John Taverner's Audivi vocem de caelo

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



https://youtu.be/oVmaZ64K3C4

John Taverner (c. 1490–18 October 1545) was one of the most important English composers of the 16th century. Most of his music is for choir: masses, Magnificats, and motets. He wrote masses based on popular songs of the day, and his "Western Wynde" mass was an inspiration to other 16th-century composers, including John Sheppard and Christopher Tye. Taverner was a master of melismata, the singing of a single syllable of text to several different notes in succession. Taverner also wrote for what appears to be soloists in the midst of some of his masses, beginning with his Missa Gloria Tibi Trinitas. This was unusual for the time. The Benedictus of the Missa Gloria Tibi Trinitas, starting at the "In nomine," became popular as an instrumental work, and many other composers wrote for viol consort and other combinations based on this. So if you hear a 16th- or 17th-century work called an In nomine, it is very likely to have been inspired by Taverner's mass.

One of my favourite settings by Taverner is of the Matins responsory for All Saints' Day, Audivi vocem de caelo. As Sally Dunkley has said of this piece: "Taverner’s setting of the Matins responsory for All Saints’ Day, Audivi vocem de caelo, follows the well-established pattern of plainchant alternating with polyphony which incorporates the chant as a cantus firmus. Its unusual scoring for four high voices may be attributable to the liturgical custom associated with All Saints’ Day, whereby the responsory was sung by a group of five boys supposedly representing the five virgins described in the lesson immediately preceding. In fact one of the lower parts is not the work of Taverner, but was added ad placitum by a colleague at Cardinal College, William Whytbroke." Apparently, the five boys would be facing the altar, each holding a candle. When "Ecce sponsus venit" was sung, they would all turn around and face the rest of the choir.

My classical music post for today is John Taverner's Audivi vocem de caelo.

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