Early English Polyphony from the Eton Choirbook to Thomas Tallis

When King’s College, Cambridge was founded by King Henry VI in 1441, careful provision was made for a choral foundation of sixteen men and sixteen choristers to sing daily services in the Chapel. English worshippers of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries were generous when it came to music, making regular donations and bequests to churches and monasteries, so that masses could be sung for the salvation of their souls. It is no coincidence that the music of this era should therefore have reached new heights of richness and complexity; indeed, England was home to some of the most elaborate polyphony composed anywhere in Europe.

King’s College once owned great choirbooks which furnished the elaborate music for feast days and the major ceremonial occasions of the church year. But these precious volumes have long since disappeared – hostages to religious upheaval and the natural laws of changing taste. Yet some of the splendour of these years has been preserved in the Eton Choirbook, the largest and most valuable collection of early Tudor church music to have come down to us, and still housed at Eton College in Windsor. Its sheer size along with the lavish, illuminated script, reflect the high status of the royal institution for which it was produced. Assembled between 1490 and 1502, the manuscript contains music copied from a variety of sources, probably including the lost choirbooks of Eton’s sister foundation.

This double album includes two recordings never published before: Robert Hacomplaynt’s Marian Antiphon: Salve Regina, and Robert Fayrfax’s Magnificat ‘Regale’, both from the Eton Choirbook. The other recordings in the album include works from the Early English Polyphony era, by composers John Taverner, Christopher Tye, Thomas Morley and last but not least Thomas Tallis.