John Cooke’s “Stella celi”

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England.



https://youtu.be/-p84oPpjTx4


The English composer John Cooke (1385-1442) is known for his setting of the Stella celi, a prayer for deliverance from the Black Death. Uncle Dave Lewis says, “Medieval English composer John Cooke is one of the few composers in the Old Hall Manuscript about whom we know something. He is represented by nine pieces in that source as ‘Cooke’; an additional, incomplete manuscript of one of his two settings of the Credo gives his first initial as ‘J,’ leading to the generally accepted speculation that his first name was John.”

Cooke was a member of the Chapel Royal of both Henry V and Henry VI. At some point, he fell out of favour; at least, it is assumed that he did, as someone tried to erase some of his compositions in the Old Hall Manuscript. 

The Stella celi was a Latin text written as a prayer to the Virgin Mary, asking for her to save the people from the plague. Cooke’s “three-voice descant motet” is believed to be the first multi-voice setting. The chant is in the lowest voice, and the chromaticism in the upper voices is frankly quite extraordinary. It is a homophonic work and some scholars see it as a “throw-back” work, not representative of the compositional style of the early 15th century.

My classical music post for today is John Cooke’s “Stella celi.”

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