Programmes
Medieval England
Compared to the great collection of secular and sacred music from mainland Europe, there is very little surviving English music from
before the 15th century. Even smaller is the repertoire of English
music containing English texts only, as is the case in this programme. As is often the case, music for the church
has been preserved in far greater quantity than for courtly and other secular
settings. Oral transmission may have remained a dominant method in England,
maintained as the norm in guilds and courtly circles for which writing music
and text on paper was unnecessary. Or, perhaps, was there no courtly and lyric
tradition the way there was in other countries? This seems unlikely considering
the large number of vernacular texts (most of these texts appear without music,
but many with empty staves set above them). However, there is no corresponding
collection of secular song from England
comparable to that of the Troubadour and Trouv?re song. Any large collection of
music in England
seems to have been lost or destroyed. The surviving music is eclectic: obvious
linguistic differences appear as well as musical differences. One can not
really speak of an ?English style?. Some English-texted paraliturgical music of
the 13th century seems to have been based on similar music
containing Latin texts like, for example, some surviving one- and two-voiced
crucifixion laments. While the Latin texted versions would have been used in
church it remains a mystery where the English version fitted in. Is it possible
that the popular Mary-Masses (in some churches as many as one a day due to its
popularity) were also held in the English language? Instrumental music in England seems
the same as it was elsewhere in as much as it was probably of an oral
tradition. Moving into the 15th century, the English repertoire
becomes more prominent in European sources, among which Dunstable and Frye (who
both maintained connections to the Courts of Burgundy) are some of the more
famous composers. Of both composers we find music set to English as well as
French texts. One could conclude that it is hard to define an ?English style?
as such. The scarcities of the repertoire, as well as the regional and
linguistic differences make this difficult to define. Grand Désir?s interpretation of the repertoire has been based
on several linguistic, musical and social aspects in the 13th to 15th
centuries such as references to England?s
social structure, knowledge of the linguistic development and sources of
(mainland) ornamentation practice.