CONTRAPUNCTUS & OWEN REES
Programmes 2026/2027
2: Galanterie
I. A Musical Garland
Cast 10 singers
In 1605, William Byrd published his most ambitious collection of Latin polyphony to date, the first book of Gradualia. He created this collection during years of political crisis and change in England, with the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603 and the beginning of the dynasty of Stuart monarchs. The appearance of this great collection of music for Catholic rites reflects the hopes of England’s Catholics that the reign of James I would herald a period of greater tolerance, hopes which were dashed – months after the publication – by the Gunpowder Plot. In this concert, music from the Gradualia is heard alongside Byrd’s Mass for five voices, published a few years before Elizabeth’s death.
Programme
For the Feast of All Saints
Introit: Gaudeamus omnes (5’15)
Gradual: Timete Dominum (4’)
Offertory: Justorum animæ (2’30)
Communion: Beati mundo corde (3’)
Mass for Five Voices
Kyrie (1’40)
Gloria (5’)
Plorans plorabit (4’30)
For Marian feasts
Introit: Gaudeamus omnes (5’45)
Gradual: Diffusa est gratia (7’)
Tract: Nunc dimittis (6’)
Ave verum corpus (4’)
Mass for five voices
Sanctus (4’)
Agnus Dei (3’30)
II. Jubilee
Cast 10 singers
Baroque Rome was a principal European centre of artistic, architectural, and musical culture, and its status as a rich source of patronage was enhanced by the great Jubilee year of 1600. That year saw the posthumous publication of the tenth book of Masses by Palestrina, whose music had become –throughout Europe – the epitome of the revered Roman style of sacred polyphony. Palestrina’s most prolific contemporary in the composition and publication of such polyphony, Giovanni Matteo Asola, marked the Jubilee of 1600 through the issuing of a printed collection of double-choir motets.
This concert presents the motets in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary from Asola’s collection, alongside Palestrina’s wonderful Marian Mass, the Missa O virgo simul et mater, from his 1600 collection, and two polychoral works by Victoria published in the same year.
Programme
Salve regina Victoria
O virgo simul et mater Palestrina
Missa O virgo simul et mater Palestrina
Kyrie
Gloria
Ave virgo gloriosa Asola
Missa O virgo simul et mater Palestrina
Credo
Ave maris stella Asola
Missa O virgo simul et mater Palestrina
Sanctus
Agnus Die
Salve virgo tui genitrix Asola
Dic nobis Maria Victoria
III. Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610
Cast 8 Contrapunctus singers, choir, and period instrument ensemble
Monteverdi’s lavish music for Vespers, written during his years working at the Mantuan court from the 1590s and published in 1610 with an eye on both the Roman and Venetian markets, has become one of the most famous collections of liturgical music. It contains an extraordinary kaleidoscope of styles (traditional and modern) and textures (solo, choral, and instrumental).
For this performance the solo voices of early-music consort Contrapunctus are joined by the Choir of The Queen!s College and Oxford!s period-instrument orchestra, Instruments of Time and Truth.
Programme
Versicle and Response: Deus in adiutorium
Psalm 109: Dixit Dominus
Motet: Nigra sum
Psalm 112: Laudate pueri
Motet: Pulchra es
Psalm 131: Lætatus sum
Motet: Duo Seraphim
Psalm 126: Nisi Dominus
***Interval**
Motet: Audi coelum
Psalm 147: Lauda Jerusalem
Sonata sopra Santa Maria
Hymn: Ave maris stella
Magnificat
IV. Victoria's Requiem
Cast 12 singers
Music for the Exequies of Empress María of Hapsburg, 1603 A reconstruction of the magnificent rites of mourning for the Empress María of Austria, one of the most influential women in sixteenth-century Europe.
Tomás Luis de Victoria, who served the Empress as Chaplain, was inspired to complete his well-loved masterwork – the six-voice Requiem – for this grand occasion, composing the music at great speed in the period of a few weeks between the Empress!s death and her exequies at the Descalzas Reales convent
in Madrid.
Programme
First half
From Matins of the Dead
Cristóbal de Morales Circumdederunt me
Morales Venite exsultemus Domino
Morales Parce mihi Domine
Thome Luis de Victoria Taedet anima mea
Sebastián de Vivanco Quis dabit capiti meo aquam
Second half
Missa pro defunctis for six voices
Introit: Requiem æternam
Kyrie eleison
Gradual: Requiem æternam
Offertory: Domine Jesu Christe
Sanctus & Benedictus
Agnus Dei
Communion: Lux aeterna
Funeral motet: Versa est in luctum
Responsory: Libera me, Domine
Alonso Lobo Funeral motet: Versa est in luctum
V. Silenced voices
Cast 10 singers
In 1605, William Byrd published his most ambitious collection of Latin polyphony to date, the first book of Gradualia. He issued it at a period of renewed hope that the voices of the English Catholic community – harshly suppressed during the second half of Queen Elizabeth’s reign – would be freed to sing once again, with the accession to the throne of James I, who it was hoped would be more tolerant of Catholicism and Catholic worship and its associated music. Such hopes were cruelly dashed – only months after the
publication of the Gradualia – by the Gunpowder Plot and the consequent fierce hostility towards Catholics, as part of which even possession of a copy of Byrd’s new collection could lead to arrest. In this concert, music from the Gradualia is heard alongside Byrd’s Mass for five voices, published a few years before Elizabeth’s death when singing of the Mass was illegal.
Programme
For the Feast of All Saints
Introit: Gaudeamus omnes (5’15)
Gradual: Timete Dominum (4’)
Offertory: Justorum animæ (2’30)
Communion: Beati mundo corde (3’)
Mass for Five Voices
Kyrie (1’40)
Gloria (5’)
Plorans plorabit (4’30)
For Marian feasts
Introit: Gaudeamus omnes (5’45)
Gradual: Diffusa est gratia (7’)
Tract: Nunc dimittis (6’)
Ave verum corpus (4’)
Mass for five voices
Sanctus (4’)
Agnus Dei (3’30)
VI. ‘The Voice of Weeping’: Singing the Death of an Empress
Cast 12 singers
In the motet Versa est in luctum which forms the expressive centrepiece of his famous Requiem, Victoria portrays the transformation of music into ‘the voice of weeping’ (‘vocem flentium’). The magnificent funerary ceremonies of earlymodern royalty and nobility employed song alongside a panoply of ephemeral art, architecture, and poetry to give voice to lament and prayer for the deadand to honour the deceased. This concert recollects the rites of mourning for the Empress María of Austria at the Descalzas Reales convent in Madrid in 1603, for which Victoria composed his magnificent polyphony in a mere three weeks.
Programme
First half
From Matins of the Dead
Cristóbal de Morales Circumdederunt me
Morales Venite exsultemus Domino
Morales Parce mihi Domine
Thome Luis de Victoria Taedet anima mea
Sebastián de Vivanco Quis dabit capiti meo aquam
Second half
Missa pro defunctis for six voices
Introit: Requiem æternam
Kyrie eleison
Gradual: Requiem æternam
Offertory: Domine Jesu Christe
Sanctus & Benedictus
Agnus Dei
Communion: Lux aeterna
Funeral motet: Versa est in luctum
Responsory: Libera me, Domine
Alonso Lobo Funeral motet: Versa est in luctum
VII. ‘The Child of my Old Age’: Manuel Cardoso’s late motet collection
Cast 10 singers
In 1648, at the age of 82, Frei Manuel Cardoso published his last musical collection, the Livro de varios motetes, which he called ‘the child of my old age’. The favourite composer of King João IV of Portugal, and highly prized also at the Spanish royal court, Cardoso was among the foremost representatives of the golden age of Portuguese polyphony. These late works – including motets, music for Holy Week, and polyphony pro defunctis – reveal the distillation of Cardoso’s style: expressive masterpieces responding to their texts with intensity, vividness., and a highly personal imagination. They give us a glimpse of Portugal’s royal court music in the decade after the restoration of Portuguese independence under João IV.
Programme
Tua est potentia (3’)
Lamentations for Maundy Thursday, Lesson II (5’)
Tristis est anima mea (Responsory II for Maundy Thursday) (2’30)
Mulier quæ erat in civitate peccatrix (2’30)
Domine tu mihi lavas pedes (4’)
Missa pro defunctis (29’)
Ne recorderis (responsory pro defunctis) (6’)
Nos autem gloriari (2’)
VIII. ‘His fame for music’s skill shall live’:Thomas Tallis’s swan song
Cast 10 singers
Near the end of his extended career in royal service, at the age of about 70,Tallis published a collection of motets dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I in collaboration with his pupil Byrd. Tallis’s choice of works provides fascinating insights into the long evolution of his style – and in particular how music and text relate to one another – and aspects of religious change during the reigns of four English sovereigns. This concert presents Tallis’s complete works from the 1575 collection, in the original ordering conceived by the composer.
Programme
Salvator mundi (I) (2’40)
Absterge Domine (5’30)
In manus tuas (2’)
Mihi autem nimis (2’)
O nata lux (1’45)
O sacrum convivium (3’)
Derelinquat impius (3’15)
Dum transisset sabbatum (4’)
Honor virtus et potestas (4’)
***Interval*** (if required)
Te lucis ante terminum (1’45)
Salvator mundi (II) (2’30)
Candidi facti sunt (2’)
In ieiunio et fletu (4’)
Suscipe quaeso Domine (7’30)
Miserere nostri Domine (3’)
IX. Victoria’s Requiem
Music for the Exequies of Empress María of Hapsburg, 1603
Cast 12 singers
A reconstruction of the magnificent rites of mourning for the Empress María of Austria, one of the most influential women in sixteenth-century Europe.
Tomás Luis de Victoria, who served the Empress as Chaplain, was inspired to complete his well-loved masterwork – the six-voice Requiem – for this grand occasion, composing the music at great speed in the period of a few weeks between the Empress’s death and her exequies at the Descalzas Reales convent in Madrid.
Programme
First half
From Matins of the Dead
Circumdederunt me Cristóbal de Morales
Venite exsultemus Domino Morales
Parce mihi Domine Morales
Taedet anima mea Thome Luis de Victoria
Quis dabit capiti meo aquam Sebastián de Vivanco
Second half
Missa pro defunctis for six voices
Introit: Requiem æternam
Kyrie eleison
Gradual: Requiem æternam
Offertory: Domine Jesu Christe
Sanctus & Benedictus
Agnus Dei
Communion: Lux aeterna
Funeral motet: Versa est in luctum
Responsory: Libera me, Domine
Alonso Lobo Funeral motet: Versa est in luctum
X. ‘In the midst of life’: Music and Mortality in Tudor England
Cast 10 singers
The repertory of Latin sacred works by Tudor composers is one of the musical glories of the Renaissance, but the survival of much of that repertory has hung by a strikingly slender thread, namely a few manuscript collections of polyphony compiled late in the sixteenth century, at a time when a significant portion of the music concerned had lost its original liturgical and devotional contexts as a result of the Reformation in England. This programme presents music from the greatest of these Elizabethan manuscript compilations, the Baldwin partbooks. These partbooks present a wonderfully rich survey of Latin-texted music composed in England over several decades, and the range of religious themes encompassed by the contents is extremely wide. In this concert we perform works concerned with mortality: the fear of death and eternal torment, anticipation of the day of judgement, and the soul’s longing to meet God.
Programme
William Byrd Circumdederunt me dolores mortis
Robert Parsons Libera me Domine
William Byrd Audivi vocem de cælo
William Mundy Sive vigilem
Robert Parsons Peccantem me quotidie
John Taverner Quemadmodum
***interval***
Thomas Tallis Nunc dimittis
Dericke Gerarde Sive vigilem
Robert Parsons Credo quod redemptor meus vivit
John Sheppard Media vita
XI. The Catholic Monarchs and the devotio moderna
Cast 10 Singers
The marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile (the ‘Catholic Monarchs’) in 1469 marked the de facto unification of Spain, and their conquest of Granada in 1492 represented the final act in the centuries-long Christian reconquest of the Peninsula. Their courts became flourishing centres of humanist culture, and – in religious terms – reflected the powerful influence of the devotio moderna, heard in the texts and music of the motets composed by their court musicians such as Francisco de Peñalosa. In this motet repertory,
vivid portrayal of and intense identification with the Passion of Christ and other central religious themes such as Marian devotion forms a crucial aspect of the remarkably direct musical rhetoric, designed to reflect and project the Catholic Monarchs’ piety within the territories of their newly established dynastic union. The artistic credials of their courts were likewise displayed through the complexity and virtuosity of Mass settings reflecting the art of Northern-European composers.
Programme
Anon. Gabriel angelus
Francisco de Peñalosa Missa Ave Maria: Kyrie
Antonio de Ribera Ave Maria
Peñalosa Missa Ave Maria: Credo
Alonso de Alba O felix Maria
Peñalosa Missa Ave Maria: Sanctus
Peñalosa Sancta mater, istud agas
Peñalosa Missa Ave Maria: Agnus Dei
***Interval***
Pedro de Escobar Beatus es
Peñalosa Inter vestibulum et altare
Escobar Clamabat autem mulier
Peñalosa Precor te Domine
Peñalosa Ave vera caro Christi
Anon. Gloria
XII. Erasmus in England
Cast 12 singers
The great humanist theologian Erasmus spent three extended periods in England between 1499 and 1515, based in Oxford and Cambridge, and at the house of his close friend Thomas More. He was a highly influential figure at court and in ecclesiastical and intellectual circles, and had an enduring effect on humanism in England, and commented on the state of church music. This concert gives a taste of the musical soundscape which he would have experienced in these three English cities during his stay, by prominent composers in Oxford, in the Chapel Royal, and in the service of Cardinal Wolsey: sacred and devotional polyphony of types that became bound up in the processes of reform in which Erasmus played a crucial role.
Programme
Robert Fayrfax Aeterne laudis lilium
Richard Pygott Quid petis O fili
Richard Davy Stabat mater
***Interval***
Robert Fayrfax Ave Dei Patris filia
John Browne Jesu, mercy, how may this be
John Browne Stabat mater
top |