Wednesday, September 28, 2016

The University of St. Michael’s College
in the University of Toronto presents

Vivaldi, Gloria and other music 
for the feast of St. Michael
Wednesday, September 28, 2016 - 7:30 p.m.
St. Basil’s Church 

Concerto Grosso in A, Op. 6, no. 11 George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)
1. Andante larghetto e staccato
2. Allegro  
3. Largo e staccato
4. Andante
5. Allegro

O Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem John Blow (1649–1708) - Hallie Fishel, soprano
Kyrie Eleison Anonymous plainchant (11th century) - Joel Allison, cantor

Gloria in D, RV 589 Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741)
1. Gloria in excelsis Deo
2. Et in terra pax 
3. Laudamus te - Hallie Fishel and Laurel-Ann Finn, sopranos 
4. Gratias agimus tibi
5. Propter magnam gloriam 
6. Domine Deus - Hallie Fishel, soprano 
7. Domine, Fili unigenite
8. Domine Deus, Agnus Dei - Annemarie Sherlock, alto
9. Qui tollis peccata mundi
10. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris - Christina Labriola, alto
11. Quoniam tu solus sanctus 
12. Cum Sancto Spiritu 

NOTES
“The best music-making in Venice is to be found in the orphanages for girls, consisting entirely of orphans, of illegitimate children, or of children from families unable to pay for their education. The state educates them at their expense and has some of them trained to be good musicians. It is therefore no wonder that they sing like angels, and play violin, flute, oboe, organ, cello, and bassoon, not even stopping at the largest instruments. Some forty girls perform at each concert. I assure you there is no more delightful sight than a pretty young nun wearing a white robe and a bouquet of pomegranate flowers in her hair, leading an orchestra with incomparable grace and the proper feeling.”

This description of the music at the Conservatorio dell’Ospedale della Pietà, where Vivaldi was Maestro di Concerti, is by Charles de Brosses, Count of Tournay. The concerts given by the young women of the Pietà were a major attraction on the Venice stop of the Grand Tour taken by European gentlemen of the eighteenth century.

Given the present popularity of the Gloria in D major, it is hard to imagine that Vivaldi’s church music was completely forgotten until well into the twentieth century. His sacred music, existing in manuscripts scattered throughout Europe, was largely composed and performed as part of his duties at the Pietà and this Gloria is no exception. De Brosses goes on to say that the Pietà’s string section was better than that of the Paris Opéra, so Vivaldi must have been a great teacher as well as violinist and composer.

John Blow was 11 years old at the Restoration of the English crown in 1660. The Chapel Royal choir had been disbanded when the Puritans took power (though Cromwell pinched the chapel organ and there is a record of him enjoying two boys singing Latin motets at his home in Hampton Court) so there were so few trained boy sopranos that they were forced to use “men’s feigned voices” (falsetto singers) as trebles. This stop gap was soon remedied as boys like Blow and Pelham Humphrey were educated in the French style which the restored king had grown accustomed to in his exile at the French court. Blow’s anthem is unusual in having a single soprano soloist; most such anthems use alternating sections of bass, tenor, and alto (in fact, high tenor, not “feigned voices”), soloists, with full choir. Perhaps the soldier St. Michael, whose feast we celebrate, will not mind us praying for peace tonight and hoping to dispense with his services.

When the young Handel was sent to Rome to absorb the Italian style he composed a French style overture, with the type of rhythms that stud Blow’s anthem, to be performed by an orchestra led by Arcangelo Corelli (the composer who perfected the Concerto Grosso form). After a disastrous read through, Corelli is supposed to have said “But, my dear Saxon, this is in the French style, which I do not understand.” Handel’s Concerti Grossi retain the Italianate alternation between a little concertino group and the big ripieno group; at the same time, he trusted the English subscribers to his London print of Concerti Grossi (1739) to be able to cope with French style overtures, or at least not to be as chauvinistic as Corelli was in pretending not to understand them.

First Violin
Christopher Verrette, Michelle Odorico, Elizabeth Loewen

Second Violin
Patricia Ahern, Valerie Gordon, Rezan Onen Lapointe

Viola
Matt Antal, Eleanor Verrette

Cello
Laura Jones, Felix Deak

Double Bass
Calum McLeod

Continuo 
Philip Fournier, John Edwards

Oboe
Gillian Howard

Trumpet
Andras Molnar

Soprano
Madeline Dawson, Laurel-Ann Finn, Hallie Fishel, Anna Lubinsky, Sheila Mulrooney, Barbara North, Emily Sherlock, Jane Ubertino

Alto
Irene Chan, Cindy Dymond, Irene Gaspar, Ana Iorgulescu, Christina Labriola, Mekhriban Mamedova, Paula Owalabi, Annemarie Sherlock, Julia Warnes, Kathryn Zaleski-Cox
 
Tenor
Jeremy Hernandez-Lum Tong, Rob Kinar, Edmund Lo, Reid Locklin, Antonio Manco

Bass
Joel Allison, Eric Charron, Paul McGrath

Rehearsal Pianist
Mekhriban Mamedova


Named after the singers and lutenists who performed in the most intimate quarters of the Stuart monarchs’ palace, The Musicians In Ordinary for the Lutes and Voices dedicate themselves to the performance of early solo song and vocal chamber music. Soprano Hallie Fishel and lutenist John Edwards have been described as “winning performers of winning music.” A fixture on the Toronto early music scene for over 10 years, in 2012 MIO became Ensemble in Residence at St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. They have concertized across North America and lecture regularly at universities and museums. Institutions where MIO have performed range from the scholarly to those for a more general public and include the Shakespeare Society of America, the Renaissance Society of America, the Shakespeare Association of America, Grinnell College, the Universities of Alberta, Toronto and at California at San Diego, the Kingston Opera Guild, Syracuse, Trent and York Universities and the Bata Shoe Museum. They have been Ensemble in Residence at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. 

Tenor Robert Kinar studied in Montreal and at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he completed a Master’s degree in Performance Practice. Since locating to Toronto, Robert has appeared with various groups in the region including the Guelph Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Masque Theatre, Tallis Choir, and the Elora Festival Singers. He recently sang the role of Evangelist for the Grand River Chorus’s performance of Bach’s St. John Passion, and the lead role for the premiere of Andrew Ager’s new opera Führerbunker. Robert has also enjoyed solo performances with Video Games Live and the Final Fantasy Distant Worlds tour. In his spare time he maintains a small vocal studio, works in the TV and Film industry, and is brushing up on his keyboard/continuo playing.

Canadian bass-baritone Joel Allison hails from the Ottawa valley and obtained his BMus in vocal performance from the University of Ottawa. He has relocated to Toronto to pursue a Diploma in Opera Performance from the University of Toronto under the tutelage of Daniel Taylor. Upcoming performances with the Opera Studio at the University of Toronto include Mr. Gobineau in The Medium by Gian Carlo Menotti, and John Shears in Paul Bunyan by Benjamin Britten. Recent engagements include the role of Adam in Haydn’s Creation with the Peterborough Singers; premiering a new song cycle by Andrew Ager at the University of Ottawa; the title role in Telemann’s Don Quixote with the Seventeen Voyces; the role of Aeneas in the University of Ottawa’s production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas; the bass soloist in Mozart’s Requiem for the Strings of St. John’s; and appearances as soloist with the Talisker Players for the past two seasons. Joel is an alumnus of the Ontario Youth Choir and the Tafelmusik Summer Baroque Institute. 

Christopher Verrette has been a member of the violin section of Tafelmusik since 1993 and is a frequent soloist and leader with the orchestra. He holds a Bachelor of Music and a Performer’s Certificate from Indiana University. He contributed to the development of early music in the American Midwest, as a founding member of the Chicago Baroque Ensemble and Ensemble Voltaire, and as a guest director with the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. He collaborates with many ensembles around North America, performing music from seven centuries on violin, viola, rebec, vielle, and viola d’amore. He was concertmaster in a recording of rarely heard classical symphonies for an anthology by Indiana University Press and recently collaborated with Sylvia Tyson on the companion recording to her novel, Joyner’s Dream.

St. Michael’s Schola Cantorum is an auditioned ensemble drawn from students, staff, alumni/ae, faculty, and friends of USMC, and members of St. Basil’s parish choir. We sing three concerts per year, at Michaelmas, during Advent, and Lent. Michael O’Connor is the founding Director of St. Michael’s Schola Cantorum. He teaches in the college programs at St. Michael’s and also directs the St. Mike’s Singing Club. His academic scholarship and practical music-making overlap in the theory and practice of liturgical music.



Friday, April 22, 2016

SWEET SWAN OF AVON
To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s Sorrows

8PM, Apr. 23, 2016 
Heliconian Hall,
35 Hazelton Ave. (near Bay Subway), Toronto
Single tickets at the door $30/$20 students & seniors

Prelude       Anon.
Robert, Earl of Essex is thought to be the sitter in a picture by Hilliard known as ‘A Melancholy Youth’. We can be sure he was in a dump by the time his ill-conceived rebellion had failed spectacularly and he was sitting in the Tower awaiting his execution. It is in this situation he wrote the words set here by Dowland, invoking his muse at the beginning of a long poem. On the eve of his rebellion, Essex’s supporters paid to have Richard II performed at the Globe, so it seems appropriate to have Gaunt’s meditation on death before Essex’s lyric. Dowland’s book of music for five-part strings and lute called Lachrimae or Seaven Teares begins with ‘seven passionate pavans’ each starting with his ‘tear’ motif of four notes. Antique is a reworking of the song version you will hear later, itself a reworking of a lute solo.
Gaunt from Richard II I:3
From silent night         John Dowland (1563-1626)
Lachrimae Antique          Dowland

The mad Ophelia’s speech as she hands out allusive flowers to the pitiful onlookers needs little introduction. We present Morley’s canzonette on the death of a young lady. The next pavan is titled ‘New Old Tears’.
Ophelia from Hamlet IV:5
O, griefe, even on the bud   Thomas Morley (1558-1602)
Lachrimae Antique Novae   Dowland

Hamlet’s admonishment of his mother when she suggests he end his mourning for his father needs little setup either. We comment musically with Dowland’s almost expressionistic song of melancholy and desperation and some ‘groaning tears’.
Hamlet from Hamlet I:2
In darknesse let me dwell    Dowland
Lachrimae Gementes        Dowland

We present speech where Ferdinand, who thinks he has lost his father in a shipwreck, hears Ariel sing Full fathom five set for the play by Robert Johnson. The text of Come yee heavy states, also thought to be a playsong, has so many images in common with Full fathom five that the latter would seem to have been influenced by the text Dowland sets. This pavan, marked out as ‘sad tears’, quotes the phrase which sets the words ‘tears a delightful thing’ in Dowland’s own song I saw my lady weep which you may have heard in our Lives of Girls and Women concert.
Ferdinand from The Tempest I:2
Come yee heavy states of night   Dowland
Lachrimae Tristes             Dowland

John Danyel, brother of the poet Samuel, titles this cycle of three songs Mrs. M.E. Her Funeral Teares. We surround the meditation on the meaning of tears and sighs with similar thoughts from plays, and finish the half with ‘forced tears’.
Duke from Measure for Measure III:1                 
Greefe keep within    John Danyel (1564-c.1626)
Richard from Henry VI Pt. III II:1
Drop not myne eyes             Danyel
The Queen from Henry VI Pt. II III:2
Have all our passions      Danyel
Lachrimae Coactae        Dowland

Intermission

Preludium      Dowland
The only Lachrimae pavan with a possessive in the title is ‘Lover’s tears’, heard in this set, which allows us to present the thoughts of melancholy lovers who have lost control of their thoughts and their tongues in Shakespeare’s sonnet and the poem set by Dowland.
Sonnet 85
Unquiet thoughts         Dowland
Lachrimae Amantis     Dowland

When we met Pericles, Prince of Tyre in the last program he was thanking the gods for his and his daughter’s delivery from the sea. Here the narrator Gower places him earlier in the ordeal which will lead him to a catatonic state of melancholy. Dowland’s famous Sorrow stay is arranged as a consort song, and we finish Dowland’s cycle of Lachrimae pavans with ‘true tears’.
Gower from Pericles IV:3
Sorrow come    Dowland, arr. William Wigthorpe
Lachrimae Verae      Dowland

So we end our contemplations on the death of our friend Shakespeare with a sonnet, and the song that launched Dowland’s seven passionate pavans, and, as you will hear in the first notes of Holborne’s pavan, many more besides.
Sonnet 30
Lacrime – Flow my tears    Dowland
The Image of Melancholly     Antony Holborne (d. 1602)

But Shakespeare remains our contemporary. In the manuscript of Thomas More there are large passages thought to be by Shakespeare. During Henry VIII’s reign apprentice boys gathered and started beating up and burning the houses of foreigners and refugees in London. Thomas More was sent with a troop to calm things down. Shakespeare puts these words into his mouth. Timor et Tremor is in a set of manuscripts with untexted lower parts (so played not sung) and a lute book owned by the Roman Catholic Paston family.
Thomas More in Thomas More
Timor et tremor                                     Orlando Lassus (1532-1594)
Fear and terror have settled upon me;
the shadows have invaded me.
Have mercy on me, Lord; have mercy.
Unto you I commend my spirit.

Hear, O Lord, my prayer,
for you are my refuge
and my succour, all-powerful Lord
and I invoke Thee: let me never be confounded.

The program was devised with the scholarship and expertise of Prof. Deanne Williams. 

The Musicians In Ordinary
Named after the singers and lutenists who performed in the most intimate quarters of the Stuart monarchs’ palace, The Musicians In Ordinary for the Lutes and Voices dedicate themselves to the performance of early solo song and vocal chamber music. Soprano Hallie Fishel and lutenist John Edwards have been described as ‘winning performers of winning music.’ A fixture on the Toronto early music scene for over 10 years, in 2012 MIO became Ensemble in Residence at St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. They have concertized across North America and lecture regularly at universities and museums. Institutions where MIO have performed range from the scholarly to those for a more general public and include the Shakespeare Society of America, the Renaissance Society of America, the Shakespeare Association of America, Grinnell College, the Universities of Alberta, Toronto and at California at San Diego, the Kingston Opera Guild, Syracuse, Trent and York Universities and the Bata Shoe Museum. They have been Ensemble in Residence at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.

Seth Lerer is Distinguished Professor of Literature at the University of California at San Diego. Well known for his scholarship and public lectures in the history of the English Language, he has also published widely on medieval and Renaissance English Literature, poetry, and Children's Literature. His books have won such awards as the Harry Levin Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Truman Capote Prize in Criticism. His most recent book is Prospero's Son, a memoir published by the University of Chicago Press. His current work on a book on music, myth, and lyric poetry in Shakespeare's last plays helped inspire our Sweet Swan of Avon series.

Christopher Verrette has been a member of the violin section of Tafelmusik since 1993 and is a frequent soloist and leader with the orchestra. He holds a Bachelor of Music and a Performer’s Certificate from Indiana University. He contributed to the development of early music in the American Midwest as a founding member of the Chicago Baroque Ensemble and Ensemble Voltaire and as a guest director with the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. He collaborates with many ensembles around North America, performing music from seven centuries on violin, viola, rebec, vielle and viola d’amore. He was concertmaster in a recording of rarely heard classical symphonies for an anthology by Indiana University Press and collaborated with Sylvia Tyson on the companion recording to her novel, Joyner’s Dream. Chris was the sound of Mark Smeaton’s violin on the TV series The Tudors.

Matt Antal was born and raised in Toronto. He attended Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts where he began playing viola at age 13 under the tutelage of Jolanta Hickey and Angela Rudden. An all-around lover of music, he has played in numerous ensembles in genres ranging from jazz to hardcore metal. He holds both a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto, where he studied under Katharine Rapoport, and a master’s degree from the University of Victoria, where he was a student of Joanna Hood, both in viola performance. He is currently pursuing an advanced certificate in Baroque viola with Tafelmusik.

Eleanor Verrette studied violin with Gretchen Paxson and Aisslinn Nosky, modern viola with Anna-Belle Marcotte at McGill University, where she graduated with a BMus. in 2012, and Baroque viola with Pemi Paull. She now performs regularly on Renaissance and Baroque viola with The Musicians In Ordinary, on vielle and rebec with Toronto-based medieval group Pneuma Ensemble, and on plugged-in viola with Boston-area band Hadley and the Jackal. She is featured on recent album releases by acclaimed folk-rock artists Lakes of Canada and Corinna Rose and has also performed with Aradia Ensemble and Montréal singer-songwriter Ari Swan.

Stephen Marvin is a writer, musician and craftsman living in Toronto. Since 1977 he has specialized in early music, performing with and leading many well known ensembles. He was principal violinist and violist with the Tafelmusik Orchestra and Chamber Players for 20 years, and now performs in about half of the season's programs. Stephen’s primary devotion to chamber music has inspired his participation in many ensembles, especially recitals and trio performances of late 18th century repertoire with fortepiano. Currently, he is the violist with the Lumiere Quartet. Stephen is represented on more than sixty CDs and other recordings, most notably with Sony. He also enjoys an international reputation as a bow-maker. For twenty-five years he has specialized in 17th and 18th century reproductions for early music specialists like himself, and has published articles and given lectures on the history and construction of old bows. He has recently begun making modern bows after examples by Tourte, Peccatte and others.

Originally from Hamilton, Amanda Keesmaat, bass violin, obtained her Bachelor of Music from the University of Western Ontario and her Artist Diploma from McGill University. A vibrant presence in the Montreal early music community for more than 15 years, she has recorded and performed with prominent singers such as Matthew White, Daniel Taylor, Shannon Mercer, Donna Brown, Natalie Paulin, Susie Le Blanc and Marie-Nicole Lemieux, and renowned ensembles such as Arion Baroque Orchestra, La Nef, Les Idées Heureuses and Les Boréades.  She appears regularly on concert series with Arion Baroque Orchestra, Clavecin en Concert, Studio Musique Ancienne de Montréal, La Nef and at festivals such as Montreal Baroque, Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, the Lameque Baroque Festival, and Vancouver Early Music Festival and Music and Beyond.  As a founding member of Ensemble Les Voix Baroques and Skye Consort, she has performed across Canada. Amanda has recorded for ATMA discs, Early-Music.com, Fidelio, XXI, Analekta, ombú, CBC Radio and CBC Television, BRAVO, the NFB and Radio-Canada.

Monday, April 18, 2016

Here's the script from our Apr. 23rd 'Sweet Swan of Avon' season finale at Heliconian Hall. 

8PM. Heliconian Hall, 35 Hazelton Ave. near Bay Subway

Hallie Fishel sings, John Edwards plays lute, Christopher Verrette leads the string band and Seth Lerer reads. 

Single tickets at the door $30/$20 students & seniors



Shakespeare's Sorrows

Prelude – Anon.
Richard II I:3
Gaunt. Shorten my dayes thou canst with sudden sorow,
And plucke nights from me, but not lend a morrow:
Thou canst helpe time to furrow me with age,
But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage:
Thy word is currant with him, for my death,
But dead, thy kingdome cannot buy my breath.

Song by Dowland
From silent night, true register of moanes,
From saddest Soule consumde with deepest sinnes,
From hart quite rent with sighes, and heavie groanes,
My wayling Muse her wofull work begins.
And to the world brings tunes of sad despaire,
Sounding nought else but sorrow griefe and care.
Lachrimae Antique – John Dowland

The text of the previous song is by Robert, Earl of Essex
Hamlet IV:5
Ophe. There's Fennell for you, and Columbines: ther's
Rew for you, and heere's some for me. Wee may call it
Herbe-Grace a Sundaies: Oh you must weare your Rew
with a difference. There's a Daysie, I would give you
some Violets, but they wither'd all when my Father dy-
ed: They say, he made a good end;

Song by Thomas Morley
O, griefe, even on the bud that fairely flouered,
The sun hath lowered,
And ah that brest which Love durst never venture,
Bold death did enter.
Pitie O heavens that have my love in keeping,
My cries and weeping.
Lachrimae Antique Novae – Dowland



Hamlet I:2
Ham. Seemes Madam? Nay, it is: I know not Seemes:
'Tis not alone my Inky Cloake (good Mother)
Nor Customary suites of solemne Blacke,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitfull River in the Eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the Visage,
Together with all Formes, Moods, shewes of Griefe,
That can denote me truly. These indeed Seeme,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that Within, which passeth show;
These, but the Trappings, and the Suites of woe.

Song by Dowland
In darknesse let me dwell the ground shall sorrow be,
The roofe Dispaire to barre all cheerfull light from mee,
The wals of marble blacke that moistened still shall weepe,
My musicke hellish jarring sounds to banish friendly sleepe.
Thus wedded to my woes and bedded to my Tombe,
O let me living die, till death, till death doe come
   In darknesse let me dwell.
Lachrimae Gementes – Dowland


The Tempest I:2
Fer. Where shold this Musick be? I'th aire, or th'earth?
It sounds no more: and sure it waytes upon
Some God 'oth' Iland, sitting on a banke,
Weeping againe the King my Fathers wracke.
This Musicke crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury, and my passion
With it's sweet ayre: thence I have follow'd it
(Or it hath drawne me rather) but 'tis gone.
No, it begins againe.

Song by Dowland
Come yee heavy states of night,
Doe my fathers spirit right,
Soundings balefull let mee borrow,
Burthening my song with sorrow,
Come sorrow come hir eies that sings,
By thee are turned into springs.

Come you Virgins of the night,
That in Dirges sad delight,
Quier my Anthems, I doe borrow
Gold nor pearle, but sounds of sorrow:
Come sorrow come hir eies that sings,
By thee are tourned into springs.
Lachrimae Tristes – Dowland


Measure for Measure III:1
Duke. Be absolute for death: either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do loose thee, I do loose a thing
That none but fooles would keepe: a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyie-influences
That dost this habitation where thou keepst
Hourely afflict: Meerely, thou art deaths foole,
For him thou labourst by thy flight to shun,
And yet runst toward him still.

Song by John Danyel
The first part.
Greefe keep within and scorne to shew but teares,
Since Joy can weepe as well as thou :
Disdaine to sigh for so can slender cares,
Which but from Idle causes grow.
Doe not looke forth unlesse thou didst know how
To looke with thine owne face, and as thou art,
And onely let my hart,
That knowes more reason why,
Pyne, fret, consume, swell, burst and dye.

Henry VI Pt. III II:1
Rich. I cannot weepe: for all my bodies moysture
Scarse serves to quench my Furnace-burning hart:
Nor can my tongue unloade my hearts great burthen,
For selfe-same winde that I should speake withall,
Is kindling coales that fires all my brest,
And burnes me up with flames, that tears would quench.
To weepe, is to make lesse the depth of greefe:

The second part
Drop not myne eyes nor Trickle downe so fast,
For so you could doe oft before,
In our sad farewells and sweet meetings past,
And shall his death now have no more ?
Can niggard sorrow yeld no other store :
To shew the plentie of afflictions smart,
Then onely thou poore hart,
That knowst more reason why,
Pyne, Fret, Consume, Swell, Burst and Dye.

Henry VI Pt. II III:2
Qu. Might liquid teares, or heart-offending groanes,
Or blood-consuming sighes recall his Life;
I would be blinde with weeping,

The third part
Have all our passions certaine proper vents, 
And sorrow none that is her owne ?
But she must borow others complements,
To make her inward feelings knowne ?
Are Joyes delights and deathes compassion showne,
With one lyke face and one lamenting part ?
Then onely thou poore hart
That know'st more reason why,
Pyne, Fret, Consume, Swell, Burst and Dye.
Lachrimae Coactae – Dowland



Intermission

Sonnet 85
My toung-tide Muse in manners holds her still,
While comments of your praise richly compil'd,
Reserve their Character with goulden quill,
And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd.
I thinke good thoughts, whilst other write good wordes,
And like unlettered clarke still crie Amen,
To every Himne that able spirit affords,
In polisht forme of well refined pen.
Hearing you praisd, I say 'tis so, 'tis true,
And to the most of praise adde some-thing more,
But that is in my thought, whose love to you
(Though words come hind-most) holds his ranke before,
   Then others, for the breath of words respect,
   Me for my dombe thoughts, speaking in effect.

Song by Dowland
Unquiet thoughts your civill slaughter stint,
And wrap your wrongs within a pensive heart:
And you my tongue that makes my mouth a mint,
And stamps my thoughts to coine them words by art,
Be still: for if you ever do the like,
Ile cut the string that makes the hammer strike.

But what can stay my thoughts they may not start,
Or put my tongue in durance for to die?
When as these eyes, the keyes of mouth and hart,
Open the locke where all my love doth lie;
Ile seale them up within their lids for ever:
So thoughts, and words, and looks shall die together.

How shall I then gaze on my mistresse eyes?
My thoghts must have som vent: else hart wil break.
My tongue would rust as in my mouth it lies,
If eyes and thoughts were free, and that not speake.
Speake then, and tell the passions of desire;
Which turns mine eies to floods, my thoghts to fire.
Lachrimae Amantis – Dowland


Pericles IV:3
Gow.  And Pericles in sorrowe all devour'd,
With sighes shot through, and biggest teares ore-showr'd.
Leaves Tharsus, and againe imbarques, hee sweares
Never to wash his face, nor cut his hayres:
Hee put on sack-cloth, and to Sea he beares,
A Tempest which his mortall vessell teares.
And yet hee rydes it out,

Song by Dowland
Sorrow come, lend true repentant teares,
To a woefull wretched wight,
Hence dispair with thy tormenting feares:
O doe not my poor heart affright,
Pitty, help now or never,
Mark me not to endlesse paine,
Alack I am condempned ever,
No hope, nor help there doth remain,
But down, down, down, down I fall,
Down and arise I never shall.
Lachrimae Verae – Dowland


Sonnet 30
When to the Sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lacke of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new waile my deare times waste:
Then can I drowne an eye (un-us'd to flow)
For precious friends hid in deaths dateles night,
And weepe a fresh loves long since canceld woe,
And mone th'expence of many a vannisht sight.
Then can I greeve at greevances fore-gon,
And heavily from woe to woe tell ore
The sad account of fore-bemoned mone,
Which I new pay as if not payd before.
   But if the while I thinke on thee (deare friend)
   All losses are restord, and sorrowes end.

Song by Dowland
Lacrime
Flow my tears fall from your springs,
Exilded for ever: let mee mourne,
Where nightes black bird hir sad infamy sings,
There let mee live forlorne.

Downe vaine lightes shine you no more,
No nightes are dark enough for those
That in dispaire their lost fortuns deplore,
Light doth but shame disclose.

Never may my woes be relieved,
Since pittie is fled,
And teares and sighes and grones my wearie dayes
Of all joyes have deprived.

From the highest spire of contentment
My fortune is throwne,
And feare and griefe and paine for my deserts
Are my hopes since hope is gone.

Harke you shadowes that in darkness dwell,
Learne to contemne light
Happie they that in hell
Feele not the worlds despite.
The Image of Melancholly – Antony Holborne



Thomas More 
Moo…. youle put downe straingers
kill them cutt their throts possesse their howses
and leade the majestie of lawe in liom
to slipp him lyke a hound; say nowe the king
as he is clement, yf thoffendor moorne
shoold so much com to short of your great trespas
as but to banysh you, whether woold you go.
what Country by the nature of your error
shoold gyve you harber go you to ffraunc or flanders
to any Jarman province, spane or portigall
nay any where that not adheres to Ingland
why you must needs be straingers. woold you be pleasd
to find a nation of such barbarous temper
that breaking out in hiddious violence
woold not afoord you, an abode on earth
whett their detested knyves against your throtes
spurne you lyke doggs, and lyke as yf that god
owed not nor made not you, nor that the elaments
wer not all appropriat to your Comforts.
but Charterd unto them, what woold you thinck
to be thus usd, this is the straingers case
all and this your montanish inhumanyty

Motet by Orlando Lassus
Timor et tremor venerunt super me,
et caligo cecidit super me:
miserere mei Domine,
quoniam in te confidit anima mea.

Exaudi Deus deprecationem meam
quia refugium meum es
tu adjutor fortis.
Domine, invocavi te, non confundar.

(Fear and terror have settled upon me;
the shadows have invaded me.
Have mercy on me, Lord; have mercy.
Unto you I commend my spirit.

Hear, O Lord, my prayer,
for you are my refuge
and my succour, all-powerful Lord
and I invoke Thee: let me never be confounded.)


Saturday, March 19, 2016

SWEET SWAN OF AVON
To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare


Shakespeare’s Saints and Sinners
Mar. 19, 2016 
Heliconian Hall, Toronto

‘How doth the city sit solitary’ exclaims Jeremiah at the beginning of his Lamentations. It’s not clear who sits solitary (sedet sola) in Holborne’s pavan. Ecce Quam Bonum are the first words of Ps. 133: ‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.’ Lord Rivers compares the self-sacrifice of the righteous fighters against tyranny to Jesus’s sacrifice. We reply with a snippet of Taverner’s Mass Gloria Tibi Trinitas. The plainsong melody of Gloria Tibi Trinitas is only heard at the words ‘In nomine Domini’ in the Sanctus. The tune became the subject for instrumental consorts for 150 years. Johnson puts the tune in the top voice of his version.
Sedet Sola Anthony Holborne (1545-1602)
Ecce Quam Bonum Holborne
Lord Rivers from Richard III [III:1]
In nomine Domini John Taverner (ca. 1490-1545) – arr. Anon.
In Nomine Robert Johnson (ca. 1500-1560)



There was little difference for the Jacobeans between the care of the soul and the care of the sick in mind. Timothy Bright, author of a Treatise on Melancholy, a book Shakespeare probably read, was both a physician and a divine, so would have been the ideal minister for the mind and soul of Lady Macbeth. We respond with a penitential text and another In Nomine, this time with the tune in the tenor.
The Doctor from Macbeth [V:1]
Ne reminiscaris John Wilbye (1574-1638)
Remember not, Lord, our offences, neither those of our fathers:
and do not wreak vengeance for our transgressions.
Spare, Lord, spare your people,
whom you redeemed with your precious blood:
lest you be angry with us for ever.
In Nomine Thomas Tallis (c. 1505-1585)

Campion’s meditation on ‘the light of the world’ is from his book of ayres ‘contayning divine and morall songs’ and has correspondences in this short exchange from Henry VI Pt. II. A Mr. Golder remarkably harmonizes the ‘minor’ key In Nomine into a major key.
A man, then the King from Henry VI Pt. II [II:1]
Author of light    Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
In Nomine (Robert?) Golder (1510-1563)


Griffith describes the last hours of Cardinal Wolsey who himself conceded that  he had not ‘served God as diligently as I have done the King.’ Dowland’s last songbook, A Pilgrimes Solace, contains several ‘divine and moral songs’ including this and the Thou Mighty God cycle. Baldwin ingeniously transforms the In Nomine with triple time figures.
Griffith from Henry VIII [IV:2]
If that a Sinners sighes John Dowland (1563-1626)
In Nomine John Baldwin (d. 1615)

Bedford alludes to the Canticle of Simeon, sung at Evensong, in his speech. Simeon had been promised he’d see the Messiah before he died, and when He is revealed to him, Simeon exclaims ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.’ Or much more verbosely in this metrical paraphrase, set to one of the Old Church Tunes used for the Psalms and Canticles, and arranged by Allison. Dowland keeps the In Nomine tune going in the top voice of his curiously titled lute fantasy.
Bedford from Henry VI Pt. 1 [III:2]
Nunc Dimittis Richard Allison (c. 1560-c. 1610)
Farwell Dowland

Intermission



Dowland’s intense three-part setting of a meditation on patience is framed by a speech from Lear, whose troubles parallel those of Job, and some less sympathetic characters from The Merchant of Venice and Hamlet. We have some dance music which alludes to In Nomine to lighten the mood.
Patiencia Holborne
Lear from King Lear [II:2]
Thou mighty God Dowland
Antonio from Merchant of Venice [IV:1]
When Davids life Dowland
The Queen from Hamlet [III:4]
When the poore criple Dowland
In Nomine Pavan & Galliard Nicholas Stroggers (fl. 1560-1575) arr. Anon.


What is one of the most famous passages in all of Shakespeare needs little set up. Campion’s song is from his ‘divine and morall’ collection of ayres again. Ward’s In Nomine, the latest we play, has virtuoso figures and looks forward even to Purcell’s version from the end of the 17th century.
Hamlet from Hamlet [I:2]
Never weather beaten saile Campion
In Nomine John Ward (1571-1638)

Pericles, Prince of Tyre, thanks the divine for his and his daughter Marina’s delivery from trouble. Though Pericles was probably not written (and possibly not all by Shakespeare) till the reign of James, the audience would still be familiar with Elizabeth’s delivery from the Armada’s threat from the sea.
Pericles from Pericles [V:1]
Benedicam Domino   Robert Johnson
I will bless the Lord at all times;
I will always declare his praise with my mouth.
O Lord with all my heart…..
To praise His name wherever we go,
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
In Nomine  William Byrd  (1539/40-1623)

The illegitimate Edmund is lying in his report that Gloucester’s legitimate son is planning to kill him, but gives a plausible characterization on the opinion of parricides. That King David’s son Absalom had rebelled against him makes his defeat and death no less painful for the king.
Edmund from King Lear [2:1]
When David heard Michael East (1580-1648)


The Musicians In Ordinary
Named after the singers and lutenists who performed in the most intimate quarters of the Stuart monarchs’ palace, The Musicians In Ordinary for the Lutes and Voices dedicate themselves to the performance of early solo song and vocal chamber music. Soprano Hallie Fishel and lutenist John Edwards have been described as ‘winning performers of winning music.’ A fixture on the Toronto early music scene for over 10 years, in 2012 MIO became Ensemble in Residence at St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. They have concertized across North America and lecture regularly at universities and museums. Institutions where MIO have performed range from the scholarly to those for a more general public and include the Shakespeare Society of America, the Renaissance Society of America, the Shakespeare Association of America, Grinnell College, the Universities of Alberta, Toronto and at California at San Diego, the Kingston Opera Guild, Syracuse, Trent and York Universities and the Bata Shoe Museum. They have been Ensemble in Residence at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.

David Klausner taught at the University of Toronto in the Department of English and the Centre for Medieval Studies for 45 years until his retirement in 2012, specializing in early English drama and Welsh literature.  He was a founding member of The Toronto Consort, with which he played for twenty years; he has been a regular teacher at early music workshops in Canada, the US, the UK, and Austria.  His interests in early music and literature led to a study of historical pronunciation, and he now acts as pronunciation advisor to early music singers around the world. In addition to his continuing research for the project Records of Early English Drama, he performs widely in the Toronto area on bassoon, contrabassoon, and baroque bassoon.

Due to a scheduling problem Christopher Verrette is unable to join us for tonight’s performance, but will return on April 23rd. Thanks to Trish for standing in.

Patricia Ahern has a BA and BMus. from Northwestern University, MMus from Indiana University, and performer diploma from the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland. She has taught baroque violin at the Freiburg Conservatory and Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute, and given masterclasses at McGill, Wilfrid Laurier, York and Grand Valley State Universities, and the Universities of Windsor, Wisconsin and Toronto. She has concertized on five continents performing with Milwaukee Baroque, Ars Antigua, Chicago Opera Theater, Kingsbury Ensemble, Aradia, I Furiosi, Newberry Consort, Musica Pacifica, and the Carmel Bach Festival. Tricia has recorded for Sony, Naxos, and Analekta, and joined Tafelmusik in 2002.

Matt Antal was born and raised in Toronto. He attended Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts where he began playing viola at age 13 under the tutelage of Jolanta Hickey and Angela Rudden. An all-around lover of music, he has played in numerous ensembles in genres ranging from jazz to hardcore metal. He holds both a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto, where he studied under Katharine Rapoport, and a master’s degree from the University of Victoria, where he was a student of Joanna Hood, both in viola performance. He is currently pursuing an advanced certificate in Baroque viola with Tafelmusik.

Eleanor Verrette studied violin with Gretchen Paxson and Aisslinn Nosky, modern viola with Anna-Belle Marcotte at McGill University, where she graduated with a BMus. in 2012, and Baroque viola with Pemi Paull. She now performs regularly on Renaissance and Baroque viola with The Musicians In Ordinary, on vielle and rebec with Toronto-based medieval group Pneuma Ensemble, and on plugged-in viola with Boston-area band Hadley and the Jackal. She is featured on recent album releases by acclaimed folk-rock artists Lakes of Canada and Corinna Rose and has also performed with Aradia Ensemble and Montréal singer-songwriter Ari Swan,

Sheila Smyth is a busy performer with many ensembles, baroque and modern, on violin, viola and treble viola da gamba. She is principal violist of both Nota Bene Baroque Players and Opera York, and a supernumerary violist for Tafelmusik.  Sheila is a frequent guest soloist with the Toronto Continuo Collective and Scaramella, and has performed at various summer festivals and symposiums such as Luminato, Grand River Baroque, and the MidWest Early Keyboard Society Conference. She has been heard live in performance with the Emperor Quartet on CBC Radio 2 and CFMX Radio, and is a founding member of Musathena and the Cardinal Consort of Viols.

Originally from Hamilton, Amanda Keesmaat, bass violin, obtained her Bachelor of Music from the University of Western Ontario and her Artist Diploma from McGill University. A vibrant presence in the Montreal early music community for more than 15 years, she has recorded and performed with prominent singers such as Matthew White, Daniel Taylor, Shannon Mercer, Donna Brown, Natalie Paulin, Susie Le Blanc and Marie-Nicole Lemieux, and renowned ensembles such as Arion Baroque Orchestra, La Nef, Les Idées Heureuses and Les Boréades.  She appears regularly on concert series with Arion Baroque Orchestra, Clavecin en Concert, Studio Musique Ancienne de Montréal, La Nef and at festivals such as Montreal Baroque, Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, the Lameque Baroque Festival, and Vancouver Early Music Festival and Music and Beyond.  As a founding member of Ensemble Les Voix Baroques and Skye Consort, she has performed across Canada. Amanda has recorded for ATMA discs, Early-Music.com, Fidelio, XXI, Analekta, ombú, CBC Radio and CBC Television, BRAVO, the NFB and Radio-Canada.




Friday, March 18, 2016

The University of St. Michael’s College
in the University of Toronto

Byrd, Mass for Four Voices
with music by Dowland, Campion & others
for the Lenten Season

Friday, March 18, 2016
7:30 p.m.
St. Basil’s Church 

Program

Preludium - John Dowland (1563-1626) - John Edwards, lute
Kyrie, Mass for Four Voices - William Byrd (c.1540–1623)
If that a sinner's sighs - John Dowland - Soloists
In Nomine - Robert Johnson (c. 1500-1560)

Gloria, Mass for Four Voices - William Byrd
Author of Light - Thomas Campion (1567-1620) - Graham Robinson, Bass-baritone
In Nomine - (Robert?) Golder (1510-1563)

Credo, Mass for Four Voices - William Byrd
Never weather-beaten sail - Thomas Campion - Soloists
In Nomine Thomas Tallis (c. 1505-1585)

Sanctus/Benedictus - William Byrd
In Nomine - John Taverner (c. 1490-1545) - Hallie Fishel, Soprano
In Nomine - John Baldwin (d. 1615)

Agnus Dei, Mass for Four Voices - William Byrd
Nunc Dimittis - Richard Allison (c. 1560-c. 1610) - Soloists
In Nomine - John Ward (1571-1638)

Ave Verum Corpus - William Byrd


Refugee Sponsorship Campaign
All donations collected tonight will support Syrian refugees in Canada. Initiated by the students of the University of St. Michael’s College and supported by the President’s Office, our specific campaign is designed to raise funds to sponsor a refugee family through the Archdiocese of Toronto’s Office of Refugees. From September, we will provide a family with a home on the campus. Your donations tonight will be directed to their basic needs—clothing, baby necessities, English language classes, metro passes. The campaign has been very successful so far, raising almost $9,000 towards the goal of $12,400. With your support, we are confident the goal can be reached before the academic year comes to a close.

If you prefer to donate by cheque, please speak to one of the ushers after the concert.

On behalf of those who will be helped by your gift, the students of St. Michael’s thank you in advance for your consideration and generosity.


The Musicians In Ordinary String Band 
Violin
Chris Verrette

Viola
Matt Antal
Sheila Smyth
Eleanor Verrette

Bass Violin
Amanda Keesmaat

Lute
John Edwards


St Michael’s Schola Cantorum
Soprano
Laurel-Ann Finn
Hallie Fishel*
Barbara North
Emily Sherlock
Jane Ubertino
Mikhai-Louise Vasile
Julia Warnes
Hope Aletheia Waterman

Alto
Vanessa Chan
Cindy Dymond
Charlotte Hodgkins*
Paula Owolabi
Annemarie Sherlock
Katie Stokes
Kathryn Zaleski-Cox

Tenor
Ben Kim*
Edmund Lo
Reid Locklin
Patrick Michalski
Michael Pirri
Hugo Tang

Bass
Robert Allair
Scott Hoornaert
Paul McGrath
Graham Robinson*

Guest Director
Christina Labriola

*= soloists

Named after the singers and lutenists who performed in the most intimate quarters of the Stuart monarchs’ palace, The Musicians In Ordinary for the Lutes and Voices dedicate themselves to the performance of early solo song and vocal chamber music. Soprano Hallie Fishel and lutenist John Edwards have been described as “winning performers of winning music.” A fixture on the Toronto early music scene for over ten years, in 2012 MIO became Ensemble in Residence at St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. MIO have concertized across North America, and have performed to scholarly and general audiences, lecturing regularly at universities and museums, for the Shakespeare Society of America, the Renaissance Society of America, Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies, Grinnell College, the Kingston Opera Guild, and the Bata Shoe Museum, and the Universities of Alberta, Toronto, California at San Diego, Syracuse, Trent, and York. They have been Ensemble in Residence at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania.

Christopher Verrette has been a member of the violin section of Tafelmusik since 1993 and is a frequent soloist and leader with the orchestra. He holds a Bachelor of Music and a Performer’s Certificate from Indiana University. He contributed to the development of early music in the American Midwest, as a founding member of the Chicago Baroque Ensemble and Ensemble Voltaire, and as a guest director with the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. He collaborates with many ensembles around North America, performing music from seven centuries on violin, viola, rebec, vielle, and viola d’amore. He was concertmaster in a recording of rarely heard classical symphonies for an anthology by Indiana University Press and recently collaborated with Sylvia Tyson on the companion recording to her novel, Joyner’s Dream.

Charlotte Hodgkins, mezzo-soprano, has worked as a professional chorister for many ensembles, including Ottawa Bach Choir, Elora Festival Singers, Theatre of Early Music, St. James Cathedral Choir, and Soundstreams Canada. Charlotte is currently completing a BFA at York University, studying with Stephanie Bogle. In 2014, the university awarded her the Peggie Sampson Award for Early Music. Charlotte has sung as alto soloist with the York University Concert Choir in such works as J. S. Bach's St. John Passion, Mozart's Coronation Mass, C. P. E. Bach's Magnificat, and Rossini's Petite Messe Solenelle. Charlotte continues her work as a professional chorister, and plans to pursue choral conducting and historical performance at the graduate level.

Ben Kim is a composer and tenor Toronto. Originally hailing from Geoje, South Korea, he grew up playing the piano. It wasn't until in he joined a choir at the age of 20 that he started singing in earnest. As a singer, he has performed with various amateur and professional groups from the US and Canada. Currently, he is a member of St. James Cathedral Choir. As a composer, his music has been appreciated and performed throughout the world by many musicians and ensembles. Notably, his choral arrangement of a Korean folk song called Hangangsu Taryeong - a “dissonant tone painting,” as one reviewer put it - was performed in Disney Hall by LA Master Chorale. His music is often described as eclectic or prismatic. He is published by Renforth Music in Canada, and earthsongs in the US.

Graham Robinson is a bass-baritone hailing from Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Receiving his Bachelors of Music in Voice at the University of Victoria, Graham was a much sought after soloist during his time in B.C. Now based in Toronto, he has been featured with the Elmer Iseler Singers, Tafelmusik, La Chapelle de Québec, the Elora Festival Singers, the Nathaniel Dett Chorale as well as many others. Graham is a devoted supporter and patron of aesthetics who strongly believes that creativity will take us anywhere we want to go. “Putting one’s soul into any discipline is art. It is in those times one learns to fly.” When not making music Graham further extends his passion for the arts community through film and videography.

St. Michael’s Schola Cantorum is an auditioned ensemble drawn from staff, faculty, alumni/ae, students, and friends of USMC, and members of St. Basil’s parish choir. We sing three concerts per year, at Michaelmas, and during Advent, and Lent. Michael O’Connor is the founding Director of St. Michael’s Schola Cantorum. He teaches in the college programs at St. Michael’s and also directs the St. Mike’s Singing Club. His academic scholarship and practical music-making overlap in the theory and practice of liturgical music.

Christina Labriola is an alto, pianist, and choral conductor, ever interested in the intersection of music and spirituality. She earned a B.Mus. in piano at the University of Toronto, and Master of Sacred Music in choral conducting from Emmanuel College, and is currently a doctoral student at Regis College in the Toronto School of Theology. She has sung and worked with a number of choral ensembles, including the MacMillan Singers (2006–2010), and University of Toronto Women's Chorus as Assistant Conductor (2012–2013). Involved in church music ministry, Christina serves as music director at the Newman Centre and at St. Peter’s Catholic Church, Toronto. She plans to continue in the world of academia along with a varied musical career as church musician, conductor, teacher, choral singer, accompanist, and performer. Christina is delighted to have been invited to be the guest conductor for this evening’s concert.

Notes
Towards the end of his career, William Byrd was patronised by, and possibly just plain employed to provide music for secret Masses for the recusant Petre family. He had stayed with the family over Christmas in 1589 (Is this circumstantial evidence of a Christmas chapel music gig?) and in the early 1590s, moved to a village near the Petres’ country home. Though his three Mass settings were printed without a date, this is about the time the Masses were published. As well as being undated, the title pages also lack the name of the publisher, who perhaps wanted to keep his involvement on the down low, and are in a small format, perhaps to make the partbooks easy to conceal. Comparison of the Byrd Masses with their models show that rather than being influenced by contemporary continental settings, they look back past the English Reformation to Masses by Taverner and Tallis. Particular to Byrd, though, is a sometimes almost madrigalian texture and attention to the text, and the lack of repetition of words and phrases. Perhaps they needed to get a move on in case the constable peeped in the chapel window. That said, Queen Elizabeth asserted she would turn a blind eye to any ‘window into men’s souls’, and Byrd implies in a letter to her top official that his Catholicism had been tolerated when he was employed as composer for the Chapel Royal, the top church music job in the land.

The printed layout of the Dowland, Allison and Campion tells us that they were published for private devotions. These pieces are from books published in tabletop format, with the bass part upside down from the soprano and perpendicular to the alto and tenor. Place the open book in the middle of the table and the performers can crowd around the four sides and read their several parts. Unlike Byrd, John Dowland was not very serious about his conversion to Catholicism. His association with the troublesome Earl of Essex probably counted against him more than his faith in his failed attempt to get a job at the Elizabethan court. He stomped off to the continent in a huff, but reports in a letter from Florence that he has heard of a team of Jesuits being sent to England, and that he can get a gig at the Papal court and do some further spying if needed. In fact, he ended up working for James I. Campion published a songbook ‘Contayning divine and morall songs’ bound with a book ‘on the light conceits of lovers’ in 1613 from which his two ayres are taken. Books of Psalms like Allison’s, using metrical paraphrases of the Psalms and canticles, were the main way for singing psalms in England from the mid 16th century until well into the 18th. The Old Hundredth ‘All people that on earth do dwell’, to a Genevan tune, is probably the most famous of this repertoire. The setting of the Nunc dimittis paraphrase is from this psalter.

For some reason, the snippet of chant Gloria Tibi Trinitas, the antiphon for the first psalm for the feast of the Trinity in ‘Sarum’ usage (the chant used in England before the Reformation) became the subject of a fascination quite out of proportion to the 30 seconds it originally took up on one feast day at Vespers. John Taverner used the plainchant as the subject, or ‘cantus firmus’ for a Mass, where the tune is heard in its entirety first at the words ‘in nomine Domine’ in the Benedictus. The lute part of the solo voice version you will hear is a straightforward intabulation of the lower voice parts of this passage from the Mass from a manuscript in the library of the Paston family, also recusants. Composers, particularly for consorts of strings, took the plainchant and used it as a subject for hundreds of In Nomines for well over a hundred years after Taverner popped it into the texture of his Mass. The Petres and Pastons maintained a set of ‘viols’ in their households (the word ‘viol’ and ‘violin’ were used interchangeably in English at the time). All the pieces called In Nomine this evening, then, have the tune somewhere in the texture.

Translations
Kyrie
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Gloria
Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to people of good will.
We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you,
we give you thanks for your great glory,
Lord God, heavenly King, O God, almighty Father.
Lord Jesus Christ, Only Begotten Son,
Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father,
you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us;
you take away the sins of the world, receive our prayer;
you are seated at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us.
For you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord,
you alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit,
in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

Credo
I believe in one God, the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Sanctus/Benedictus
Holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts,
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

In Nomine
...in the name of the Lord.

Agnus Dei
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: grant us peace.

Ave Verum Corpus
Hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary,
who having truly suffered,
was sacrificed on the cross for mankind,
whose pierced side flowed with blood:
May it be for us a foretaste [of the Heavenly banquet]
in the trial of death.
O sweet, O holy,
O Jesus, son of Mary,
have mercy on me. Amen.