The major services for which composers have always written music have been Mass (the Eucharist or Holy Communion service) and Vespers (Evening Prayer, also called Evensong), but there is an additional service of Compline (or night prayer), rarely seen outside of convents, monasteries, and college chapels. In late Mediaeval and Renaissance England, Sung Compline was a daily event at the chapels of colleges and of the nobility, and often composers wrote their best music for Compline, with the mix of chanted psalms and polyphonic hymns making for an intimate and soothing end to the day.
In this programme, we present polyphony for Compline by English composers such as Sheppard, Byrd, Tallis, Tye, and White, interspersed with chant from the Sarum rite, the rite used in much of the British Isles before the religious changes of the late Tudor period, in order to give some idea of how the polyphony would have sounded in context. As a special treat, we will also perform two Marian motets: the Salve regina by Cornysh, and Gaude flore virginali by Turges, both of which might have been sung at the end of Compline. These two works are taken from the Eton Choirbook, which is one of three large choirbooks that survive from the Early Tudor period, and are examples of the large-scale florid style of English polyphony on the eve of the Reformation.
The programme will be under an hour, with a brief 10 minute talk at the beginning to introduce the music in its social, cultural, and historical setting.
