I recently had the privilege of journeying to Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge to meet David Skinner, and he generously gave me an hour of his time to have a conversation about the changes in music in the 16th century. We covered a huge amount of information, and he mentioned a lot of links, youtube videos, recordings, etc, and I’ve tried to add them all below. If you’re thinking about a great Christmas gift, please consider an Alamire CD. I’d love it if we as a community could rock the sales of Anne Boleyn’s Songbook!
- The British Library record for the Spy’s Choirbook
- Byrd at Ingastone Hall – one person per part, sitting around a table, as it would have been done originally.
- David Skinner’s iTunes page
- The Spy’s Choirbook on Amazon (mp3 download)
- The Spy’s Choirbook on Amazon (CD)
- Review of The Spy’s Choirbook from the Telegraph with lots of historical background
- Anne Boleyn’s Songbook on Amazon (CD released 21 September)
- The Stripping of the Altars by Eamon Duffy
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge chapel and services information
Byrd at Ingatestone Hall
Rough Transcript of the interview with David Skinner
Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey, it’s Heather. And I want to remind you about our very special tours to the UK. In 2017, we’ll be doing tours focusing on the even song experience. The evensong service comes from Kramarz book of common prayer from the mid 16th century. It’s been dubbed the atheists favorite service because it requires so little and it gives so much it’s simply divine choral music sung in some of the most historic chapels, abbeys and cathedrals in England. We’ll be spending 10 days visiting places like Cambridge, Oxford bath, the Cotswolds, Winchester, and Windsor with walking tours, free time to explore and then gathering back each afternoon for the even song service. If you choose to attend, it will be 10 days of beautiful countryside, historic cities and villages. And so, so much music invite you to go to England cast.com/tours for full itinerary and pricing information. Again, England cast E N G L a N D C a S T England cast.com/tours. Thanks so much. And now to the show,
Speaker 2: (01:16)
[inaudible]
Speaker 1: (02:16)
Hello and welcome to a very special episode of the Renaissance English history podcast. So I recently had the opportunity to travel to Sydney Sussex college in Cambridge to interview dr. David Skinner. And what follows is the conversation we had highlights of, which are when he sums up changes in 16th century music in less than 10 words and the discussion of his research methodology. I am incredibly grateful for his generosity in sharing so much information with us. He mentioned several CDs, YouTube videos, books, and recordings, and I’ve put links to all of them@httpcolonslashslashenglandcast.com www.englandcast.com/skinner S K I N N E R. Again, that’s England cast.com/skinner. Dr. David Skinner is well known as a leading scholar and performer of early music and director of the acclaimed vocal ensemble Alameda. He has also worked with the main early music groups in the UK, including the Cardinals music as co-founder the Tellus scholars, the 16, the Hilliard ensemble, and the King singers, David, his fellow tutor and Osborn director of music at Sydney Sussex college, Cambridge university, where he teaches historical and practical topics from the medieval and Renaissance periods as an engaging presenter, he has worked extensively for BBC radio appearing in and writing a variety of shows on radio three and four.
Speaker 1: (03:52)
He also acted as music advisor for the music and monarchy series on BBC two with historian David Starkey. He has published widely on music and musicians of early tutors, England, and recently published the Telus Salter and the Gibbons hymnal for Novello. He is currently working on a volume of Taluses early Latin works for publication in 2016. We started the interview with me asking him how his career began.
Speaker 3: (04:20)
Yeah, so early on, when I, when I came to England for my, uh, for my postgraduate study Edinburgh in Oxford, I started by really being essentially an academic advisor to the groups that were around at the time. So the Talmud scholars who have ensemble 16 and others, and it was a really good experience for me to cut my teeth on editing music and, and getting it from parchment to CD. You know, so that was something I, I spent several years doing. It was while I was doing my doctorate in Oxford. Um, and then I sat in my own group in 89, the Carl’s music, a hundred Concord, and those were extremely formative years for me, working with Andrew is such a wonderful position. I was the, essentially the editor and the researcher, and he conducted the choir. And so we started by recording practically every scrap of information visually, we got our hands on.
Speaker 3: (05:12)
So Nicholas Munford, Robert Fairfax, John LaBeck and others. And then we started the bird edition. So I, that went for many years. Um, and then when I came to Cambridge, I just became too busy to, to work with the cardless music. Um, Andrew became directed mrs. Simples cathedral. Likewise. So, so he took over the group and I set up my own called Alameda, right. And this is known as essentially the main catalyst for my research project. So rather than give my projects to other groups, I’m not doing myself. Um, I do work with some groups occasionally, mainly not just the King singers. I offer an early music project to them. Once every two years, they’re very kindly recorded. So they were just here in Sydney, Sussex about two months ago, uh, performing latest project Palestrina, biblical passions. But, uh, my passion essentially is using this church music from the Metro region century up to and beyond bird, but also dabbled in a lot of French and Italian music.
Speaker 4: (06:13)
So I have to ask being from California, how did you first get introduced to this world and how did this become your passion?
Speaker 3: (06:19)
Uh, surprisingly it was a matter of a CD player in a car that was broken. Um, and inside the player was a CD of, uh, no it wasn’t CD. And this is like days of cassette tapes, cheers, uh, at, uh, recorded by the, that ensemble. It was just stuck in the car. So that’s all I could listen to. And I just really talk to the couch teller voice. So, um, when I was singing with the music, I’d sing in the counseling side of the counter tenor, or they just 16. Um, and I thought, well, the only place I can possibly be is England. So I decided I’m going to be a choral scholar at Kings college, Cambridge, no questions asked it’s just going to happen. Um, and then in those days, the Oxford trials earlier, so I got into Oxford before even attempting to get into Cambridge. So I then got into Christ church. So that’s where I was. Of course a scholar has been for many years and met and require we didn’t set up the car with music and started all my, all my researching.
Speaker 4: (07:19)
And, and one thing I love about your projects is they’re so grounded in the history you you’re so involved in the history of, of it as well as the musical side of things. Yeah,
Speaker 3: (07:28)
It’s essential. It really is essential. I mean, I mean, when I was setting up these other projects, there always has to be an angle, you know, um, I mean, it’s very popular these days to, to make a recording of music for advent or music to drink wine, or, you know, it’s, it’s, they’re all sort of thematic rather than actually getting back to basics and the manuscripts that were put together at the time. So much of what we do are based around collections, whole collections that I’ve researched quite extensively and then edited. So, um, this is our 10th anniversary year. I’m hearing has been going for 10 years and we’ve got 10 CDs. So you can see how the rhythm goes. It takes me a year to conceive a project, edit the music, um, uh, research it thoroughly, set up the recording and venue and the people, all my favorite people, um, uh, and they’re booked well in a year.
Speaker 4: (08:20)
And does it change? Does Alan Mary, the members change?
Speaker 3: (08:23)
There’s a core membership that we’ve recorded, um, uh, CDs with despues three people. So the Trinity Carol role, uh, which was a few years ago, it’s, it’s a, it’s something that looks like a large spring roll Chinese spring roll, but when you unwrap it, it’s actually a parchment that contains the oldest English carols known to exist and that’s in Trinity college. So we recorded the entire manuscript in Sunday school, the Trinity Carol. Um, so that was our wonderful you’ve of various, no roads. That one, I think it’s in that. And there are a few other famous ones, but there are 13 Carol’s in there. And many of them haven’t been heard in modern times. So maybe you want to play it to your audience, um, uh, Christmas, but the trilogy Carol she’s beautiful, beautiful Christmas music. Um,
Speaker 2: (09:23)
[inaudible] [inaudible]
Speaker 3: (09:51)
And of course, carols aren’t just for Christmas, but you know, you get carols and the logical Carol is in that book too. So it dates from around, we think 14, 16, 14, 17, um, uh, and the Agincourt Cara will be in present sort of, you know, it gives us a terminal state. Yeah. Interesting. Um, and so for the spice Claire book as well, talk to me a little bit about that. Well, up until the spiral spiral book, um, we, we essentially had been recording industry music. So we have this wonderful CDO. John Taverner was one of my favorites. Uh, the group recorded the complete counting his cipher by Tolleson Burford in 75 in the order that the, the books give them music. Um, but in 2009, um, I was the anniversary year of the coordination of, of Henry the eighth. Um, we recorded a massive book in the British library, beautiful manuscript, uh, which has a Rose candidate.
Speaker 3: (10:47)
It’s very famous. So you, you’ve got, uh, an open parchment, two roses facing each other and around the Rose. Um, so music as a cat. So, uh, it’s famous for that, but nobody’s really recorded the content and there are a number of other tests in science. So we recorded that, um, as part of the bridge library project. And that’s when we got excited about continental music about, um, uh, reached the shores of England. Okay. So very few inner sources survive on the continent, but we do have quite a few continental sources here in England and diplomatic gifts. So they were gifts to Henry the eighth and mostly because he was such a, um, a famous lover of music and a patron of music. Um, so the spice Potter book essentially is a book that was gifted to Henry the eighth and Katherine of Aragon. Um, and it’s all about, um, child bearing.
Speaker 3: (11:37)
And it was done at a time when, when Catherine was trying to conceive a son, this is a time when the young Henry there is a very different Henry, the eighth, he was thin good looking tall, muscular, athletic, very musical. Um, so it represents a period in his life that was highly cultured musically. And we recorded every move tattoo to the board. It was a very expensive and lavish production from the workshop of patricide, Amir and where we get on name. Um, so anybody that was anybody in those days, uh, whether you’d be a carpenter or a Bishop or a Prince, uh, you want to have Petrus and Amir, a design requirement for you. And there are a number of them that survive today. I mean, they’re scattered all over the place in the back in library, in Germany here in England.
Speaker 4: (12:25)
And then he, he was that you call it spice bar, but because he was,
Speaker 3: (12:28)
Yeah, I mean, it was, it was a good catchphrase because essentially he, um, I mean, for musicians, it was a great way to travel and see the world, but also a great way to transmit information without being suspected, cause musicians by nature of who they were and what they did, they would, they would go from court to court. So, um, he wasn’t the only spy at the time, but, but famously, he, um, there, there are a number of letters that survived between him and Carla Woolsey and the media about his activities. And he was basically as fine on the last, the tangent switch the pole. Um, and in turn, Paul hired him to spinal Henry. So we think he was actually a double agent. And so it’s a series of, of letters that in themselves, aren’t that interesting apart from the spine aspect. But, but we do know that this book was one of the gifts given to Henry to, to sort of gain favor and Henry didn’t pay a penny for it. So I was pretty upset. So when he went home after being sent home for the last time, uh, there’s a letter that says, you know, and of course I gave, I gave Henry a number of musical gifts, including a large smart book, and I haven’t received a penny for any of it.
Speaker 3: (13:40)
Yeah. And this is it. I mean, so it’s, it’s, it was obviously done, um, uh, you know, in the most lavish of ways with all the best inks that the best describes cause Alinea would have had a, uh, basically a workshop people. So it’s from, it’s from the workshop at Petra sonogram. We don’t know if it’s actually hands in the book, but certainly it is from these workshops.
Speaker 4: (14:01)
Yeah. And that’s interesting that Henry didn’t pay anything for it because he was such a patron of the arts. Right. So, but I guess he wants to,
Speaker 3: (14:08)
I think he caught wind that, that Petra sign in there, he was talking to the pole. So, um, what was he just cut them off. So basically that was it. So, um, I’m not surprised he wasn’t paid. It’s good if they need just wasn’t paid and not bought.
Speaker 4: (14:22)
Yeah. For sure. He lucked out there. Interesting. Um, and so we kind of touched on this, but I’m really interested in like kind of the methodology that you use when you research these product projects and just kind of how you approach, like what your approach is with them and, and how you, how you pick a project and then how you research it.
Speaker 3: (14:42)
My projects are always, um, uh, they’re conceived in one of two ways. Uh, one, a, somebody comes up to me and says, we’d like to do this project would agree with the Institute from doing it. So like we, the 15, sorry, the, uh, so the 2009 Henry the eighth project, uh, was a direct, uh, flee from the British library. We’d like to report this manuscript. We’d like you guys to do it. So that was great. Um, but for everything else that is centered on my own primary research interests. So Tara was my first love. Um, and I edited a lot of his music. So, uh, often you get recordings of his masses and rarely do you get a recording just as antiphons ritual music. So that’s what I always wanted to do. Um, so that was one, another one was the Talison bird project. Um, never had these very famous motets in 1575 being recorded in the order that they were intended when deed that Burton talus put them in.
Speaker 3: (15:39)
And I learned a lot in terms of vertical spit pitching scoring, and it’s all laid out in the manner that suits it. It sort of feeds my imagination about how these projects work. Um, spice choir book was just something that I realized existed. Um, and we all know about it. It’s if you go into the British library and they have a, um, a musical, uh, exhibition, it’s always wheeled out as, as the great thing, because it’s got a great opening opening page. You can just see it right in the corner of my office. Um, but it’s, it’s a beautiful manuscript, but surprisingly you have an image of that.
Speaker 3: (16:19)
Wow. They quite extraordinary thing. Um, but the thing is, uh, I was, I was beginning to ask myself, so what else is in the book, how people recorded this session. So, you know, that there are just these wonderful discoveries in the book. And so we just decided to record every single note. And I’m very fortunate that having a project patron in Patricia Brown, a great supporter of the art. So whenever I have anything, highly academic that is, needs to be done, and there’s no financial backing for it, she provides the financial backing. So straight after this, uh, another manuscript, uh, now in the Royal college of music, manuscript 10 70 sounds very, um, uh, boring. And it’s actually the size of may four book. It’s just, it’s not that big, like a notepad, but you haven’t gone up. And it’s a rather formal beginnings is about a formal, um, layout of some, some music.
Speaker 3: (17:16)
And then it goes rather informal in the middle different hands. And then you have a little inscription mr. San Berlin now a bus, which was the motto of her father. So, uh, we, we think that the book actually was started when she was a girl in France and she, uh, she would have been exposed to the music of Joss scandal, the Rue. She probably met these people and she was quite cultured, very function. She learned everything that she needed to back in France so that, you know, her father was, was a mover and shaker of one person to do well at court and actually married into Ireland. And of course, rather she married into Henry the eighth, um, uh, either to accredit or not. But, uh, but we do have this book and not many people know it exists. I mean, academics know that exists.
Speaker 3: (18:00)
Um, you know, talking to my colleagues here, I said, so you’re attempting 10 70. Yeah, that’s great. It’s a big book. Um, or there are 4,600 positions that have, um, some of them are incomplete. Some of them overlap with the spice Bible, but most of it is anonymous and gorgeous. So it’s different than inspired that it gives us more, uh, more layers of sound. So rather than for part French, no tax, we’ve got some five part, we bought some six parts, we’ve got some French ShellSol, so we’ve, we’ve incorporated the loot part. And so they’re seeing, so it’s, it’s a very nice balance program. Um, and I just loved so much of the music that I couldn’t squeeze it all into a single CDs. We have a double CV, again, it’s not the entire book cause you can’t do it cause it’s, there’s some stuff that’s missing. Uh, but essentially it’s an hour and a half of my favorite pieces from this collection, which again, have not been edited or heard in modern times.
Speaker 4: (18:54)
That’s amazing. So I’m really interested in what music the musical experience was like for people, both at court and then also for the common people who were living during this time period. So what can you tell? So we could start with the court part, the sort of high part. So I’m going through the tutor monarchs. What can you tell me about what their musical experiences were and how they felt about music?
Speaker 3: (19:20)
The big question? Uh, I think, I think the easiest way to think about it is that essentially, um, and if we maybe stick to a particular period, so say for 16th century, um, and it could apply to 15th century before too high art music and especially, um, church music in England at least, um, didn’t really get going in a major way until the end of the 14th century. And it was, it was all quarterly or, or, um, the church music that you did have were ceremonial. Okay. So, so the idea that, that, that the plain chant that you used to adorn the liturgy was, was transferred into something more grounded. Polyphony is very much a 15th century idea. Okay. So high art music and folk music, just like we have today, classical music and rock and roll. Okay. But, um, if you think about the high art music, it’s all centered either around the church or around the Courtney dance.
Speaker 3: (20:14)
Okay. So instrumental music we think was largely improvised until the middle of the 16th century when it began to be written down for instruments rather than a listen England, rather than the idea of instruments playing vocal parts. So we knew that always happened this century. You can get a group of people and get approved the concert and play it through vocal music. And the idea of having instrumental music written for instruments with, with the particular quirks of say a vile, we have repeated notes, you know, shimmery. It was very much an idea in the mid 16th and out of the idea of in normal settings, uh, an improvisation on the chart in nominate, uh, from the Gloria Tibi task, um, uh, toddler said, but, um, high art music would have been experienced really by a very small proportion of the populace. And we recommend the top 2%. And unless you happen to be lucky enough to live near a collegiate church now, um, England has something like 200 professional liturgical choir has dotted around the country
Speaker 4: (21:20)
And these come from the colleges
Speaker 3: (21:22)
And we’re not talking about Oxford Cambridge, although they are colleges, but before the reformation, there were a number of colleges of Royal foundation, noble foundation, or even just, um, wealthy merchants that would set up these institutions and set up a, um, a group of priests, singing men and boys to sing and pray for the souls of the founder. Okay. So these were set up quite typically, um, uh, with polyphonic acquires. And as I said, there were about 200 of them around the time that Henry VAX began to tinker with the colleges and the monasteries. Um, and the average size surprisingly is quite small. So when you think of a concert choir today in America, maybe it’s performing some, uh, Fairfax, a Wheaton bird or something, something to 16th century, something, uh, you know, quite popular today. It could be a concert choir of 40 or more.
Speaker 3: (22:17)
The Tudor choir surprisingly is small. And it made a made up in many places like four men and seven boys. So if you’ve got a five-part piece of glyphosate, you would imagine that the men’s parts would have been signed by soloists and the boy, maybe four on the subprime and three on the Alto. So chamber choir pretty much a chamber choir. Uh, the bigger clothes that, that, that came out were really, um, from the time of Cardinal Woolsey. And, and when you set up kind of our college and our Christchurch, it was an enormous choir, 16 forest roads and 12 walk. That’s huge. Um, so that, that is still, I mean, I, by most standards change requires
Speaker 4: (22:54)
Sure. Now did these, did these choirs have to sing every surface because weren’t there like a number of services after Henry the fifth and Agincourt, didn’t he add a grid add to the, to the services and weren’t they singing like six or seven times a day or something like that.
Speaker 3: (23:11)
The Monash monastic and, and collegiate, um, liturgical cycle has been, have been pretty much in place even long before then. So you basically have the cycle of the masses and the cycle of the offices running the side by side day, day in, day out. So if you check a typical day in any, any major collegiate institution, um, and it depends on what type of institution they are, imagine, uh, the community waking up in the middle of the night for what matters as one of the larger morning service services. And then when the sunrises lot, so two big there, and then you have prime tat sex or not. These are smaller offices that, that don’t really have to lift any such as playing shot, but he would hear polyphony and that, and the grudge and morning opposites. And then, um, you’d have your afternoon off for recreation, eating, gardening, writing music, and then, uh, you’d have vespers at, uh, at dusk.
Speaker 3: (24:05)
Uh, and then that’s where your Magnificat comes from. And then finally conflict before that, um, within all of that, you have the structure of the commemorations are massive. So you have a massive a day. You have a mass for the Moro commemorate, and the next day, a lady in us on top of that, you have masses that were paid for by the community, um, or those that have left money for them to sing and pray for their assaults. So you then have masses darting around all over the place. So if you take a very large, there’ll be like, listen, mr. Abby, um, if you’ve ever walked in one of these English cathedrals, you’ll notice that there are side altars. So, so all the main body of that, of the masses and the officers would take place in the choir, the central, the church, but you’d have masses being said or some all around the edge ratchets.
Speaker 3: (24:47)
I mean, it’d be a very noisy place. Um, so, uh, in a typical day you think about it, you’ve got, um, matins laws, claims, test sets, knowledge, vespers compliment that’s eight services, plus at least three principal masses, nine, 10, 11 plus commemorations. So that’s day in, day out there on a free days. That’s a lot of singing, but you got to remember that the polyphony would have been reserved for the greater offices and also for graded feasts. So they wouldn’t have been seeing this stuff. They couldn’t tell me where to lose their voices. So, I mean, just,
Speaker 1: (25:24)
I didn’t know whether maybe there were like you took in shifts or something, so,
Speaker 3: (25:28)
Oh, do you have you had service days? Cause it was such a large institution. So you have to canine service and contour it. So swap back and forth, we think, but no, certainly, um, you know, these institutions and, and they were set up with all the right intentions, but I mean, reading through the success or otherwise of how these institutions actually worked. And that was when, when CroNGO was constructing the disillusion, the monster for Henry the eighth, he had prepared what’s called the black book and it’s all the things that these institutions were getting up to that they shouldn’t get up to. Um, and, uh, I’ve read visitation records of institutions and visitation essentially is, is the Bishop coming to an institution, taking everybody aside in the same, um, is everything running according to statute? And it’s one on one on pain of excommunication. You’ve got to, you’ve got to tell you the truth.
Speaker 3: (26:22)
So every possible bias that you can think of that a human might get up to 21st century, England happened back then. Um, so I mean, there was, you know, for occasion, I mean, so many of the there’s this one, uh, who was it? It was the master of, of the Albion Dorchester, an Oxford shirt. And he managed to impregnate at least 13 women. And that was found out in the visitation, but he was busy, but he was able to keep his job because all you have to do is to, uh, to bring two, two fellows with you to actually say, well, actually I’m, I’m innocent and I’ve got two witnesses. He’s the monster. He’s got these two photos here. And I said, yeah, I see medicine, but essentially he’s guilty. But, uh, I mean, there was some really blue reading in these visitation records. Yeah.
Speaker 4: (27:10)
Interesting. No wonder Cramo wanted to,
Speaker 3: (27:13)
Yeah. He had a point. I mean, you had a point, I mean, very famously. It was the idea that, um, you know, as we selecting all the relics, um, and sharing just how powerless they were and you collected so many bits of the cross of Jesus Christ, you said, there’s so much wood here. You know, we have a forest of process, so somebody is lying, but there’s long, there’s a vial which contains, apparently it contained apparently the breastmilk the Virgin Mary. And he commented, well, it’s not the fact that we actually have it, but how did we get it from her in the first place, all these, these questions that were never really asked. Um, so, you know, reclamation and brewing and
Speaker 4: (27:53)
Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So I kind of got you a bit sidetracked there, but this is all really interesting. Um, so yeah, so we know that Henry the eighth was a huge patron and loved music. What about the other tutors? Well, Elizabeth, Elizabeth would have as well, but what about Edward and Mary?
Speaker 3: (28:11)
Well, they were too busy with reformation. I mean, Edward was a boy King, of course. Um, uh, what he did do was, was actually, um, implement a very Protestant church. So the reformation of the Henry was political and it was all political. So essentially the church services didn’t change. Nothing changed liturgically apart from the introduction of an English listening, which is a very small part of it. Um, when Edward came to the throne, he and his counsel turned their information into one that wasn’t political, but doc trial. So it’s all about changing everything. So
Speaker 4: (28:45)
Because cooking you, even at the end of Henry, the eighth rain, you would still go be imprisoned for heresy if you denied the true presence right
Speaker 3: (28:54)
Back and forth, and you didn’t know which whereas had this was on reading. So when he, and it all depended on which queen he was with. Right. So, uh, what’s interesting with his last queen Catherine part, and this is, this is, uh, our next project after, after Amber Lynn, it’s a very exciting stuff about talus. That’s just come to light. But, um, you know, Catherine Palm is conservative and then Henry B, I’m sorry, Catherine Park was reformist. And Henry DF at the time was conservative, but he was being talked back and forth, you know, and it depends on which day of the week you’re talking to the King as to which way he was leaning, you know, uh, but essentially know in terms of music, nothing would have changed because the liturgy didn’t change. There was nothing, there was nothing to be introduced, like the book of common prayer, which was introduced 15 40 million.
Speaker 3: (29:41)
So when that hit the shelves, um, you’ve got a situation where, um, before the death of Henry you would, you would need a mountain of liturgical books to perform the daily service, the masses. And that’s all replaced by a single slim nine book in English. Um, and the musicians weren’t told how to compose this music. They were just given the new prevalence. So people like us, we would look at the prayer book and you’d say, and the Clarks were seeing this in English. So Magnificat so an entirely repertoire had to be, had to be a creative. And the interesting thing is that talus is probably the first man to master the form. And so it’s the first one to actually I think, put pen to paper and make it work. So the very earliest competitions we have, we know date from 1549, 1550, if you love me, for example.
Speaker 3: (30:32)
So you get to these, these amazingly long votive antiphons Vitale, it’s written probably as late as 1547, 15, 40, 80 after the death of Henry, because the private hadn’t been introduced and all following that old, very, um, uh, ground eating pirate, but form of, you know, these art art in lines. And we have a 15 minute vocal band in Latin, very melodramatic. And then in the next year, you’ve got a four-part piece in English, very simple, two minutes long. Wow. And it’s biblical, you know, so it’s so news, it becomes the function of music, fundamentally changes. It’s less for spirituality and more for again, delivering a very clear message, essentially a sermon.
Speaker 4: (31:15)
And wasn’t there a rule that you couldn’t have more than two syllables to note or something. And that’s what I mean,
Speaker 3: (31:20)
I was, um, as crammer you were saying, you know, in his opinion, um, for every NERC, there should be a syllable. And I think he was talking about essentially the pre-sessional so that it could be heard. So melisma is not there, but, uh, really nothing other than that was said about how composers should, should compose. So, so when you look at music from Edward’s reign, it’s, uh, it’s essentially a very different style.
Speaker 4: (31:45)
And then it, of course, has to go back on your marriage.
Speaker 3: (31:47)
And then Mary, you know, um, uh, Catholicism returns, however composers would rejoice in him. And they’d learned something quite fundamental about writing in their own language for six years. So, um, Latin church music under Mary becomes far more texting. You can really understand the tax. So finally English composers are approaching their own Renaissance. In terms of tax setting, you compare a vote of amplified by Tara, uh, from the 1530s by something by Talis and the 1550s. And again, uh, night and day, essentially, because for six years, Thomas experimented in writing in his own language and where the remit was to make the text as clear as possible. So that is fed into the Latin church, music and America.
Speaker 4: (32:34)
Um, and then with Elizabeth, yes. Ma’am.
Speaker 3: (32:37)
Yeah. You’re well, I mean, it goes both ways. It goes both ways. Cause I mean, Elizabeth, after the turmoil of her half brother and half sister, she sat on the fence early in the ring. So, um, she re-introduced the, uh, the book of common prayer, uh, but priests were allowed to wear their coats and have all these beautiful things in the churches were allowed to, to be shown and composers were allowed to write a new language thing,
Speaker 4: (33:01)
But then how did that change throughout her reign? Because didn’t, she come down quite harshly,
Speaker 3: (33:06)
That’s only when her crime was threatened. Yeah. And, you know, Mary queen of Scots and the idea of, of, of replacing who got a Catholic. So, uh, and it drove Catholics underground and that’s what famously is going on bird, except that was, was an exception. And he had a license to be a Catholic. He is, he actually had a dispensation to be a Catholic. Um, so he was, he was allowed to, to worship privately as long as he didn’t do anything to danger the crown of the queen. And he didn’t, I mean, he was, he was a Catholic, but he was also a bit Englishman.
Speaker 4: (33:39)
Sure. That that was a tough line for Catholics to have to walk on to. Cause it’s, Pope’s, that’s communicating your Monarch at the same time, but now where I’m interested in the Catholic underground music is what I’ve heard that the bird masses, the three and four or five part were, were written for Catholics to be able to sing in their home when they were doing like a secret bath. Is that right?
Speaker 3: (34:03)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the thing is we don’t know them. They were written, um, they were probably written in the 1580s. Um, there were published, um, really anonymously in, in, in, in the middle of the 1590s and we have an estimated publication date. I think that the four part came first and then it was the five of the three or, uh, it doesn’t mean massive, but there were published within a couple of years of each other. So what’s interesting. You’ve got a three part four part five pot, as you say, which means that third is setting up, um, something that hadn’t been composed since the 15, 50 years of Latin mass. And he was very keen that it would cater for any occasion. So the five, five hours would be a full road fire. We, you know, he’s envisaging boys and men, you know, all the parts represented, the four path can be done by just men or you can transpose it up and do it higher voices, the three parts similarly.
Speaker 3: (34:52)
Um, and, uh, it’s sort of ties in with his work on the graduate volume and the larger volume of two, two massive books that are basically it’s the propers of the Catholic church. Yeah. So you get the temper on there and the centrally. So the times of the year, and then masters towards some sense for some of the sites. So, uh, he produced basically an entire repertoire for English Catholics, I think, um, in the knowledge, his knowledge that Indian would one day return to Catholicism. So he’s set up a legacy for the Catholic people in these wonderful musical gifts, but he published them, you know, quite openly and legally. Um, and I mean the garage of Valeo, surprisingly, it was published the year of the gunpowder plot. So know when the Catholics tried to blow up King and country bird project presents the, the gradual Elliot, which could only be for Catholic use. Uh, but the masses is, you know, it’s a little bit more dangerous. So you find that there are no title pages, but on every single page has WB Sue. There’s no question as to who wrote it, you know, but again, he had a, uh, a licensed practice,
Speaker 4: (35:59)
But would that have extended into James then
Speaker 3: (36:03)
We don’t, we don’t really know what happened. The reason we know about the dispensations, cause when, when James came to the throne, burned, writing him and said, um, I’ve enjoyed certain rights and privileges as reckless and Catholic. And, uh, and Elizabeth I’d hope that these will continue under your operations, right? There’s no reply, uh, that survives, but obviously he was given this concession because he continues to produce this music went into 16, 10, but, uh, you know, you’re asking about the performances of the mass and the households. And it’s interesting because, um, nowadays we hear them in churches and so quite very much in a religious setting in burns day, it would have been in a patron’s house. Um, and whoever was there that could perform it would perform even if it’s a female. So we know for example that on occasion, some of the boats patrons probably would have picked up a book and some, a boys thought if there wasn’t enough, what enough singers?
Speaker 3: (36:56)
Um, and there was a violent opponent, you pick up a ball and apart with that, so, um, very, very loose performance practice issues. Yeah. I mean, how do you perform an authentic version of the bird masses? Okay. The best thing to do is to get around the table in a private household with potlucks and seeing one, two apart, which we did and it gets to the hall not so long ago, there’s a YouTube video. That was so cool because I had never been done before. Um, uh, we, we happened to be there for a conference and I said, look, let’s just do this. And I bought some facsimiles. We sat through the forepart carrier in a dry room, you know, in a space that bird would’ve known, you know, and, and, and where he would have produced this music. It was wonderful.
Speaker 4: (37:40)
Very cool. So you mentioned the, the women potentially singing and I wanted to ask you what, what role women would have had in music and probably in the kind of liturgical music, not a lot, but
Speaker 3: (37:54)
Unless it was private in a private household. Um, I mean, we don’t really know, but women have no, no role whatsoever in liturgical music in polyphony. Uh, their place was very much domestic and many women learnt how to play instruments. We know queen Elizabeth, um, play practically everything. And the Linn was grateful to Lou to another thing was so, um, it was very much a domestic pastime. Um, but in terms of religious music, they probably would have known it because we do have a number of sources that, that, um, have been created out of vocal sources. So you get these, um, trios and duos that you find in, in, in tell us Tadano Fairfax, large scale, that amount of bonds that have been detached from the original, um, uh, form and put into instrumental books. So they no longer have their texts, but you just have the three pop music. And we know that they were, would have been either, um, some most likely played on the loot or vials or combination of such and women would have very much had a part in that.
Speaker 4: (39:00)
Interesting. Um, and so one question back to Elizabeth with that time, of course, is known as the golden age of, uh, well, English church music and choral music. What is it about that time that makes it so special?
Speaker 3: (39:14)
I suppose it’s the two things I think it’s, I think it’s the idea that the reformation happened and, you know, for my students here in Cambridge, we used to do a reformation. And one of the questions is, was the reformation a good thing for music, because essentially we’re talking about a time of destruction, destruction and, um, and you know, limitation on what composers could do. Um, however, composers was forced into thinking about other styles, um, the early, um, florid style. So in many ways, open their eyes to other ways of, of composition by the time you get to the other end of it. And you’re into the Elizabeth and settlement, when things were beginning to settle down, uh, that composers now have everything they need, um, on their work desks to create practically anything. So you get, you get voices and instruments performing together in church for the first time. You know, the idea of the verse service is the most, um, uh, viral has become a very, very important part of, of the competition process in terms of the concert song and console Tampa. So, um, uh, it’s just essentially, there’s, there’s more to be done and it’s the age of Shakespeare. It’s just, it’s just very enlightened. So, um, there’s more opportunity for things to happen, I think, than ever before.
Speaker 4: (40:28)
Mm Hmm. Interesting. Um, so the 16th century was a huge time of change for music. If you could just sum up the changes in a couple of words, is that possible?
Speaker 3: (40:42)
Yeah, I think I can do that. Okay. So essentially we’re talking about life before the prevalence and life after the prevalence. So like a very sharp knife cutting right in the middle of the 16th century, 1549. If you imagine you envisage a large slab of cheese that represents the 16th century, 1549 is right in the middle, isn’t it give or take a few millimeters? You cut that out. That first chunk is, is all Catholic or traditional music making, um, uh, a, a form that had been, um, sort of stylized and, and worked out over many centuries. And it was cut short by the reformation. Everything after is new and a new ideas, uh, incorporating some techniques, but all new ideas. So essentially we’re talking about the introduction of the English, right. And that changes everything
Speaker 4: (41:42)
Interesting. That’s a great summation that’s, that’s very, that’s very, very impressive. Very, very cool. Um, and so then we talked a lot about the religious side of things and the high sort of high art. What were there was there? What kind of was the equivalent of pop music? And of course they wouldn’t have had any way to disseminate there weren’t radio stations and serious excitement, whatever. But yeah, I know we hear the story about, um, pastime with good company that Henry wrote and it suddenly becomes this massive pop hit, but, uh, what, what, what did normal people
Speaker 3: (42:18)
Well, that’s music for the court and that’s not even for normal people, right? I mean, that’s still for the court, right? So the Henry, the Exxon book contains, I think at least 33 compositions by the King, as well as, um, uh, secular melodies by, by court composers and, and members of the chapter. Again, this is high art music, um, because not many people can read this stuff. You need professionals, and it would have been professional singing men and boys that perform this in terms of the every day person. I think we’re looking at the idea of incidental music for plays, and that’s where we really have a lack of music. We have a few broad sheets with some tunes that we know that would have been passed out as sold, um, during a performance. And we’re talking about something that might’ve happened, you know, um, even in Shakespeare’s globe, you know, there would have been music.
Speaker 3: (43:07)
Um, some of it would have been meditated. A lot of it would’ve been improvised. So there are very famous melodies like the brownie into, um, or other tunes that, that, uh, you know, Greensleeves, um, was actually a, an Italian tune. We believe has nothing to do with heavy. Uh, the, these famous tunes would be improvised and like, like a jazz musician would do today. You take the popular too, and you play it. And that’s, I think what a lot of the everyday person would have no, and less, they lived right down the road from little castle and they went into the parish church and they heard the collegiate choir singing mass. I mean, and that would have been all over the country. So if you’re fortunate enough in living close to the collegiate church, there was always a parasite. So the parish could come in and hear this music. So it wasn’t entirely exclusive in the shop. What would it be? But these college called college, uh, um, establishments would have produced music at the highest quality as well.
Speaker 4: (44:08)
And that would have been a bit, of course, people by law would have had to have attended their masses and everything. Right. You know, I mean, they would’ve had to,
Speaker 3: (44:16)
So, I mean, it would have been, it would have been expected. I mean, although you wouldn’t take communion, I don’t, I’m not an expert on this, but I do think that the idea of taking the week, the community did it yet to exist. It was the idea that you would go once or twice a year to receive first. Um, and most of the time you have nothing to do. You’re sitting, um, you got to imagine the church again, like that big piece of cheese being cut right off. You’ve got the bit the priest and the sitting back, and it’s all adorned with Marvel and incense and beautiful tapestries. And on the power side, um, you don’t have fuse, you have essentially roll on the floor because when you come in and you kneel with your private vault and you witness what’s happening through that, you know, and what’s interesting. You can go still go into some of these churches and Norfolk, um, where that still may, that still have their root loft and their screens. And you can look into the parish that side, you can look from the power side of the church, into the collegiate side of the church, and there are little idols that are through, so you can see what’s going on. It’s extraordinary. Amen. Duffy, his book spread distributed. The altars is a must read for anybody that’s interested in this one. Okay,
Speaker 4: (45:25)
Excellent. I will look that up as well. Um, okay. So I’ve, I’ve gone on here for quite some time. Um, is there anything that you want to add in about your current projects? Oh, and also, I want to ask you for people, um, average Americans living in Lincoln, Nebraska, or somewhere like that, how, what, we might not have experience with this music who haven’t been in a car with a tape stuck in it, we were, um, why what’s valuable about this music for them to be able to experience why should they, and, and how can they,
Speaker 3: (45:59)
Cause you you’d have to, you’ve got to be lucky and pick up the right CD from the right group. Cause you could pick up the CD that would probably put you off for the music forever if it’s done in a bad way. Um, so you want to pick a really good group on a mirror, Thomas scholars, 16 or any of the starfish groups. Um, and it’s also then picking the right genre and, and, and whatever you want. I mean, I, I would recommend picking up on top of the record world and you might wanna play a little bit of this on your, on your, um, podcast, but it essentially is music that is so honest and so spiritual. And I, I was asked the same question we were on tour in, uh, in Tennessee and it was a, it was a student radio and they said, so what do you think this music is going to do for us?
Speaker 3: (46:50)
I mean, how do you get your average teenager who listens to rock music or whatever, interested in this stuff. And I said, look, this this time, the record was just kind of listen to this. And it’s just the theorial utterly gorgeous. It puts you in mesmerizes you put you into another world. And I said, look, if you wanted to have a relaxed evening with the person that you love, um, try this, but this record on the lights and candles, pour some fine wine. This will do the business move at any pop song. And it really will. It’ll transport you into another world and try it. You and, and we sold a lot of CVS that day. It was great. It does, it does work, but you know, it has to be the right music. And the thing is, there’s an honesty and a beauty of 16th century music. That that must be not, I mean, you’ve got, you’ve got to, you’ve got to expose yourself to it like any dream. I mean, I haven’t listened to pop music since I was 14. And now when I hear it, it all sounds the same to me. And I know that when people hear my music, they say, it sounds all the same, have it, you know, but it’s, there’s a nuance that you just have to get used to and it’s worth the effort. It is.
Speaker 4: (48:07)
Yeah. It’s funny because when my husband plays rock music on his guitar and I play him this kind of music and he just says, Oh, it all sounds the same. But then I was showing him your YouTube videos. And he said, Oh, it makes such a difference for me to be able to see how it’s done as well. Um, he said like, this is mesmerizing. I could, I could listen to this all day. Now that I know I had no idea before they’re 50 people or a hundred people or three people. And so maybe being able to experience it, even if you can’t do it live, being able to go and look at videos and see,
Speaker 3: (48:37)
That’s always what people comment when they, when they hear out they’re alive. Um, they can’t believe just how few people there are 10 people on the stage for something like a big project, like, like target or tell us in bird. And the sound will just, it’s so powerful and so into, and, and, and at times so loud, um, but in a pleasant way, you know, it’s just, it’s just really, really exciting. It’s just energy, you know, and that’s what we strive for with that one there, I spend so much time talking about how to sing on the vowel. Um, and it’s the idea of opening up the bottle in a very sweet space, that readings. So when you, when you hear our music, it’s, uh, it’s just so in tune and powerful. And the thing is if you can get two people singing together at the same time, in a similar way, but having different vocal toddlers, um, you can amplify the sound threefold, you know? So I always go for like, um, all in all of the sections, having a voice that has blade or edge to the sound and a voice that has body, and you put the two together, it’s like having two ranks of pipes that are just meant to be together. That just makes it, you know, huge. So that opening four part piece on the ambulance YouTube video, there’s just four parts for men. It sounds enormous, but it’s [inaudible], but nothing like this life, you can never create that world.
Speaker 4: (50:06)
Right. Um, excellent. And is there anything else that you’d like to tell us about PR projects you’re working on now that you want to
Speaker 3: (50:15)
At the moment? Um, so spike, um, is doing very well. Um, so, uh, lots of space, we’re just, you know, we’re hoping to win some awards. We’ll see. I mean, it’s too early to tell. Um, uh, but unbelief has just been published. So, I mean, today it’s gone to the manufacturer, so it’s done. Um, and we’ll have copy of that in August. The official release date worldwide is the 1st of October, but you can get the music on Amazon, I think as early as the end of August, 2015. So, so it’ll be there. Uh, we’ve got concerts at the globe theater in London and then get into production hall and we’re desperate. The company find the States of America with this program. So anybody out there that want us to come and perform, we’ll be there in a heartbeat to put it together. But following that is because this is sort of the end of the trilogy of projects that reduce or despise fire because by Henry the eighth and Catherine Barragan’s first week that Henry the non violin.
Speaker 3: (51:09)
And so the unblend project, this next project is about his last wife, Catherine Park. And it’s tied in with something I can’t really advertise the moment, but just to say that, that in terms of what we know about Thomas Thomas, it’s very little simply because we know a lot about Bert because he has gotten into trouble. So he’s, he was always in a locked ward. So there’s lots of archival evidence about him. Thomas kept his nose clean. I mean, um, and he was just a very, very fine musician and very quiet. Um, uh, but some new evidence has come forward, but really shoves, brand new light on Tyler, his music and the chronology of his music. And we actually have a new piece of music, uh, that hasn’t been heard. Um, I can even give you the year. It hasn’t been heard since, uh, 1544. Um, and it, it puts the rest of his music completely in line. Um, so the chronology is always been a problem with Thomas, you know, w how do you date certain pieces? This changes everything. So it’s going to be introduced in Cambridge and a conference in November, and then other Mary are gonna record, uh, early next year. And then it’ll all be published in the Oxford university press journal, uh, early music in may of 2016, 2016 is the year of animal land and Thomas Dallas.
Speaker 1: (52:30)
Yes. Oh, perfect. Awesome. Very cool. So watch the space for that. Um, anything else you want to add that I haven’t asked? Is there anything really important that I missed that I should have asked that I should’ve asked?
Speaker 3: (52:43)
Not really. I mean, only, only about Allen Mary is just one side of what I do. I mean, my, my main job is teaching at Cambridge, but I’ve got my own college choir. The choir was sitting in Sussex college chapel, and we were just on tour in America for three weeks. And we had such a great time, but they’re really one of the top ensembles in Cambridge. They become really among the top three in the last couple of years. So studying musicians and, and, uh, and it’s sort of th th th the two feed each other. So the idea of working with stupid musicians and professional musicians, I learned so much every time I worked with them. So, um, they do feed into each other, and I think it really helps my own interpretation and also acquire training, you know? Um, so it’s, uh, it’s, it’s a fine line. Yeah. We exist here essentially to perform the services, but we go on three tours a year. Um, so this year we went to Austria, Rome and America, and we’d been to Dubai and all over the world, actually, I would say, it’s, we traveled quite a bit, but it’s essentially a young version of Alameda, right. Cause of the top of the same file master, it’s just smaller voices, but it’s the same sort of idea of energy and Chile and other men and women. Yeah, exactly. Like our marriage is bigger 24 singers.
Speaker 1: (53:59)
Okay, fantastic. So if anybody’s listening in the UK, come to Cambridge and attended even sponsors come to Sydney ethics, or at least come for the day and, and, uh, listen to some great music go to even service. Right. Yeah. Okay, fantastic. So thank you so much. And, uh, yeah, so I guess I’m gonna hit stop here, but I’m going to fade out with some wonderful music and then we’ll put links up to all of the YouTube videos as well that we talked about. So again, a huge thank you to dr. David Skinner for so generously sharing his time and his knowledge, please go to HTTP, colon slash slash www dot England, caste.com/skinner. S as in Sam, K I N as in November and as in November, E R. So England cast.com/skinner for links to all of the books, recordings, and videos that he mentioned, and please by his CDs. They’re amazing. Thank you so much for listening.
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