Review of The Marian Consort: Delighting the People - A Jacobean Christmas
As part of Cambridge Early Music’s 30th Anniversary celebrations, distinguished vocal ensemble the Marian Consort presented music by early English composers written and performed specifically for the feast of Christmas.
A setting by Orlando Gibbons ‘See, see the word is incarnate’ was especially appropriate in the evening’s programme, given that Christmas is the festival of God manifesting himself in the body of Christ – ‘the word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.’
The Marian Consort gave a lovely rendition of this text which narrates in essence the whole life of Christ from his birth through to his resurrection, ascension and glorification in Paradise.
The Consort performed a piece by John Amner, for us in Cambridge a local, who was born in Ely and became both clergyman and organist in the Cathedral there. ‘O ye little flock’ follows the infancy narrative of St Luke and focuses on the role of the shepherds in the story.
Pastoral, the oldest literary genre is about the innocence, simplicity and essential goodness of the shepherd’s life, and derives from Latin ‘pascere’ to feed. Shepherds were the first to hear the word of God, and Christ himself is the ‘good shepherd’, the pastor who feeds his own flock.
The piece concludes with a repetition of ‘Holy, holy’, deriving from ‘holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory’ from Isaiah in the Old Testament, anticipating Christmas, Christ’s coming, in the New.
The Consort included William Byrd in their programme because, although he is not strictly speaking a ‘Jacobean’, Director Rory McCleery reminded us that this year is the 400th anniversary of his death.
Byrd’s ‘Lullaby’ is one of several examples of its genre which also appeared in the Consort’s performances of a deeply devotional anonymous lullaby, ‘Sweet was the song,’ and in Martin Peerson’s ‘Upon my lap,’ all of them beautifully and emotively sung. The Lullaby, a simple, repetitive ‘cradle song’ whose primary aim is to encourage an infant to fall asleep, is an ancient genre which exists in all cultures.
And of course the mesmeric effect of the glorious music to which we were listening was purposefully designed to encourage us to dwell upon all the texts we were hearing. The melodious ‘An Earthly Tree’, for example, invites reflection on the tree of knowledge from which Adam ate the forbidden fruit, now replaced by the earthly tree of the Cross which bore a redemptive ‘fruit’ in the ‘second Adam’.
The ancient liturgies of the Church were communicated through the senses, through the music of figures such as Byrd which attempts to imagine the very sound of heaven, just as, for example, doom paintings on the walls of churches allowed the illiterate to see not read what might happen to them if they made the wrong choices.
The Lullaby could also carry an intrinsic melancholia, which is true of Peerson’s work whose plaintive repetition (echoed effectively from a distant voice of the Consort’s) of ‘my little boy’, the tender infant, is a reminder that redemption (meaning ‘to buy back’– emere, to buy) could be achieved only at the greatest cost of all to our Redeemer.
For the contemporary world view which tended to think in terms of hierarchies (e.g. The lion as the first of animals, the eagle the first of birds, the King the first of men), any disruption of such order usually foretold disaster (the word itself means a displaced or falling star, not a good sign). So ‘Upon my lap my sovereign sits’ invites reflection on a radical disruption in the order of things, but here in a good way.
Christmas of course, the celebratory Christian festival which assimilated ancient mid-winter merrymakings, was recognised in much of the evening’s offerings for ‘Delighting the People’ - William Byrd’s ‘Cast off all doubtful care’ with its jolly dancing measure, and his ‘This day Christ was born’ a rhythmically charged carol for Christmas Day, Thomas Weelkes exultant ‘Gloria’ and Orlando Gibbons’ ‘Behold I bring you Glad Tidings’, a verse anthem for Advent, the four weeks in advance of Christmas.
Orlando Gibbons’ was a cue for some time-honoured participation in his very Christmassy sounding ‘The Angels’ Song’, while ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’ was the Consort’s gift of an encore to a most appreciative audience.
Let’s delight that this glorious music which has persisted down the centuries continues to be in safekeeping with gifted and perfectionist devotees such as The Marian Consort. Although they may not have been led to it as the magi of John Bull’s complex and lovely ‘The Star Anthem’ were led to the manger, they are the inheritors and custodians of a priceless legacy which, were it ever to be lost, would leave us all infinitely the poorer.
JOHN GILROY
