Cappella Nova - The Thistle and The Rose

The Thistle and The Rose
Music from the
CARVER CHOIRBOOK

MASS Deus Creator Omnium (c.1470)

1. Kyrie - 7.52
2. Gloria - 7.34
3. Credo - 8.20
4. Sanctus - Benedictus - 6.24
5. Agnus Dei - 6.07


MASS for three voices (c.1520)

6. Kyrie - 1.33
7. Gloria - 1.48
8. Credo - 2.06
9. Sanctus - Benedictus - 6.42
10. Agnus Dei - 2.56



11. MAGNIFICAT for four voices (c.1490) - 13.31

The year 2003 marks the fifth centenary of the marriage of James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor of England, an event through which, by a curious irony, the English throne was inherited by the House of Stewart exactly one hundred years later. The present three works have been chosen to celebrate this event through the music of the most important Scottish music manuscript of the period - the Carver Choirbook. This manuscript was probably associated with James's expansion of the Scottish Chapel Royal In 1501. For it the Mass Deus Creator omnium, Its partner the Mass Rex virginum, with Dufay's Mass L'Homme arme (c.1460) in between, were perhaps all copied as a group from the same continental source: together they make up the oldest continuous layer of the manuscript as it exists today.

The anonymous Mass Deus Creator omnium is a large-scale Mass of the 15th century, and an example of the cyclic type with the same motto-opening and cantus firmus In each of its five movements. It is unusual in having a polyphonic setting of a troped Kyrie. normally sung in plainsong. Tropes were later-medieval additions to the chants of the Mass, eventually removed from use by the mid 16th-century Council of Trent, but not before the Deus Creator omnium Kyrie trope had been prescribed for a fairly broad selection of feast days. A lost folio here has resulted in alternate missing vocal parts, which I have reconstructed.

The cantus firmus is as yet unidentified, but the work appears to belong to the later 15th-century genre known in England as Masses on the 'square', where one part of an existing polyphonic composition - often a secular song - is used in the tenor as a musical scaffolding on which to construct the other parts, as Dufay had done in his Mass Se la face ay pale of c.1450. Analysis of the work shows that structure (disposition of cantus firmus. sections in duple and triple time, full sections and solo duos and trios), texture (T, B slower-moving than S, A in the full sections and their parts frequently crossing) and style (melodic, harmonic rhythmic idioms, and imitation) are very close to those the music of English composer Walter Frye (fl c.1450-75). Frye is now linked with the musical establishment of the Duke of Burgundy, and the sources of his music (three Masses, five motets, one or two songs of doubtful attribution) are almost entirely continental. The present work has affinities with Frye's Mass Flos regalis c.1468 and may be of slightly later date.^†

In 1502 the betrothal contract between James and Margaret was concluded and a treaty of 'permanent peace and friendship' between the two kingdoms was signed in London. English music would have been brought back to Scotland by musicians in Margaret's entourage, and was perhaps even sung at the marriage ceremony in the Abbey church of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh on 8 August 1503. celebrated in William Dunbar's famous poem The Thrissil and the Rois.

Significantly, after the Carver Choirbook's Dufay Mass and its two companions, there follow works by late 15th-century English composers. These six settings of the Magnificat and two of Salve regina form a direct link with the Eton Choir-book, that great collection of English sacred music completed In 1502. No fewer than 24 settings of the Magnificat were in the original Eton manuscript, of which only four survive today. In the Scottish choirbook three of these works can be identified from the English source. Perhaps the other anonymous items, including the present work, also formed part of the original Eton Choirbook.

This Magnificat displays the English composers' method of setting the text in alternating plainsong and polyphony- The polyphony is based on the transposed 'faburden' form of the seventh Magnificat plainsong tone as cantus firmus in the tenor, and further alternates full and solo sections for two and three voices. Here, however, the vocal ranges are more evenly distributed than those of the Mass Deus creator, there is imitation in some opening sections and florid duos and trios, but it is still more decorative than structural. Treatment of dissonance is well controlled and includes many examples of double suspensions, even an instance of the archaic double-sharpened leading note at 'Abraham'. An overall date, however, would be very late 15th century. Some may find the editorial underlay slightly over-repetitive, but this edition dates from the same time as the plainer version in the editor's doctoral dissertation, it had the editor's approval, and undeniably lends itself to a vigorous performance.

Robert Carver (c.1484-after 1568) probably copied this music himself as well as the three Masses. Both groups would have contributed to the formation of his style, as can be seen in the works of his that follow: three early Masses a10, 6, 4 and a motet a5. Then comes more English music, then the mature Mass a5 and motet 0 bone Jesu by Carver, and finally four anonymous pieces and the Mass of 1546. The peace treaty of 1502 had soon been broken after the accession of Henry VIII in 1509: Henry invaded France, Scotland's traditional ally, and arrogantly claimed to 'own Scotland". Hostilities ensued, culminating in the battle of Flodden in 1513 and the death of James IV. During the minority of James V, who was tutored by Dunbar, the dowager Queen Margaret represented the English and the Duke of Albany (James IV's cousin) the French factions in their struggle for power. In 1525 the former won control until 1528, when James asserted his own independence and chose a lasting French allegiance. The 1520s were also the time of Carver's first mature works. Elsewhere^‡ I have suggested that the Mass Fera pessima was a commission by Albany that reflected this power struggle.

The anonymous Mass for three voices is recorded in the Carver Choirbook between Carver's Mass Fera pessima for five voices and his great 19-part motet 0 bone Jesu. It is another cyclic Mass with a motto-opening for each movement, and has several outstanding features: the wide vocal ranges of an octave and a fifth in the top two parts, and an octave and a sixth in the lowest: the shortened texts of the Gloria and Credo, recalling the English votive Masses for three voices of the earlier 16th century; and a recurring passage of imitative sequential writing that is extended at the end of the Agnus Dei as a spectacular climax to the whole work. Imitation elsewhere is either of the older 'detail' kind within the musical phrase or of the more progressive, truly structural type- There is some syllabic writing in the Credo, but the melodic style is generally florid, in the manner of the later Eton Choirbook composers. All these characteristics are to be found in the three-voice solo sections of Carver's Masses. A recurring feature throughout the Mass - and one also Inherent in the motto-opening - is the alternation of two triads (both harmonic and melodic) whose roots are a tone apart, familiar from Gregorian chant, Celtic folk-music, some early-medieval polyphony, and some of Carver's music itself. I have placed the work's two companion pieces by Carver in the 1520s. I would suggest a similar or perhaps slightly earlier date for this Mass, and an attribution to the same composer.