY VIII. En Vray Amoure [1:02]
soprano shawm, tenor & bass sackbuts
11 - HENRY VIII. O My Heart [1:31]
counter-tenor, tenor, baritone
12 - Madame d amours [3:55]
counter-tenor, tenor, baritone, bass
13 - Consort Piece XX [1:00]
tenor recorder (PhP), lute
Scotland
14 - Absent I Am [3:01]
counter-tenor, tenor, baritone, bass
15 - My Heartly Service [5:41]
tenor, baritone, tenor shawm
16 - Hey Trolly Lolly Lo! [5:01]
counter-tenor, tenor, baritone
17 - Jacques BARBIREAU. En Frolyk Weson [2:07]
counter-tenor, tenor, tenor sackbut
Ritson ms
18 - Be Peace! Ye Make Me Spill My Ale!
[1:46]
counter-tenor, tenor, baritone
19 - The Duke of Somersettes Dompe [1:59]
lute
Henry VIII's Book
20 - William CORNYSH. Ah Robin [2:32]
counter-tenor, tenor, baritone
21 - I Love Unloved [4:52]
counter-tenor, tenor, baritone
Ritson ms
22 - Up I Arose in Verno Tempore [1:34]
baritone, alto & bass cornamuses
Henry VIII's Book
23 - Puzzle Canon VI [1:02]
soprano crumhorn, tenor sackbut
24 - And I Were a Maiden [2:38]
counter-tenor, tenor, baritone, bass tenor recorder (PN), lute
25 - England Be Glad [1:46]
tenor, baritone, bass
Las pistas #1-6 corresponden a las pistas #2-3, 9-12 del disco Songs
for a Tudor King
Recorded Eltham College; Engineer: John Shuttleworth; Producer: Martin
Compton
Las pistas #7-25 corresponden al disco Popular
music from the time of Henry VIII (pistas #1-19)
The Hilliard Ensemble
David James, counter-tenor
Paul Elliot, tenor
Leigh Nixon, tenor (#4, 5, 6)
Paull Hillier, baritone
Judith Nelson, soprano
Errol Girdlestone, bass
The New London Consort
Phil Pickett, tenor & bass recorders, soprano crumhorn, tenor dulcian, soprano
& tenor shawm, bass cornamuse
Paul Nieman, tenor recorder, tenor sackbut, alto cornamuse
Martin Nicholls, bass sackbut
Nigel North, lute
Music for Tudor Kings
When the future King Henry VII was born in 1457, the throne of England
was occupied by Henry VI, son of Henry V and grandson of Henry IV. He,
however, was not as closely related to these other Henrys as they were
to each other. His parents were Edmund Tudor, whose mother was the
second wife of Henry V, and Margaret Beaufort, whose great-great
grandfather had been King Edward III. During his early life, the Wars
of the Roses between the Houses of Lancaster and York were raging and,
when he was just four years old, the Lancastrian King Henry VI was
deposed by the Yorkist Edward IV who, apart from a brief return of
Henry VI at the beginning of the next decade, was to reign until 1483.
Thereupon his son became Edward V only to be murdered, along with his
younger brother, three months later in the Tower of London, apparently
on the orders of his uncle who promptly declared himself King Richard
III. By then, after so many deaths in the family, Henry Tudor had
become head of the House of Lancaster and had gone into voluntary exile
in northern France. In 1485, however, he returned and, on 22 August
together with his supporters, engaged in battle with Richard and his
knights near Market Bosworth in Leicestershire. Before long Richard had
been slain and Henry declared king. He was crowned Henry VII in
Westminster Abbey on 31 October and, early the next year married the
elder sister of the Princes in the Tower who was, by then, heiress to
the House of York.
By choosing to marry Princess Elizabeth, Henry had managed to unite the
two rival houses and, in effect, to put an end to the Wars of the
Roses. There were still some Yorkist claimants to the throne to deal
with - not to mention the two pretenders, Lambert Simnel and Perkin
Warbeck - but, by the end of the century, Henry VII had, to all intents
and purposes, suppressed all opposition and had ushered in a stable
dynasty of Tudors. In 1486, Elizabeth gave birth to their first child,
Arthur, who was therefore created Prince of Wales. Five years later
another son was born, Henry, Duke of York. The couple's other two
surviving children were daughters - Margaret, who was to marry King
James of Scotland, and Mary who eventually become the wife of King
Louis XII of France. In order to secure a bond with Spain, Henry
decreed that his first born son should many Catherine of Aragon,
daughter of the King and Queen of that country, Ferdinand and Isabella.
The marriage did take place but within weeks, and not far short of his
16th birthday, Arthur died of consumption. Wishing to preserve the
alliance with Spain that he had so carefully set up, Henry advised his
second son, the Duke of York, to marry Catherine when he acceded to the
throne as Henry VIII. Thus it was that Catherine of Aragon was to
become Queen after all as the first of Henry's six wives.
During the reign of Henry VII great progress had been made in many
fields, notably navigation. In 1492 Christopher Columbus had discovered
America and soon after that Henry had provided the finance for a trip
to Labrador by the Italian navigator, John Cabot. Henry was reputed to
be a lover of books, art, music and pageantry but, in the words of John
Richard Green (taken from A Short History of the English People,
1907), his life 'gave him little leisure for dreams and culture'.
However, his 'spare form, the sallow face, the quick eye, the shy
solitary humour broken by outbursts of pleasant converse or genial
sarcasm, told of an inner concentration and enthusiasm'.
Of the musicians employed at the court of Henry VII, perhaps the two
best known are Robert Fayrfax and William Cornysh.
Fayrfax was born in Lincolnshire on St George's Day, 23 April, 1464. By
the mid-1490s he had become a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal
and, in December 1497, he was granted the chaplaincy of Snodhill Castle
in Herefordshire. As one of the first to graduate in music from
Cambridge University, Fayrfax was awarded his Bachelor of Music in 1501
and his Doctorate three years later. He was obviously held in high
esteem at court and, on 28 March 1502, he received from the Queen
(Elizbeth of York) the sum of 20 shillings as payment for 'setting an
anthem of oure lady and Saint Elizabeth'. His name was also to be at
the top of the list of lay clerks of the Chapel Royal attending not
only the funeral of Henry VII, which took place on 9 May 1509, but also
the coronation of his son some six weeks later on 24 June.
Two years later, on 27 February 1511, Fayrfax found himself present at
another royal funeral, that of the six-week-old Prince Henry, the only
son Queen Catherine was to bear for her husband. (It was the lack of a
male heir that eventually persuaded Henry VIII that he was being
punished by God for marrying his dead brother's wife and set him on the
course of having the marriage declared null and void. Catherine did
provide him with a female heir - later to become Queen Mary I - as did
his next wife, Ann Boleyn, whose daughter was to reign as Elizabeth I.
It was not until he married Jane Seymour, following Ann Boleyn's
execution, that he achieved his longed-for male heir. As it turned out,
this son was only to reign for some six years as Edward VI for he died
in 1553 at the age of only 15, leaving a vacant throne for his sisters
to squabble over.)
Luckily for Fayrfax, he soon found favour with Henry VIII who, just
before his coronation, had granted the composer an annuity for life of
£9 2s. 6d. Later he was to be one of the Knights of the
King's Alms which entitled him to a further 12 pence a day, also
for life. In addition to this, the King paid him handsomely for various
of his manuscripts. He died in 1521 and was buried in St Albans Abbey.
As a composer, Fayrfax is mostly remembered for his church music which
includes six masses, two settings of the Magnificat and several motets.
Most of Fayrfax's part-songs are for three voices although That
was my woo (or woe), is for just two. The English organist Charles
Burney, who wrote about Fayrfax in his History of Music in the late
1770s, claimed that this song may have been addressed to Henry VII
following the Battle of Bosworth.
Another of the regal events attended by Fayrfax was the so-called Field
of the Cloth of Gold, a kind of summit meeting at which Henry VIII and
Francis I of France met in June 1520, near Calais, to discuss a
potential alliance between their two countries. It was a lavish affair
consisting of jousting, banquets and music provided by Fayrfax and the
other 'singing men' of the Chapel Royal. Another member of Henry VIII's
court to travel to France for this occasion was William Cornysh whose
main role was to supervise the pageants that took place on Sunday
nights. This was not the first visit Cornysh had made to France in the
wake of Henry VIII for, in 1513, he had taken the Chapel Royal to
perform - to great acclaim as it turned out - in Théouranne,
Lille and Tournai. (The song England be glad was, apparently,
written for this occasion.)
It seems that no record has been kept of Cornysh's date of birth but it
is known that from 1480 to 1491 he was Master of the Singing-Boys
at Westminster Abbey. The first reference to his association with the
court of Henry VII is to be found in in an entry in the Household Book
for 12 November 1493 reporting a payment of 13s 4d 'to one Cornyshe for
a prophecy [or poem] in rewarde'. By 1496 he had become a Gentleman
of the Chapel Royal and, in 1501, he played an important role in
the celebrations surrounding the wedding of Arthur, Prince of Wales,
and Catherine of Aragon. (It seems that he devised pageants and
'disguysings' which involved the children of the Chapel Royal dressing
up as mermaids.)
Cornysh received another payment of 13s 4d in December 1502, this time
on behalf of Elizabeth of York, for the 'setting of a carralle [carol]
upon Christmas day'. As well as being a musician, Cornysh was also a
poet, playwright and actor, and it would appear that it was one of his
satirical poems that landed him in the Fleet Prison for a while in
1504. However this did not affect his standing at court for, in
September 1509, only three months after Henry VIII's accession, he was
appointed Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal. He was
obviously a favourite with the new king for not only did he entertain
the court with his plays and poems but there is also a collection of
part-songs, mainly for three voices, in which over 30 compositions by
the king himself are bound together with about 10 by Cornysh. One of
Cornysh's partsongs - Hoyda, hoyda, jolly Rutterkin - is a
setting of a poem by John Skelton (1460-1529) and, according to the
Fifth Edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 'is
supposed to be a satire on the drunking Flemings who came to England
with Anne of Cleves on the occasion of her marriage to Henry VIII'.
This is more than strange since by the time Henry's fourth wife came to
England in 1540, both Cornysh and Skelton had been dead for 10 years
and more.
Of the other named composer on this recording, very little indeed is
known. Neither his date of birth nor death has been recorded - he is
just said to have been flourishing around 1500 - and he is remembered
only by his surname, Sheryngham. Two of his pieces appear in
the Fayrfax Manuscript and one of these A gentill Jhesu (Ah
gentle Jesu) is thought to have words by the poet John Lydgate
(?1370-1449) who spent most of his life in a monastery at Bury St
Edmunds.
From the evidence of the songs contained in it, the Fayrfax
Manuscript, so named because it was in the possession of the
Fayrfax family during the 18th century, must date from about 1500. Of
the songs it contains some are courtly love-songs, some are religious
(mostly relating to the Passion of Christ), and some are more
'popular', sometimes humorous, sometimes ironic and satirical. As well
as the songs by Cornysh, Fayrfax and Sheryngham, the Fayrfax
Manuscript also contains This day daws, another carol
thought to have been written in honour of Elizabeth of York.
The songs Be peace! ye make me spill my ale and Up I arose
in verno tempore, with its mixture of English and Latin words, both
come from the Ritson Manuscript which is thought to have
originated in a monastery in Devon. Apart from four songs from Scotland
- O lusty may, Begone, sweit night, Absent I am and My
Heartly Service (also known as The Pleugh Song), - and the The
Duke of Somersettes Dompe all the others pieces, including the
purely instrumental compositions - the Consort Piece XX and the Puzzle
Canon VI - come from yet another collection, this one called Henry
VIII's Manuscript, or Book. Included in this are all but
one of Henry's surviving 34 compositions as well as music by other
English composers, notably Fayrfax and Cornysh, and some from mainland
Europe. Those attributed to the king himself include En vray amoure
and O my heart, while Cornysh is credited with Ah Robin
and the Flemish composer, Jacques Barbireau (c1408-1491), with En
frolyk weson. All other pieces are listed anonymous.
© September 2007 Peter Avis