This programme paints a colourful portrait of the extravagant and expressive musical devotions to the Virgin Mary prevalent in late-medieval England. Mary was the most celebrated divine figure after Christ during this period, and in England it was common in countless institutions for the choir to sing elaborate, large-scale polyphonic works called votive antiphons in dedication to the Virgin at the end of the day. The programme features three such works, of which two are drawn from the Eton Choirbook: Salve regina by Richard Hygons (c.1435-1509), a composer based at Wells Cathedral; and a neglected setting of the Stabat mater dolorosa, a pained reflection on the events of the Crucifixion through Mary’s eyes, by the Oxford-based composer Richard Davy (c.1464-1538). At the core of the programme, and providing its title, is the Chapel Royal composer Robert Fayrfax’s (1464-1521) Eterne laudis lilium, composed around Easter in 1502 on commission from Elizabeth of York, wife of King Henry VII.

Interspersed amongst these larger works are several Marian plainsongs drawn from early sixteenth-century English sources and two short polyphonic settings of Stella celi, a text petitioning Mary for protection from the plague. 

 

Nick Walters