The Eton Choirbook (Eton College MS. 178) is a richly illuminated manuscript collection of English sacred music composed during the late 15th century. It was one of very few collections of Latin liturgical music to survive the Reformation, and hence is an important source. It originally contained music by 24 different composers; however, many of the pieces are damaged or incomplete. It is one of three large choirbooks surviving from early-Tudor England (the others are the Lambeth Choirbook and the Caius Choirbook).
The Choirbook was compiled between approximately 1500 and 1505 for use at Eton College; its present binding dates from the mid 16th century. 126 folios remain of the original 224, including the index. In the original, there were a total of 93 separate compositions; however only 64 remain either complete or in part. Some of the 24 composers are known only because of their inclusion in the Eton Choirbook. John Browne has the most compositions (10), followed by Richard Davy (9) and Walter Lambe (8).
Stylistically, the music contained in the Eton Choirbook shows three phases in the development of early Renaissancepolyphony in England. The first phase is represented by the music of Richard Hygons, William Horwood and Gilbert Banester. Most of the music of this early phase is polyphonic but non-imitative, with contrast achieved by alternation of full five-voice texture with sections sung by fewer voices. The second phase, which includes music by John Browne, Richard Davy and Walter Lambe, uses imitation, cantus firmus techniques, and frequent cross-relations (a feature which was to become a distinctive sound in early Tudor polyphony). The final phase represented in the choirbook includes music by William Cornysh and Robert Fayrfax, composed around 1500. Points of imitation are frequent, cantus firmus techniques disappear, and in general the sound of the music is more Continental.
Contents
Eton College.
All of the compositions in the book are sacred vocal music in Latin. According to the index, it initially contained 93 works. However, part of its content was lost and only 64 works have survived, a few of them incomplete. They consist of:
Other composers as Baldwyn, John Dunstable and Mychelson also appear in the index, but their works were lost.
Sources
Harold Gleason and Warren Becker, Music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Music Literature Outlines Series I). Bloomington, Indiana. Frangipani Press, 1986. ISBN0-89917-034-X
The Rose and The Ostrich Feather, CORO: CD COR16026.
The Crown of Thorns, CORO: CD COR16012.
The Pillars Of Eternity, CORO: CD COR16022.
The Flower of All Virginity, CORO: CD COR16018.
Voices of Angels, CORO: CD COR16002.
Stephen Darlington, Choir of Christ Church Cathedral Oxford: Music from The Eton Choir Book, volumes 1-5
More Divine Than Human, Avie: AV2167.
Choirs of Angels, Avie: AV2184.
Courts of Heaven, Avie: AV2314
The Sun Most Radiant, Avie: AV2359
The Gate of Glory, Avie: AV2376
Other groups:
Music from the Eton Choirbook, Tonus Peregrinus, Antony Pitts, Dir. Naxos 8.572840
Richard Davy: Passion According To St. Matthew. (Eton Choirbook, Record 1). Purcell Consort of Voices, Choristers of All Saints, Margaret Street, Dir. Grayston Burgess. Vinyl LP, Argo ZRG 558.
Eton Choirbook, Record 2. Purcell Consort of Voices, Choristers of All Saints, Margaret Street, Dir. Grayston Burgess. Vinyl LP, Argo ZRG 557.
Benham, Hugh: Latin Church Music in England c. 1460-1575 (London, 1977), 58ff, passim [CCM descriptor(s): DpLpTpFpDis]
Bent, Margaret; Bent, Ian; Trowell, Brian (eds.): John Dunstable complete works, Musica Britannica Vol. VIII (London, 1970) [2nd revised edn], X-XII
Bent, Margaret; Bent, Ian: 'Dufay, Dunstable, Plummer-A New Source' Journal of the American Musicological Society XXII (1969), 394 - 424
Blume, Friedrich (ed.): Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik (Kassel, 1949–79) [Cited by volume and column number], II, 1591-5, Tafel 48
Cheung, Vincent C.K., Tudor Dedications to the Blessed Virgin: History, Style, and Analysis of Music from the Eton Choirbook.
Curtis, Gareth; Wathey, Andrew: 'Fifteenth-Century English Liturgical Music: A List of the Surviving Repertory' RMA Research Chronicle 27 (1994), 1-69
Fitch, Fabrice: 'Hearing John Browne's motets: registral space in the music of the Eton Choirbook', Early Music 36(1) (2008), 19-40
Harrison, Frank Ll.: Music in Medieval Britain (London, 1963), 307-29
Harrison, Frank Llewellyn: 'The Eton Choirbook: Its Background and Contents (Eton College Library ms. 178)' Annales Musicologiques I (1953), 151-75
Harrison, Frank Llewellyn: 'The Eton College Choirbook (Eton College MS 178)', in International Musicological Society: Report of the 4th Congress, Utrecht 1952 (1952), 224-32
Heminger, A. Music Theory at Work: The Eton Choirbook, Rhythmic Proportions and Musical Networks in Sixteenth-Century England. Early Music History, 37, (2018) 141-182.
Hughes, Dom Anselm: 'The Eton Manuscript' Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association LIII (1926-7), 67-83
James, Montague Rhodes: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Eton College (Cambridge, 1895), 108-12
Kirsch, Winfried: Die Quellen der mehrstimmigen Magnificat- und Te Deum Vertonungen bis zur Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts (Tutzing, 1966), 135
Phillips, Peter: 'Performance Practice in 16th-Century English Choral Music' Early Music VI (1978), 195-9 [CCM descriptor(s): FpDis]
Phillips, Peter: 'Eton encounters; reflections on the Choirbook'. Musical Times 1939 (2017), 3-60.
Sandon, Nicholas: 'Fragments of Medieval Polyphony at Canterbury Cathedral' Musica Disciplina XXX (1976), 37-53, 51-3
Squire, W. Barclay: 'On an early Sixteenth Century MS. of English Music in the Library of Eton College' Archaeologia LVI (1898), 89-102
William Cornysh the Younger was an English composer, dramatist, actor, and poet.
The "Salve Regina", also known as the "Hail Holy Queen", is a Marian hymn and one of four Marian antiphons sung at different seasons within the Christian liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church. The Salve Regina is traditionally sung at Compline in the time from the Saturday before Trinity Sunday until the Friday before the first Sunday of Advent. The Hail Holy Queen is also the final prayer of the Rosary.
Marcin Mielczewski was, together with his tutor Franciszek Lilius and Bartłomiej Pękiel, among the most notable Polish composers in the 17th century.
Robert Carver CRSA was a Scottish Canon regular and composer of Christian sacred music during the Renaissance.
Richard Hygons was an English composer of the early Renaissance. While only two compositions of this late 15th-century composer have survived, one of them, a five-voice setting of the Salve Regina Marian antiphon, has attracted interest from musicologists because of its close relationship to music being written at the same time on the continent, as well as its high level of workmanship.
Robert Fayrfax was an English Renaissance composer, considered the most prominent and influential of the reigns of Kings Henry VII and Henry VIII of England.
William Horwood, also Horewud, was an English polyphonic vocal composer in the late-medieval period. In 1470, he was a singer at Lincoln Cathedral, in 1476, he was a vicar choral at Lincoln, and from 1477 until 1484, he was the Cathedral choirmaster. He has three complete pieces and one incomplete piece in the Eton Choirbook, and one incomplete piece in a York manuscript.
John Browne was an English composer of the Tudor period. Despite the high level of skill displayed in Browne's compositions, few of his works survive; Browne's extant music is found in the Eton Choirbook, in which he is the best-represented contributor, and the Fayrfax Manuscript. His choral music is distinguished by innovative scoring, false relations, and unusually long melodic lines, and has been called by early music scholar Peter Phillips "subtle, almost mystical" and "extreme in ways which apparently have no parallel, either in England or abroad."
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The Lambeth Choirbook – also known as the Arundel Choirbook – is an illuminated choirbook dating to the sixteenth century. It contains music for 7 Masses, 4 Magnificats, and 8 motets. Much of the music is by Tudor-period composers. The major contributors are Robert Fayrfax and Nicholas Ludford; between them they contributed at least ten of its nineteen pieces. Only three of Fayrfax's works have his name attached to them, but five other pieces are known as his; these, along with two by Ludford, are known from concordances in the Caius Choirbook and other manuscripts. Seven anonymous pieces exist in the book:
The Caius Choirbook is an illuminated choirbook dating to the early sixteenth century and containing music by Tudor-period composers. The book appears to originate from Arundel in Sussex, and to have been created sometime in the late 1520s; the then Master of Arundel College, Edward Higgons, seems to have presented it to the collegiate chapel of Saint Stephen's in Westminster, where he was a canon beginning in 1518. The choirbook is now housed at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
Richard Davy was a Renaissance composer, organist and choirmaster, one of the most represented in the Eton Choirbook.
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Walter Lambe was an English composer.
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Stabat Mater by Alessandro Scarlatti is a religious musical work composed for two voices (soprano/alto), two violins and basso continuo, in 1724, on a commission from the Order of Friars Minor, the "Knights of the Virgin of Sorrows" of the Church of San Luigi in Naples for Lent
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