“Weeping may endure for a night,” says the Psalmist, “but joy cometh in the morning.” This age-old consolation sums up our program, one that considers darkness and light, and their sacred analogues of penitence and joy. Alongside the emotionally charged and exquisitely crafted sacred music of Tudor England sits music commissioned by The Tallis Scholars from three of the most celebrated American composers of our age, casting new light (and shadows) on this theme.

The biblical Lamentations of Jeremiah were written in response to a defining event in the history of the Judean people: the sack of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple around 586 BCE that presaged the exile of the Jews into captivity in Babylon. Like other contemporary literature, including perhaps the Book of Job, Lamentations at once bemoans and rationalizes the suffering of the people. According to the author, the city was destroyed because its people were sinful; for things to be made right, they must “return to the Lord their God.”

In the time of Elizabeth I, and perhaps because of the “fashionable melancholy” that pervaded late-Tudor culture, settings of the Lamentations were very popular. Though liturgically these lessons were appointed to be read in Holy Week, settings such as Robert White’s were more likely intended for private devotional performances in the home.

Composers were drawn to the particular character of the text, which in the original Hebrew takes the form of an acrostic poem. It was customary in polyphonic musical settings to retain the Hebrew letters with which each verse begins (Caph., Lamed., and Mem.). The setting of these letters, quite meaningless on their own, enabled composers to indulge in a sort of “pure” polyphony that has been described as “ritualized weeping in music.” White’s setting must have been very popular at the time; it is included in multiple contemporary partbook collections, including those of Robert Dow, who praises White in the following encomium:

 

Greatest glory of our muses, White,
You perish, but your muse remains for ever.

 

sun-centered was co-commissioned for The Tallis Scholars, and first performed by the ensemble in 2022. In this piece, American composer David Lang explores the idea of light; both the physical light of the Sun, and the light of knowledge, always under threat by those who are resistant to ideas that challenge received wisdom. He does this through the story of Galileo, who—accused of blasphemy for showing that the Earth orbits the Sun and not the other way around—was famously said to utter the phrase “e pur si muove” (“and yet it moves”).

In his typically thorough approach, Lang approach disassembles, atomizes, and recombines existing texts, and then he sets the fragments within a musical framework that is open, minimal, and often bracingly direct. His paraphrases move beyond Galileo to encompass Francis Bacon, the Psalms, and Plato’s Republic, all in the service of a central question: “Why is it that we are so resistant to new ideas that challenge the ones we already know?” Though the work begins and ends with Galileo, voiced by a baritone soloist, the inner movements connect his efforts to a universal theme: the struggle of truth-tellers against dogmatic authority.

Nico Muhly’s “Recordare, Domine” was commissioned by The Tallis Scholars in 2013. Sixteenth-century composers have long been a source of inspiration for Muhly, who adopts one of their favorite texts: the Lamentations. Over long, held notes, spare harmonies arise, reminiscent of Arvo Pärt. Insistent repetitions of recordare underpin a more mobile section in which vocal lines overlap and rub against each other. A long, held tritone provides unsettling accompaniment to the words “cervicibus nostris” (“with a yoke on our necks”). Finally, the upper voices divide, singing the refrain “Jerusalem” one after another, before the piece quietly retreats, as if worn out by grief.

The name Sainte-Chapelle immediately signals a concern with light—a reference to the stunning 13th-century, stained-glass–dominated chapel of the French kings. Eric Whitacre sets a Latin text by long-term collaborator Charles Anthony Silvestri in which the protagonist is an “innocent girl”—perhaps the Virgin Mary—who encounters God with awe and wonder. Her singing mingles with that of angels singing out of the windows of the chapel, until eventually “her voice becomes light.” Plainchant is an obvious inspiration for the meandering vocal lines, evoking a sense of timelessness that marries well with Whitacre’s love of rich choral sonority.

“Ave Maria” is Parsons’s most famous composition, not only today but probably in his own lifetime too; collector Robert Dow, having copied it into his partbooks, was moved to write Musica laetificat corda at the end: “Music rejoices the heart.” Its gently unfolding texture, in which the simple treble line rises with each new entry, concludes movingly with wave upon wave of imitative amen.

The conclusion of our exploration of light and dark finds us among the Saints, who many Christians believe enjoy eternal bliss in the light of heaven, with Christ and Mary. The four motets given here are those assigned to be sung for the Feast of All Saints on November 1. Their author is William Byrd, whose Gradualia represents a complete cycle of music for the feast days of the Catholic year. Set for five voices, they offer great stylistic variety, from the exuberance of the Introit “Gaudeamus omnes” and the Gradual “Timete Dominum,” to the reflective and penitential “Iustorum animae,” and the cumulative blessings, each one adding a further voice, of the Communion “Beati mundo corde.”


—James M. Potter