A Singer’s Guide to the Great Composers: The Renaissance

Although I have spent most of my career singing music from the early 17th Century onwards, I started out at university in St Andrews singing in a small choir called the Renaissance Group, where I discovered the remarkable music written in that period of Western Culture, roughly from 1400 to 1600, which we call in musical and artistic terms, the Renaissance. The term applies principally to the artistic rebirth or rather re-discovery of ancient Greek and Roman styles, firstly in architecture and then in art. The name does not really fit with music, as we have no idea what Classical Age music sounded like, but in the attempt to find harmony and beauty in sound, as in visual arts, the composers of the period were fulfilling the aims of the movement in general. 

Prior to this time, music had been slow to develop over the period from the end of the Roman Empire to the 14th century. Sacred music had for centuries been based around Gregorian Chant, a single line of music sung to biblical texts, apocryphally attributed to Pope Gregory 1 (c 540-604 AD) and sung throughout Christendom. In the 12th century, French/Norman composers like Perotin began to produce 2 voice music, a faster line moving over a slower lower line, and, by the 14th century, what is termed Ars Nova was being established using 1 to 3 voices, often with instrumental accompaniment. This style was in its turn based on the secular music which was developing over the period of the Crusades, sung and played by wandering minstrels and entertainers, the Troubadours, Trouvères and Minnesänger, who performed over large parts of Europe singing in their own languages, rather than Latin. The composers of the 14th century, notably Guillaume de Machaut, turned these disparate elements into a more concrete form, producing Ballades, Rondeaux and Virelais, musical forms based on the poetic forms of the texts, and sung versions of the Latin Mass. 

The cleverly named Ars Subtilior became more and more popular, but, as with many art forms, it became mannered and excessively complicated, and a reaction set in. Most of this mediaeval music originated in the north west of Europe in the Flemish and northern French speaking area controlled by the Dukes of Burgundy, basically from Burgundy northwards to the Low Countries, and it was more composers from this area who swept music into what we now call the Renaissance, Guillaume Dufay, Gilles Binchois and Antoine Busnois its most famous names. 

As this style grew popular, the great families of Italy, the Medici, the Sforza and the Este, determined that these new masters needed to come south, and composers from Burgundy were installed in the chapels and courts of these great rulers. A clear Franco-Flemish style was established, hugely helped by the invention of printing, and soon Obrecht, Ockeghem and particularly, Josquin des Prez and Nicolas Gombert, were the names to look for, with their new contrapuntally complex style and harmonic mastery. 

In the meantime, over what was then called the German Ocean (the North Sea), the courts of Scotland and England were influenced by these developments, and composers such as Carver in Scotland and Taverner in England began to create a British style, influenced by but separate from the Franco-Flemish School. 

By the time of Henry V111, music was a major part of life at court, and, in 1543, Thomas Tallis was appointed a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, as composer and performer. We know little of his early life and have no idea what he looked like, but it seems he was born around 1505 and may have been a boy chorister in the Chapel Royal. Appointments as organist at Dover Priory, Waltham Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral seem to have brought him to the notice of the king, and he appears to have remained with the Royal court until his death in 1585. Somehow, he seems to have remained a Catholic throughout the dramatic events of the 15th century but managed to suit his compositional and liturgical styles to the changing demands of the Tudor kings and queens of the time. At the age of 70, in 1575, Queen Elizabeth granted him a 21 year monopoly on the printing and publishing of polyphonic music, along with the young tyro, William Byrd. The younger man, born in 1543, may have been a chorister in the Chapel Royal, and was thought to have been taught by Tallis, before taking up an appointment as Organist and Master of Choristers at the grand Cathedral in Lincoln in 1563. In 1572, he joined Tallis as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and their collaboration must have been recognised very quickly, as their monopoly was established only 3 years later.  

Perhaps the most amazing thing about Tallis and Byrd, unquestionably two of the greatest English composers of all time, is that they were both octogenarians in a period when a man’s life span averaged 35-40 years. The fact that between them they lived from 1505 to 1623 is utterly extraordinary and allowed them to develop their art in a way that probably only Verdi has done in the years since. Their versatility was marvellous too, especially Byrd, who wrote masterpieces for keyboard, voice and consort, and the ability to suit their style to the prevailing religious mores was remarkable. Tallis lived through the rocky reigns of Henry V111, Edward V1 and Mary 1, as first the Reformation was established, then challenged, then with the advent of Elizabeth 1, re-established. Byrd lived through the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, the coronation of the first Stuart king, James V1 and 1, and the lifetime of Shakespeare. Tallis moved the writing of sacred vocal music from the complicated polyphony of White and Sheppard into the deeply moving style that produced such masterworks as ‘The Lamentations of Jeremiah’ and the apparently simple but breath-taking ‘Videte Miraculum’, ‘Salvator Mundi’ and ‘O Nata Lux’. He also produced the amazing 40-part motet ‘Spem in Alium’ around 1570, probably to be sung in a circle surrounding the audience. It is thought that Tallis met the composer Striggio in London in 1567, when the Italian was touring his enormous 40-part mass and the 40-part motet ‘Ecce Beatem Luceam’. This must have made a huge impact on Tallis, but the way the English composer transcended the quality of the Italian is stunning, and the work he produced in 1570 is one of the great works both to sing and to hear. When I was in New York a few years ago, my wife and I were lucky enough to visit the Cloisters Museum, up near the Washington Bridge at the top of Manhattan. This is a museum of mediaeval art set up by J D Rockefeller and opened in 1938, the collection built round four French mediaeval cloisters, dismantled in Europe and brought to New York where they were reassembled. It’s a ridiculous concept which works really well, and I urge visitors to NY to take the trip up to see it. When we went, they had put on, in one of the big stone rooms, an aural exhibition of 40 speakers out of which came each part of  ‘Spem in Alium’. It played on a loop, and so we were able to walk around listening to the third choir alto or the fifth choir soprano, or the eighth choir bass. It was mesmerising and wonderful.  

I had never sung the piece before, but found myself in St Andrews several years ago, booked to sing the bass solos in Handel’s ‘Messiah’. The evening before the concert, there was a performance of ‘Spem in Alium’, I think for the first time in Scotland, which I attended. The rendition was so extraordinary that the conductor announced that, since they had been preparing this for weeks, and no one had heard or sung it before in St Andrews, they would encore the piece. I thought I would probably never sing this, as I was an opera singer, and this was not my repertoire, so I sneaked up to the side of the eighth choir (each choir with five voices) and told the bass on the end that I was going to join in. He was slightly taken aback, not by my fame and reputation (of which he was unaware!) but by the idea that I could sing the part with no rehearsal. I was told, sotto voce, in no uncertain terms, that this music was very difficult and that they had been practising for weeks, and I would be unable to sing it. I assured him, also sotto voce, that all would be well, and that it was mostly a case of singing the same very low note often! When we had sung it through, he turned to me and said “You know, you have quite a decent voice. You should join the choir next year!” I suggested to him that he should come to the ‘Messiah’ the next evening, and he would see me there. I never met him again, but I hope he enjoyed my ‘The Trumpet shall Sound’! 

In the Renaissance Group, I learned several Tallis works, and loved singing them. Being the bottom voice of such exquisite harmony is a wonderful feeling, unlike anything I experience as a soloist. I have been very lucky to have possessed a voice which can easily blend, and this has proved enormously valuable in the many operas which require ensemble singing, and even more so in the concert works, like the Verdi Requiem or Rossini’s ‘Stabat Mater’ or Mozart’s Requiem, where the soloists have to sing in four part harmony. Sometimes I have attended performances of these works in great concert halls with world famous soloists which have been excruciating to listen to, as the unwieldy voices with wide vibrato fail to blend, spectacularly. On the other hand, singing in ensemble with well-trained singers who listen to each other can be highly rewarding, as I hope to prove in my next CD venture in 2021 (details to follow). 

I have deeply satisfying memories of singing Tallis motets with the Renaissance Group at St Andrews. This choir, of students and staff members, was founded back in 1955 (the year of my birth) by the wonderfully dynamic Professor Douglas Gifford. He was professor of Spanish, and his many trips to Spain had alerted him to the beautiful music of Renaissance composers like Victoria, Guerrero and Morales. He was not a trained musician himself but had marvellous enthusiasm for the music, and, by the time I reached St Andrews in 1973, the choir had established itself as the group to join. Tours each Easter to different parts of the British Isles or to Europe on alternate years were also rather a good incentive, and the combination of singing fantastic music in special places, added to a serious culture of eating and drinking were hugely welcome to me! Another favourite of the choir was the 4-part Mass by William Byrd, which again, like Tallis, combined simplicity of style with deep emotional complexity. I remember one summer, on holiday, some of us met up in Ripon Cathedral in Yorkshire, and sang through the Byrd Mass, just for fun. An uplifting experience!  

One of the greatest composers in Italian history was the extraordinary Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525 1594), whose motet ‘Alma Redemptoris Mater’ became the signature tune of the Renaissance Group. Recently, to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the choir, we made an online recording of the piece, with me singing the 6-note incipit on the word ‘Alma’. Tears flowed copiously! Palestrina had a very interesting life, mostly working in Rome, firstly at St John Lateran and then at St Peter’s Basilica, and became extremely famous, composing hundreds of pieces and producing possibly the most perfect works of sacred polyphony ever written. His mature style (he was another long lived man, reaching 69) is again extremely rewarding to sing and I loved when we sang his eight part ‘Stabat Mater’ (the setting of reflections on the sufferings of the Virgin Mary below the cross), written probably in 1590, just before his death. 

There are multiple recordings available of this wonderful music. I would recommend, for Tallis, the double CD released in 1986 by the Taverner Consort and Choir conducted by Andrew Parrott, for the Byrd Masses, the Tallis Scholars, and for Palestrina motets and masses both the Tallis Scholars and the Hilliard Ensemble. Finally, many people know the name Tallis from Vaughan Williams’ ‘Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis’. It is fascinating, and slightly odd, that VW used a theme written by Tallis for the new Protestant Church in England, the Third Mode Melody, which the 20th century composer included in his English Hymnal for the hymn ‘When rising from the bed of death’, originally composed by Tallis for Archbishop Parker of Canterbury in 1567. It is not really representative of much of Tallis’ music, but it is enormously evocative. My recommended recording is Sir Adrian Boult with the LPO on EMI.