A Scottish Lady Mass. Sacred Music from Medieval St Andrews
Red Byrd • Yorvox
hyperion-records.co.uk
medieval.org
muziekweb.nl
Hyperion CDA 67299
2005
Recording
21–22 April 2001 |
29 May 2004
St Alban’s Church, Holborn, London
1. Introit Gaudeamus omnes [2:38]
2. Kyrie Rex, virginum amator [4:26]
3. Gloria Per precem [5:36]
4. Gradual Propter veritatem [2:55]
5. Alleluya Ave Maria gratia plena [3:44]
6. Alleluya Virga florem germinavit [3:59]
7. Sequence Missus Gabriel de celis [6:22]
8. Sequence Hodierne lux diei [5:13]
9. Offertory O vere beata sublimis [2:50]
10. Sanctus Mater mitis [3:57]
11. Sanctus Christe ierarchia [7:52]
12. Sanctus Voce vita [5:44]
13. Agnus Dei Archetipi mundi [4:57]
14. Agnus Dei Factus homo [3:27]
15. Communion Principes persecuti sunt [1:41]
Red Byrd
John Potter •
Richard Wistreich
Yorvox
Students of the University of York
Sacred
Music from Medieval St Andrews
Music from the eleventh fascicle of W1
The centre of what the
Scottish Tourist Board likes today to call the ‘Kingdom of Fife’ is the
town of St Andrews. Now famed as much for its golf courses as for the
striking location of the cathedral and Bishop’s castle, in the Middle
Ages it was a city at the centre of the diocese that extended from the
Tay to the Tweed, and its bishop was the foremost ecclesiastic in
Scotland. By the twelfth century, the city could boast a community of
Augustinian canons, and by the thirteenth a cathedral in the modern
Gothic style next to which the Bishop built an imposing castle that
housed his palace and chapel. The cathedral was initially blighted by a
series of natural disasters (surely exacerbated by inadequate building
practices), and although construction (which had started in 1160) was
sufficiently complete to render the building usable by around 1230 the
cathedral was not consecrated until 1318.
Despite liturgical traditions steeped in Celtic history, the
early ecclesiastic inhabitants of St Andrews - the culdees - were
loosely affiliated to Rome, and like most of the British Isles, the
cathedral and its diocese by around 1200 used a ceremonial dialect
based to a large degree on that of the York/Sarum rite. The rituals,
texts and music of the eight Offices and Mass were celebrated in a form
that would not have been unfamiliar to a pilgrim who hailed from York,
Exeter or Norwich. But there were strong links with the Continental
mainland, with the bishops almost exclusively coming from Norman
families. It should therefore come as no surprise to find that St
Andrews is the original home of a manuscript of polyphonic music whose
contents originated in Paris.
The repertory of two-part compositions for the Mass and Office
that were apparently composed around and probably for the Cathedral
church of Notre-Dame in Paris is well known. The cycles of graduals,
alleluyas and responsories - called by one late thirteenth-century
theorist the Magnus liber organi - is indissolubly
associated with the name of the composer - and perhaps poet - Leoninus.
It is usually assumed that the creation of this repertory was
accomplished in the last third of the twelfth century, and perhaps a
little after 1200. Red Byrd has recorded two discs of Mass and Office
music from this repertory (‘Magister Leoninus: Sacred Music from
12th-century Paris’, volumes 1 and 2, Hyperion CDA66944 and CDA67289).
While the principal source for the Magnus liber
organi was copied in Paris around 1250 (now in the Medicean
Library in Florence), an equally important source (now in the Ducal
Library in Wolfenbüttel) was almost certainly copied in St Andrews, and
possibly a decade or so before the Florence manuscript. The evidence of
the manuscript - it has been called W1 for decades
- is the addition of two organa, unknown in the Parisian repertory but
written in a passable imitation of it, for St Andrew, ‘Vir iste’ and
‘Vir perfecte’. It seems that someone in the familia of the last Norman
Bishop of St Andrews, Guillaume Mauvoisin (bishop from 1200 to 1239),
accompanied the bishop on one of his frequent Continental journeys and
brought back copies of the fashionably new Parisian music that served
as the basis for W1. That the music was performed
locally is attested by the differences between the music in W1
and that in Parisian sources. And an enterprising local musician wrote
a couple of responsories in imitation of Parisian practice in honour of
the cathedral’s patron saint, St Andrew.
But it could be argued that the most interesting part of the
music in W1 are the pieces found in the so-called
eleventh fascicle. These are works probably composed in St Andrews in a
local style and reflecting the pan-national enthusiasm for the Lady
Mass. Well before the thirteenth century, the Lady Mass had become
established as one of the principal ceremonies in the liturgical week,
and by the thirteenth century was celebrated daily, often in a chapel
specially dedicated to the Virgin Mary (the Lady Chapel); St Andrews
had just such a space. The works in the eleventh fascicle of W1
are remarkable both for their liturgical idiosyncrasy and for their
musical style.
Musical traditions in Paris were to set the solo sections of
responsorial chants; this meant that the Magnus liber organi
consisted of settings of graduals and alleluyas for the Mass and
responsories for Matins and Vespers. This is the repertory copied into W1,
one assumes, at the behest of a member of Mauvoisin’s entourage. Local
practices north of the Firth of Forth were much less specific. The
eleventh fascicle of W1 consists of troped Ordinary
items for the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei), tracts,
sequences, offertories and other Proper items; there are no graduals,
and the only point of overlap with the Parisian repertory is the
alleluya.
Musical style differs radically between the Parisian and local
parts of W1. The Parisian style of the Magnus
liber organi is characterized by the careful combination of
plainsong, sustained-tone organum (where the lower of the two parts is
disposed in very long values and underpins a florid upper voice),
discantus (where both voices move in a note-against-note measured
counterpoint) and copula (which falls somewhere between the two). The
music in the eleventh fascicle of W1 is largely
written in a note-against-note style with the Parisian sustained-tone
style much rarer and often reserved for cadential passages (the Gloria
Per precem is an example). Whether the note-against-note counterpoint
is measured in the same way as Parisian discantus or whether it is to
be performed more freely in the manner of the contemporary conductus
repertory is an open question. The St Andrews style is simpler, more
direct and - it might be argued - more accessible to the modern ear.
Although quite definitely not a liturgical reconstruction of a
Lady Mass in St Andrews around 1230 or so, the repertory on this disc
well reflects the liturgical inclusiveness of the musical culture that
the cathedral engendered and that is to be found in W1.
Rex, virginum amator, a troped Kyrie, is followed by the troped
Gloria Per precem. Missus Gabriel and Hodierne lux are sequences,
and further troped items are the Sanctus settings Mater mitis and
Voce vita and the Agnus Dei Factus homo. This recording also
includes two monophonic troped Ordinary items from the tenth fascicle
of W1, Christe ierarchia and Archetipi mundi;
these last two works give a sense of the intellectual hothouse that the
cathedral and its environs must have represented: the texts of both are
stuffed full of subtle allusion and display a learnedness that extends
to Greek.
It seems likely that performances of the St Andrews music were
restricted to a couple of soloists with the schola participating only
in those parts of the plainsong that were not set in polyphony. The
same applies to the monophonic tropes, but there the balance between
soloist and chorus is much more even.
Mark Everist
St. Alban's Church, Holborn, London