The King's Passion - Lent at the Chapel Royal

Most of the music in today's programme dates from the late Tudor period, a time of unprecedented intellectual and financial prosperity in England. The music of the era also flourished, with a succession of composers, closely associated through personal and professional ties, transforming musical styles with dazzling inventiveness. It was at this time that the Chapel Royal reached its zenith. Having been formalised about 250 years previously, this choral institution had been expanded under successive monarchs, until its membership numbered about 30 men and 16 boys - an enormous choir by the standards of the day. Fierce competition to enter the ranks made the Chapel renowned for its excellence.

Composing in such seemingly favourable circumstances, the Gentlemen of the Chapel nevertheless contrived Lenten works both personally and monumentally solemn. Beyond the liturgical demands for penitent music in Lent, we can look to the religious politics of the time to explain, in a small part, the intensity of Byrd's Bow Thine Ear or of Tallis' Lamentations of Jeremiah.

Alone among European nations, England had weathered the religious upheavals of the 16th Century without large-scale bloodshed, but internal pressures were fierce. Thomas Tallis lived in the reigns of five monarchs, and composed music to fit three major changes in religious policy. His works reflect this, evolving from the florid polyphonic style of the High Renaissance, through the almost savage self-restriction of the simple Anglican anthem (Mundy's O Lord the maker being a fine example of this style). Finally, the rich yet restrained polyphony of the Lamentations of Jeremiah seems to combine elements of both styles. In this work the acrostic Hebrew letters used to introduce each verse feature elaborate melismatic writing, in contrast to a generally more syllabic setting of the text.

It seems likely that Tallis was reluctant to abandon his Catholic faith , yet he diligently composed in the styles required of him throughout his life. Composers in the Tudor era walked a tightrope of theological and political issues as the new Anglican liturgy was developed. Elizabeth I, while continuing to impose reform on the church, tolerated and even encouraged Latin usage in the Chapel Royal. Whether by her direct patronage, or by the intervention of Catholic aristocrats, William Byrd, a determined recusant Catholic, survived and prospered at the court at a time of considerable religious persecution. Bow Thine Ear was originally a setting of the Lamentations in Latin, with English words added shortly after composition, probably to allow a wider diffusion of the work. Byrd's Miserere, from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book,elaborates a plainchant melody, which gradually is hidden in embellishments of noble simplicity.

For Catholics living in England at this time, the texts of Lent would have carried strong resonances. Themes of exile and of captivity were pointedly set by Byrd and Tallis. Even the ancient abbeys and monasteries, many of which had been abandoned altogether since their dissolution by Henry VIII, would have powerfully symbolised the desolation of Jerusalem as mourned by Jeremiah, to the Catholic community. Because of their subversive meanings, it is unlikely that works with these themes would have been sung even in the Chapel Royal. They were probably intended for amateur performance only, or for use in private Catholic chapels,for which Byrd wrote many Latin liturgical works.

Although belonging to the generation following Byrd, Orlando Gibbons only outlived him by two years. O Lord in Thy Wrath demonstrates the English anthem evolving into still more advanced harmonies and structures for the Chapel of James I. Henry Purcell, living a full century later than Tallis, seems to have profited more by composing for the stage than by his membership of the Chapel Royal. By this time it was usual for court musicians to be owed their salaries by the crown, and to be obliged to supplement their earnings with secular music. Hear my Prayer, O Lord was evidently intended to open a much larger choral work. Only this section survives, however, and it stands in its own right as one of the great motets in the repertoire. Maurice Greene, active at the same time as Handel, was Master of the King's Musick and Organist of the Chapel Royal. The Voluntary in G Minor, typical of its era, has a stern opening passage, followed by a lighter fugal dénouement.