The Gray Monk

« If God had intended us to fly .... ? | Main | A Discworld feature »

March 26, 2004

The Queen's Music

I have caved in. I bought myself a DVD. No ordinary DVD, this, it is a specially produced one for the BBC and features the Tallis Scholars singing the music of Elizabeth the First's favourite Master of the Queen’s Musick – William Byrd. Why did I buy it? Well, one reason is that it is a film of the Scholars singing in the Abbey Church of St Mary the Virgin, Tewkesbury. Yes, I am biased, but the photography and the atmospheric lighting are absolutely stunning.

As I listen to the fantastic music I am also getting a “history of the reformation”. You see, Byrd, said by many to be the greatest English composer of any age, was a Roman Catholic. Yet he has left a legacy of the most stunning music for the Church of England.

It is an interesting fact that Queen Elizabeth – Gloriana to her poets – was a major influence in watering down the excesses of some of her more zealous reformers. It was she who, while allowing them to strip altars and move them into the 1554 position “in the midst of the quire and placed lengthwise” with the Minister “standing upon the North side”, kept her own chapels in the more traditional style and the altars adorned. It was she, too, that would allow no charge to be brought against Byrd for his refusal to attend “Protestant” worship. This was an age, remember, that had turned loose a bunch of iconoclasts who declared that organ music was an offence to God, that any image in a church encouraged idolatry, that veneration of the Virgin Mary was anathema, and that the wearing of any vestments was Papist and an offence in the eyes of God.

It was these men who destroyed tomb effigies, smashed stained glass windows, and encouraged mobs to attack any they suspected of being secretly Catholic. Yet, despite all their efforts to indict William Byrd, the Queen always frustrated their intentions. Interestingly, she also wrote anthems for worship and asked Byrd to set them to music. In this she was herself playing a dangerous game of state, since popular opinion, ably inflamed by the protestant iconoclasts from various pulpits, equated Catholic with Traitor. This was particularly so after Philip II of Spain’s abortive Armada threat. In fact, he actually sent seven; the Great Armada of 1588 being but the largest assembled and was, in fact, only the fifth.

During Elizabeth’s reign, Byrd flourished and enjoyed her protection, despite being a “Papist” and having to work within some of the strictures of the more zealously protestant clergy. At Lincoln he was forbidden to play the organ – he could use it only to give the choir a note, yet he still managed to write some stunning music for that choir – and, of course, for many more.

The DVD I have bought is available I expect from most good music stores. It’s title is “Playing Elizabeth’s Tune” and you will need something I don’t have – a good DVD player capable of reproducing the stunning surround sound in stereo which can reproduce accurately the fantastic sound due to the incredible acoustics of the great stone choir and nave of our great Abbey Church.

I hope you will forgive me this blatant commercial, but I just had to share this with someone. Even on my laptop and Windows Media Player – the graphics, video, and the singing are fantastic. I will now have to go out and get a proper DVD player.

Posted by The Gray Monk at March 26, 2004 07:22 PM

Comments

Posted by: MommaBear at March 27, 2004 12:06 PM