Æternum: Music of the Elizabethan Avant Garde from Add. MS 31390

Featuring

LeStrange Viols
William Mundy
Picforth
John Taverner
Edward Blankes
Anonymous

Philip Van Wilder
Robert Parsons
Christopher Tye
William Byrd
? Mallorie
Jacquet de Berchem
Brewster
Clément Janequin
Osbert Parsley
John Sheppard
Clement Woodcock
Jacobus Clemens non Papa
Thomas Tallis
Nicholas Strogers
Giovanni Croce

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Instruments

The instruments used on this recording include bass viols by John Rose and Barak Norman, and treble viols by William Turner and Joachim Tielke, dating from the 16th to 18th centuries.

Compositional Technique

Some pieces on this album are experimental, such as Osbert Parsley's Spes nostra, built on a cantus firmus with five-beat notes, and Picforth's In nomine, which uses fully serialized rhythm.

Recording & Production

This album was recorded on the Caldwell Collection of Viols, a collection of 27 antique instruments from the 16th-18th centuries, lovingly restored to playable condition.

Historical Context

The manuscript from which these pieces are drawn, Add. MS 31390, captures a snapshot of musical life in the 1570s, including both contemporary 'new releases' and 'golden oldies' from earlier in the century.

Compositional Technique

The pieces on this album, drawn from an Elizabethan manuscript, showcase diverse musical textures and styles, including devout motets, lovesick chansons, and lighthearted madrigals.

Compositional Technique

Many pieces in the Elizabethan manuscript exhibit characteristically 'English' traits, such as a love of cross-relations (a striking type of permitted dissonance) and an abundance of rhythmic and metrical complexity.

Interpretation

The performers, LeStrange Viols, aim to capture not just the likeness but the 'liveness' of the music from the notational record, similar to how a portrait painter captures the liveness of their subject.