Robert PARSONS (c.1535-1572)
Domine, quis habitabit? [5:12]
Peccantem me quotidie [3:44]
Holy Lord God Almighty [3:48]
Deliver me from mine enemies [2:39]
Retribue servo tuo [8:04]
Solemnis urgebat dies’Iam Christus astra ascenderat’ [5:39]
Magnificat [13:15]
Libera me, Domine [7:31]
Credo quod redemptor [3:32]
O bone Jesu [11:42]
Ave Maria [4:56]
The Cardinall’s Musick/Andrew Carwood
rec. 15-17 November 2010, Fitzalan Chapel, Arundel Castle
Latin texts and English translations included
HYPERION CDA67874 [70:07] 
Robert Parsons is a rather shadowy figure. Little is known of his life, save
that he became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1563 and that he drowned,
in the River Trent, I believe, at Newark in January 1572, whereupon William
Byrd took the vacancy among the Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. Only a small
amount of music has come down to us. What has survived includes some songs
and instrumental pieces. There are also two Services in English. Otherwise
his entire corpus of church music is included on this disc. In his extensive
and very good booklet notes Andrew Carwood speculates that the fact that scarcely
any liturgical music in English by Parsons is known may suggest that he was
inactive as a composer during the strongly Protestant reign of Edward VI (1547-1553).
Carwood also suspects that, like several of his English musical contemporaries,
Parsons’ religious sympathies lay with Catholicism.
It appears that he died young and that he was well regarded by his peers for
Andrew Carwood quotes a Latin couplet found in a partbook from the 1580s,
the English translation of which is as follows:
Parsons, you who were so great in the springtime of life,
how great you would have been in the autumn, had death not come.
On the evidence of the music sung here by The Cardinall’s Musick, contemporary
admiration for Robert Parsons was amply justified. All the music in this collection
is interesting and of high quality. Retribue servo tuo, for example,
is a setting of verses from Psalm 118 (119). In this piece Parsons deploys
groups of soloists at times and the division of the music into sections for
soloists and for full consort accentuates the dramatic tone. Andrew Carwood
and his singers give an urgent, vigorous performance.
The alternatim setting of the Magnificat is well described by Andrew
Carwood as “opulent”. I admire it greatly, especially in this excellent performance.
It seems to me that Parsons displays supreme confidence in his vocal writing
and the result is something of a virtuoso piece. Sample, for instance, the
urgency and exhilaration at ‘et exultavit spiritus meus’. Mind you, that urgency
and exhilaration stem as much from the performers; The Cardinall’s Musick
give a colourful and exciting rendition of this piece – listen to the thrust
of their singing at ‘dispersit superbos’.
Even more remarkable as a composition is O bone Jesu, which Andrew
Carwood rates as the composer’s “highest dramatic achievement”. The music
is divided into sections for groups of soloists, of varying combinations,
and for full consort. It’s a substantial and ambitious piece and, unlike in
the Magnificat, Parsons doesn’t have the compositional ‘respite’ afforded
by sections of plainchant – in some ways I think this makes it an even more
impressive composition than the Magnificat. It’s a very fine piece and it
receives here a superbly committed performance. The music becomes increasingly
fervent and exciting as the piece unfolds, especially the last few minutes
from ‘O Rex noster.’
The disc concludes with the piece by which Robert Parsons is best known nowadays,
his rapt Ave Maria. Most of us will be familiar with performances by
choirs in which the top line is taken by sopranos or trebles. Here. however,
the voices are ATTBarB and the lower voices and darker hues give the music,
if anything, a greater sense of intimacy. The placing of this wonderful piece
at the end of the programme is deeply satisfying. Not only is it a fitting
finis to a recital of music by this Tudor master but also, on this
occasion, it affords a tranquil, beneficent coda after the more extrovert
O bone Jesu.
The singing of The Cardinall’s Musick is superb throughout the programme.
Production values are up to Hyperion’s usual exemplary standards: the recorded
sound, produced in the lovely, benign acoustic of the chapel at Arundel Castle,
is all that one could wish for while the booklet is comprehensive.
My colleague Brian Wilson welcomed the download version of this album most
warmly and I second his enthusiasm. This is a marvellous recital and those
who know
Robert Parsons only through Ave Maria – surely one of the best-loved
pieces of Tudor polyphony, and rightly so – will find this disc an ear-opener.
John Quinn
See also download
review by Brian Wilson
A marvellous recital of music by Robert Parsons. Something of an ear-opener