Cappella Nova - The Complete Works of Robert Carver Volume Three

ROBERT CARVER
(c.1484/5 - AFTER 1568)

Mass Fera pessima for five voices
(ed. Kenneth Elliot)

1. Gloria - 7.24
2. Credo - 6.51
3. Sanctus - Benedictus - 9.21
4. Agnus Dei - 11.05


Mass Pater creator omnium for four voices
(ed. Kenneth Elliot)

5. Gloria - 7.24
6. Credo - 6.51
7. Sanctus - Benedictus - 9.21
8. Agnus Dei - 11.05

Carver's Mass Fera pessima for five voices of perhaps about 1525 has many stylistic affinities with the Mass L'Homme armé^†. It is another cantus firmus Mass (that is, one based on a recurring melody, often in longer notes and traditionally placed in the tenor), and it is also cyclic like the Mass for six voices^† in that each movement begins with a few bars of the same musical material The title has been deduced from a fragmen- tary inscription and possibly refers to Genesis XXXVII, 33, where Jacob is presented with his son Joseph's blood-stained coat: "Jacob, seeing the coat of Joseph, rent his garments ... and said an evil beast hath devoured my son Joseph", The musical outline of the cantus firmus corresponds fairly closely with that of the plainsong as recorded in antiphoners of the Sarum rite widely used in Scotland. (Ex.1) I have argued a context for rhis Mass on historical, political and stylistic grounds for the mid 1520s. From the musical point of view there are the customary sections for full and solo voices: those in a rhythmically animated chordal style, usually reserved for the full choir. Then there are those in decorative style, best seen in the solos, and conceived in the tradition of delicate chamber music, where there is rapid interplay of imitative detail. In such passages Carver's imagination takes wing in extended flights of pure musical invention and great beauty. And finally there are those stylistically more forward-looking passages in continental 'pervading imitation', some- times found in both contexts. The third Agnus Dei, for example, contains particularly fine stretches of sus- tained imitative writing.

Carver's Mass Pater creator omnium for four voices is precisely dated 1546 in the manuscript source. It is something of a curiosity, revealing on the one hand a desire by the composer to accommodate progressive ideas about clear word-setting and harmonic, chordal idioms, and on the other a reversal to his earlier decorative style. What music may have intervened between the Mass Fera pessima of about 1525 and this work is sadly lost, but may have revealed evidence of the radical stylistic changes that seem to have occurred. Due to a missing folio in the manuscript the Kyrie and Gloria preserve only two out of the four voices, and so I have attempted a reconstruction of the other two. The Mass opens with what must be a very late setting of part of a troped (ie with added text) Kyrie with the Sarum plainsong in the tenor. The Gloria provides only a few bars of polyphony: presumably the rest of the text would be expected to be supplied in plainsong as I have done here. The Credo is also indicated in a kind of shorthand: here the opening and closing phrases are set in 'faburden' style - a traditional way of improvising the simple chordal harmonisation of a plainsong melody. The only adjustment that Carver made was to place the plainsong in the top part. I have reconstructed the complete movement taking into account internal stylistic evidence of Carver's given fragments. The other movements of the Mass are more in the tradition of the composer's decorative style, but as always give due attention to beauty of line and sensitivity to word-setting.