Western Wind: Mass by John Taverner & Court Music for Henry VIII (2016)

performed by Charles Daniels (tenor), Emily van Evera (soprano), Kirsty Whatley (harp), Steven Devine (harpsichord), Taverner Players, Uri Smilansky (recorder), Uri Smilansky (viol), Taverner Choir (choir, chorus), Andrew Parrott (conductor)
composed by Anonymous, Anonymous, English, English Traditional, Gregorian Chant, Henry VIII, King of England, Hugh Aston, John Taverner, William Cornysh

What you have here is a well-performed sampling of music from England in the early 16th century. Because of the way the program is organized, the listener's mind may try to organize it into something more coherent than that, but it may not succeed. The centerpiece is the Western Wind Mass of John Taverner, which is broken up with secular pieces and then followed by music that might have been heard at the court of Henry VIII. This doesn't correspond to any program that would have been heard in Henry's time; chant and ... Read More

What you have here is a well-performed sampling of music from England in the early 16th century. Because of the way the program is organized, the listener's mind may try to organize it into something more coherent than that, but it may not succeed. The centerpiece is the Western Wind Mass of John Taverner, which is broken up with secular pieces and then followed by music that might have been heard at the court of Henry VIII. This doesn't correspond to any program that would have been heard in Henry's time; chant and polyphonic sacred pieces, not secular songs, would have been interspersed among the sections of a mass. The justification given for this procedure is that Taverner's mass is exceptional among English masses for using a secular cantus firmus, but this doesn't quite explain why secular pieces should be mixed into it. The good news is that much of the music, taken on its own terms, is exceptionally beautiful. Sample the limpid pastoral song You and I and Amyas of William Cornysh (track 12),... Read Less