The Lord’s Prayer [3:41]
The Second Service
Magnificat [6:12]
Nunc Dimittis [3:12]
Gaude, gaude, gaude Maria [12:32]
Filie Jerusalem [7:13]
Reges Tharsis et insule [5:49]
Spiritus sanctus procedens [8:24]
Laudem dicite Deo nostro [8:48]
Hec dies [2:48]
Impetum fecerunt unanimes [5:51]
Libera nos, salva nos [2:26]
The music of John Sheppard
is slightly more an acquired taste than
that of John Taverner which I recently
reviewed
and recommended on an earlier Nimbus
CD (NI5360). Though it encompasses a
wide range of styles, ranging from the
late-medieval to the much plainer style
of settings of the Book of Common
Prayer, the works on this CD do
not demonstrate that full range. Nor
do they include his larger-scale Mass
settings.
Christ Church Choir
does not have quite the same demonstrable
affinity with his music as with that
of Taverner, their erstwhile choirmaster.
Sheppard was associated with Oxford;
he was choirmaster at Magdalen for four
or five years before he transferred
to the Chapel Royal, where he served
under the ultra-Protestant Edward VI,
the brief Roman Catholic restoration
of Queen Mary, and the Elizabethan via
media. The honour of affinity with
Sheppard, therefore, must go to Magdalen
College Choir (Songs of the Angels
on Signum SIGCD038) and to The Magdalen
Collection under Harry Christophers
on a deleted Collins recording.
Having become accustomed
to hearing Sheppard as performed by
The Sixteen under Harry Christophers,
Hyperion recordings which slightly predate
the Nimbus, my first impression of these
Christ Church performances was to find
them just a little anaemic. I bought
the Hyperion recordings as separate
CDs when they were first released; they
are better value now, reissued on two
Dyad sets (Cantate Mass, etc.,
CDD2201 and Western Wynde Mass,
etc., CDD22022, both 2-CD sets for the
price of one; Libera nos is also
available on a very inexpensive Hyperion
sampler, HYP12).
Christophers’ performances
are often a degree faster than Darlington’s,
but not always, and not hugely so –
5:48 against 6:12 for the Second Service
Magnificat and 3:07 against 3:12
in the Nunc Dimittis, for example.
Christophers is actually significantly
slower in Gaude, gaude, gaude –
13:41 against Darlington’s 12:32 – so
it is not merely considerations of tempo
which made me initially recall the Hyperion
recordings as more feisty. The Clerkes
of Oxford under David Wulstan on Classics
for Pleasure 5 75982 2 beat them both
to the post by a fair margin at 11:17
– on which, see more below. Christophers
and Darlington take almost exactly the
same time for Impetum fecerunt,
6:01 and 5:51 respectively.
Whereas honours were
about even between The Sixteen and Christ
Church in Taverner, Christophers’ performances
of Sheppard just have the edge. Perhaps
that is due in part to the fact that
the Nimbus recording begins with some
of Sheppard’s least interesting music,
written for the English rite. The notes
in the booklet suggest that the English
Lord’s Prayer and the Second Service
Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis
were composed in a hurry at the beginning
of the reign of Elizabeth I and that
Sheppard’s death prevented his revising
them. This seems to be special pleading,
as if to excuse the unsatisfactory nature
of the music; if the music is unfinished
and inferior, why were these pieces
included?
In fact it is far from
certain that these works were composed
in 1559, or that Sheppard actually died
as early as January 1559. These works
are more likely to have been written
for the 1549 Prayer Book; Sheppard’s
text of the doxologies to the Magnificat
and Nunc Dimittis conforms to
the 1549 formula "As it was in
the beginning, and is now, and ever
shall be" whereas all versions
from 1552 onwards omit the first "and",
a fact which the note-writer appears
not to have noticed. I’m probably one
of few people odd enough even to own
copies of the 1549 and 1552 Prayer Books,
but they are available online, as also
is the 1559 Elizabethan version. Start
with the 1549
Book.
There are other unexplained
places where Sheppard’s texts do not
correspond exactly with any version
of the Prayer Book. In the Lord’s Prayer
Sheppard’s text has "let us
not be led into temptation"
where all versions of the Prayer Book
from 1549 onwards have had the more
familiar "lead us not into temptation".
In the Magnificat all versions
of English Evensong have had the words
"And my spirite hath reioyced in
God my sauioure" (1549 text) for
Sheppard’s "and my spirit rejoiceth
in God my Saviour." For the usual
"imagination of their hearts",
Sheppard has "imaginations."
(My italics in all these quotations.)
Whatever the truth
about when these pieces were written,
they are attractive enough, but Sheppard’s
heart does not seem to have been in
them; his earlier music for the Latin
rite is much more adventurous and striking.
One reviewer of the original issue of
this CD thought Darlington’s account
of the Second Service pedestrian, whereas
it is really the music that qualifies
for that title. In fact the performances
on this Nimbus recording do their best
for these works. At least the comparative
simplicity of this music allows for
some clear, but not exaggerated diction.
The First Prayer Book
of 1549 would have been a shock to musicians,
the maimed rites of the more Protestant
Second Book of 1552 must have knocked
the stuffing out of them. Eventually
Queen Elizabeth’s love of music, in
Latin and English, alongside her wish
to preserve traditional ecclesiastical
vestments, saved the day but Sheppard
did not live to see that day. Byrd’s
Great Service is just about the
best example of music in a traditional
mould adapted for Anglican use. See
review
of the recent reissue of the Tallis
Scholars’ version on CDGIM208, coupled
with Byrd’s three Masses.
The longest and most
impressive piece on this recording is
the elaborate Marian Gaude, gaude,
gaude Maria (Rejoice, Virgin Mary),
a respond for Second Evensong of Candlemas
with an interpolated prose section,
Inviolata, integra et casta es
(Thou art a pure and chaste virgin).
It receives a very fine performance
on this recording, with a good sense
of pace, as if the music’s forward motion
were inexorable. The cantor is especially
commendable here and throughout the
programme (Andrew Carwood here? Three
cantors are named for the CD overall
on the Nimbus website) but somehow the
performance seems to fall between two
stools. I marginally prefer the more
sprightly paced Wulstan version on Classics
for Pleasure – this is, after all, a
celebration of the Joys of Mary – and
the more secure adult voices score over
those of the Christ Church trebles,
however inauthentic this may be. The
CFP sound, too, is brighter and more
forward.
Harry Christophers
and The Sixteen take this work at a
much more sedate pace and this performance,
too, has its own internal logic. Here,
as on the CFP, the more assured adult
voices and more forward recording bring
the performance to life.
Tracks 5 to 7 illustrate
the swings and roundabouts of comparing
different performances. In Filie
Jerusalem (O daughters of Jerusalem),
an Eastertide responsory for the feasts
of martyrs, Darlington’s fairly sedate
pace allows for a more affective performance
than that of Christophers. Conversely,
I would have liked Darlington to have
set a rather faster pace for Reges
Tharsis (The Kings of Tarshish shall
come), celebrating the Epiphany visit
of the Kings; Christophers’ faster tempo
strikes me as just right here.
Darlington’s Hec
dies (This is the day that the Lord
hath made) also strikes me as a touch
mournful an Easter piece which bids
us to "rejoice and be glad".
I’m sure the Holy Spirit would have
approved of the fairly sedate pace which
both directors set for Him in Spiritus
sanctus procedens (The Holy Spirit
coming forth) and the Christ Church
performance of Libera nos (Free
us, O Lord) makes a fitting conclusion
to a recording which i wish I could
have recommended more strongly.
It is a pity that this
Nimbus recording is up against such
strong competition from the Hyperion
versions, excellent performances, well
recorded, at mid price, especially when
the more attractive of those Dyad sets,
containing the Western Wynde Mass,
offers so much overlap with the Nimbus
CD. Nor can I in all honesty not advise
you to purchase the other set, containing
the Cantate Mass. One thing in
common between the Nimbus and Hyperion
versions is the presence of Andrew Carwood,
now the director of the Cardinalls Musicke,
on both.
If price is a major
consideration, David Wulstan and the
Clerkes of Oxenford, on the CFP CD to
which I have referred above, offer a
good selection of music by Tallis (including
the famous 40-part Spem in alium)
and Sheppard in the lowest price bracket
(around £6 in the UK). With very good
performances in good ADD sound, this
is a wonderful introduction to Tudor
church music. The only snag is the lack
of texts, unless later reissues of this
CD have improved on my earlier version,
but most of these may be found online
by typing the opening words into Google.
The Nimbus and Hyperion recordings come
with full texts and translations.
The Nimbus recording,
made at Dorchester Abbey, is good but
slightly more recessed than on the Taverner
CD – slightly too recessed for my liking.
Turning up the volume a notch or two
helps, but I prefer the more forward
Hyperion sound.
With such fierce competition,
I can recommend the Nimbus only as a
good also-ran; I don’t think that purchasers
will feel short-changed by it, especially
if they abstain from making the comparison
with the Hyperion versions which a reviewer
must make. If there were no competition,
I could imagine myself recommending
it with flying colours.
The notes in the booklet,
by Roger Bowers, make a detailed and
learned case for the manner in which
the music is presented here "by
forces which are as close as it is now
possible to attain to that which the
composer himself envisaged." Though
they may be somewhat too exhaustive
for the average listener, these notes
nevertheless omit to tell us which of
two similar settings of Libera nos
and which of the settings of Spiritus
sanctus is included on the recording.
The notes assume that
Sheppard died very soon after the accession
of Elizabeth I, but Grove gives
his obit. as 1559/60 and Hyperion,
who formerly gave 1559/60, now give
his dates as c.1520-c.1563.
Bowers’s notes also
perpetuate the belief, now less widely
held, that Queen Elizabeth wished to
return not to the status quo
of 1552 but to that of the more traditional
1549 Prayer Book, a belief which he
later explored in a learned paper, ‘The
Chapel Royal, the First Edwardian Prayer
Book, and Elizabeth’s Settlement of
Religion, 1559’ in The
Historical Journal (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000), 43:
317-344. If Elizabeth did have such
a wish, its fulfilment would have been
impossible; the reformers who returned
from Geneva – the majority – were barely
willing to accept even the 1552 Book.
The best that the queen and her archbishop
could do was to add words susceptible
of a Real Presence interpretation into
the Communion service and to insert
a rubric requiring the ornaments and
vestments of 1549 (or even 1548) to
be maintained. In the event, the Puritan
element refused to wear the cope or
chasuble and could hardly be constrained
even to wear the surplice.
Classicists may baulk
at some of Nimbus’s spellings, such
as Filie for Filiæ,
but that is how the word was pronounced,
and often spelt, in the 16th-Century.
Hyperion employ the more familiar classical
spellings.
The cover, with its
portrait of Queen Mary, may be appropriate
for a composer whose music was probably
mostly composed during her short reign,
but I should have preferred something
more akin to the covers of other Christ
Church Nimbus recordings – or something
more like the Hyperion covers.
Brian Wilson
Andrew Carwood; Mike McCarthy; Robert
MacDonald, cantors; Christ Church Cathedral
Choir, Oxford/Stephen Darlington. DDD.
