07 to 09 Nov 2008
The Eton Choirbook: English music around 1500
Our 17th seminar in Hamburg. The Eton Choirbook is one of the principal sources for English sacred music in the late 15th century. The large-format choirbook (its pages 60 x 43 cm) is still in the library of Eton College, which was founded together with King’s College, Cambridge by Henry VI for the perpetual glory of the Virgin Mary: the manuscript reflects the Marian emphasis with several settings of Magnificat, 14 of Salve Regina and many other Marian texts, as well as Davy’s St Matthew Passion. The manuscript originally included a number of works of John Dunstable, which have been lost. The composers represented in the remaining book include John Browne, Robert Wylkynson, Cornish, Fayrfax, Hacomplaynt and others. The music is of extraordinary and unusual beauty, often scored for a very wide vocal compass from high soprano to low bass; it is characterised by great rhythmic complexity, as well as by Verse sections for smaller groupings of voices, which are written in red notation. Much of the repertoire is SATBaB, but there are pieces for 4 to 8 voices, as well as Wylkynson’s 9-voice Salve Regina and a 13-part canon by the same composer.
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