Lammermuir Festival: St Mary’s Church, Haddington - A Glory of the Middle Ages

St Mary’s Church, Haddington - 09/09/23 

After the three week ‘No Early Music Zone’ that was the Edinburgh International Festival, 2023, it was a blessed relief to turn up on the 9th of September at St Mary’s Church, Haddington, for a day of Renaissance bliss in the Lammermuir Festival, courtesy of the Marian Consort, and Dr Lizzie Swarbrick. 

In the afternoon, Dr Swarbrick led two groups (one at 3pm and one at 4.30pm) on a promenade lecture through this wonderful 15th Century church, punctuated by musical excerpts provided by the Marian Consort, directed by Rory McCleery. Dr Swarbrick is a Leverhulme fellow at the University of Edinburgh and is an expert in the art and architecture of Mediaeval Scotland. To celebrate 50 years since the modern restoration of the church, and 500 years since the late mediaeval rebuilding of the original much earlier church, we were invited to take ourselves back in time, to the flourishing of this beautiful church at a time when Haddington was a thriving market and trading town, the most important in the Lothians other than Edinburgh. Starting at the west door, we stopped at four virtual altars, to the Holy Trinity, St Ninian, the Holy Blood and the Virgin Mary. Dr Swarbrick introduced us to some of the reasons these altars would be visited by townsfolk, illustrated by screen depictions of lost artefacts and objects now to be found in Scotland’s museums. The havoc caused by both the partial destruction of the town by Henry VIII’s army in the so-called ‘Rough Wooing’ of 1548/49 and then by the iconoclasts of the Protestant Reformation in 1560, had rendered St Mary’s a shell of its former glory, leaving only the nave intact, and all statues, carvings, precious glass, paintings and ornaments destroyed. This artistic tragedy, carried out in the name of the crown of England and then the new Church of Scotland, has deprived us of countless priceless pieces of art here and throughout Scotland, including most pre-Reformation music. It was only in the 1970s that some visionaries decided to restore St Mary’s to its former glory, rebuilding and re-roofing the choir and chancel, and giving us the longest parish church in the country, and a wonderful acoustic for music, especially polyphonic choral music. In this delightful space, made even more luminous by the glorious sunshine of this late summer, the Marian Consort sang some Sarum chant and a couple of motets by Tye and Willaert, to illustrate some of the points Dr Swarbrick was making. These were a delicious taster for the full concert later, once again in St Mary’s. 

After a break of an hour or two, when many in the audience were able to take refreshments at the nearby Mazzoli Italian Kitchen at the Tyneside Tavern, and the lovely Waterside Bistro across the river Tyne (both highly recommended by the EMR), we returned to St Mary’s for a concert of music that may have been heard during the period between the late mediaeval restoration and the destruction by Henry’s troops. Dr Swarbrick returned to guide us through the programme with more fascinating information about life at the time and some of the music we were hearing. 

The Marian Consort, founded by Edinburgh countertenor Rory McCleery, has appeared several times at the Lammermuir Festival, and each time I have heard them, I have been mightily impressed. 

This concert was, I felt, the best yet, with a world-class blend of voices, and a richness of tone across the full range from bass to high soprano. The eight singers performed, in various formations, a programme of largely unknown music, dating from the late 1400s to the middle of the 16th century, with the central core of the programme being the Mass, Missa Felix Namque, which is thought to have originated in Dumfriesshire, and which has been found in the so-called Dunkeld Partbooks. The mass is based on the plainchant of the same name (For you are happy, O Holy Virgin Mary, and are worthy of all praise), which the Consort sang as they processed in at the start of the concert. I am not going to single out any singers, because each one was superb, and should be given full and equal billing: Caroline Hall and Ailsa Campbell (soprano), Sarah Anne Champion and Sophie Overin (alto), Will Wright and Edward Woodhouse (tenor) and Jon Stainsby and Christopher Webb (bass). I have rarely heard such homogenous ensemble singing, and it is to their credit, and the excellence of their director Rory McCleery, that, whatever combination of voices was chosen for each piece, the result was uniformly splendid. I gather that the Consort will soon record this mass, and I can’t wait for the recording to come out. The acoustic of St Mary’s is an added joy for the listener, as it is perfect for this sort of Renaissance Polyphony, and I particularly enjoyed the extended composition of the Agnus Dei from the Mass. This section of the mass has elicited some of the greatest music over the years from many famous composers, notably Byrd, Palestrina, Mozart and Bach, and the anonymous master of the Dunkeld Partbooks can now be added to the list. 

The mass was interspersed with motets by continental composers who appeared in the Dunkeld books, demonstrating both the cosmopolitan nature of contemporary church music in Scotland, and the excellence of the local musicians. As Dr Swarbrick pointed out several times, the view of late mediaeval Scotland as an outpost of ignorance and lack of culture was utterly fallacious, and in fact, continental influences were much stronger here than in England at the time. 

The motet, ‘Descendi in hortum meum’, by Jacquet of Mantua (1483-1559), taken from the sensual ‘Song of Songs’ was an exquisite piece, each voice entering on a descending scale, and the ‘Benedicta es caelorum Regina’ by Josquin des Prez (1450-1521), a glorious example of the mature style of the great Franco-Flemish composer, was another highlight. 

The concert ended with a sumptuous 8-part motet, ‘Salve, celeberrima Virgo’ by Johannes Lupi (1506-1539), and was a fitting climax to the evening, demonstrating the glorious talents of the eight singers. Lupi, or Jean Leleu, was active in Cambrai in Flanders in the early part of the 16th century, stylistically close to Nicolas Gombert, and this setting of a Marian text, a paean to the Virgin, was exquisitely performed, rising to great heights of polyphony, and ending with a beautifully gentle coda. 

This was a genuinely outstanding concert, energised by Dr Swarbrick’s commentary, and superbly performed by an ensemble at the height of their powers.