An elegant anthology. The specialist will not miss the quiet
sophistication with which the music has been selected and prepared. Some
of it is printed here for the first time, and much of it has been edited
anew. -- Notes
This treasury of 47 vocal works -- edited by Noah Greenberg, founder and
former director of the New York Pro Musica Antiqua -- will delight all
lovers of medieval and Renaissance music. Containing a wealth of both
religious and secular music from the 12th to the 17th centuries, the
collection covers a broad range of moods, from the hearty Blow Thy Horne
Thou Jolly Hunter by William Cornysh to the reflective and elegiac Cease
Mine Eyes by Thomas Morley.
Of the religious works, nine were written for church services, including
Sanctus by Henry IV and Angús Dei from a beautiful four-part mass by
Thomas Tallis. Other religious songs in the collection come from
England's rich tradition of popular religious lyric poetry, and include
William Byrd's Susanna Farye, the anonymously written Deo Gracias Anglia
(The Agincort Carol), and Thomas Ravenscroft's O Lord, Turne Now Away
Thy Face and Remember O Thou Man.
Approximately half of the songs are secular, some from the popular
tradition and others from the courtly poets and musicians surrounding
such musically inclined monarchs as Henry VIII -- who himself is
represented in this collection with two charming songs, With Owt
Dyscorde and O My Hart. Among the notable composers of Tudor and
Elizabethan England represented here are Orlando Gibbons, John Dowland,
and Thomas Weelkes.
