John Taverner

His Life and Music

Hugh Benham

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351561518
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

John Taverner was the leading composer of church music under Henry VIII. His contributions to the mass and votive antiphon are varied, distinguished and sometimes innovative; he has left more important settings for the office than any of his predecessors, and even a little secular music survives. Hugh Benham, editor of Taverner's complete works for Early English Church Music, now provides the first full-length study of the composer for over twenty years. He places the music in context, with the help of biographical information, discussion of Taverner's place in society, and explanation of how each piece was used in the pre-Reformation church services. He investigates the musical language of Taverner's predecessors as background for a fresh examination and appraisal of the music in the course of which he traces similarities with the work of younger composers. Issues confronting the performer are considered, and the music is also approached from the listener's point of view, initially through close analytical inspection of the celebrated votive antiphon Gaude plurimum.

Chapter 1
The Life of John Taverner

In 1524 John Taverner from Tattershall in Lincolnshire visited the Church of St Botolph in nearby Boston as a guest singer. Not long afterwards he accepted a much more important invitation, to become instructor of the choristers at the newly-founded Cardinal College, Oxford. In the 1530s he settled in Boston, at first continuing to work as a musician. He prospered, and eventually served as one of the aldermen of the newly-incorporated borough for a few months before his death in October 1545.

Although, as this very brief outline suggests, biographical information is limited – we know nothing of his activities before 1524 – more can be learned about Taverner than about any earlier English musician. For example, little is recorded of Robert Fayrfax, the most highly regarded composer of the preceding generation, beyond his presence at certain important state occasions and various payments made to him. But in Taverner’s case we have three letters in his own hand, while other contemporary letters and legal documents give further indications of his activities and perhaps even the odd glimpse of his character, pointing to a man well regarded by his contemporaries and possessed of considerable business sense.

It is tempting to believe that there are clues to his physical appearance in drawings at the head of the mass Gloria tibi Trinitas in five of the Forrest-Heyther partbooks (Ob Mus. Sch. E. 376–80), but these may not have been intended to represent him or anyone else. Two of the drawings are shown in Plates 1 and 2.

John Taverner appears to have come from south Lincolnshire, but there is no indication of his parentage: indeed the surname Taverner was uncommon in that area.¹ According to one of his own letters, he was related to the Yerburghs, a well-to-do Lincolnshire family.² He may also have been connected with a less prosperous family of Taverners who lived at Tattershall, but the William who made a will in 1556 was not necessarily his brother.³ John was sometimes referred to as ‘of Boston’,⁴ but this may mean only that he lived there in later years. As a boy he may well have been a chorister in a large choral institution such as Tattershall Collegiate Church (although he is not named in the incomplete records for 1492–1507)⁵ or St Botolph’s in Boston.

Taverner was probably born in the 1490s rather than in the 1470s or 1480s, because important works began to appear only in manuscripts of the 1520s. He had established enough of a reputation by 1525 to be invited to serve as instructor of the choristers at Cardinal College, which suggests that he was born no later than about 1495. William Taverner his brother was said to be ‘forty years and more’ in October 1546, but this conventional expression need not have meant ‘in his forties’ with a date of birth between 1497 and 1506: he could have been in his fifties.⁶

1 Ornamental capital E in Ob Mus. Sch. E. 377, with the beginning of the cantus firmus of the mass Gloria tibi Trinitas

The John Taverner who joined the Fraternity of St Nicholas, the London Guild of Parish Clerks, in 1514⁷ was not the composer. While the guild’s bede roll, a list of people to be prayed for, does contain the names of some eminent composers, John and his wife Agnes appear in a section reserved for non-musicians.⁸ At least one John Taverner who was not a musician is known to have lived in London at that time;⁹ and there is no other reason to connect the composer with the capital in the early or mid 1510s.

John Taverner was a professional musician until the 1530s. All three institutions at which he worked offered extensive opportunities for the performance and composition of sacred music, although all references to his musical life concern his activities as a singer or teacher, not as a composer. Composing seems not to have been regarded as a primary or even an important requirement in a church musician.¹⁰

2 Ornamental capital H in Ob Mus. Sch. E. 379, with the beginning of the tenor part of the mass Gloria tibi Trinitas

It is not known how long before 1524 Taverner joined the choir of Tattershall Collegiate Church.¹¹ In May 1525, when the bishop of Lincoln’s chancellor conducted a visitation,¹² he was still one of the adult singers, or clerk fellows (but there is nothing to indicate which part he sang). His yearly salary was £6. He would have received £2 more if, as seems likely, he was organist or instructor of the choristers.¹³

Tattershall was a more important centre than the present-day visitor might imagine. In the early 1400s the manor had belonged to Ralph, third baron Cromwell, a member of the Council of Regents in Henry VI’s reign and Treasurer of England from 1433 to 1443; it was he who enlarged the castle, founded a grammar school and an almshouse, and rebuilt the parish church.¹⁴ The new collegiate foundation was intended to have seven chaplains, six lay clerks and six boy choristers, the clerks and choristers forming a choir capable of regularly singing polyphony. By the early sixteenth century the choir was larger, with up to ten clerks and ten choristers, large numbers by contemporary standards.

The daily pattern of services and other devotions was extensive. According to the statutes of c.1460, it began as early as five o’clock in the morning on weekdays, with the choristers saying Matins and hours of the Virgin. The final act of the day was a votive antiphon after Vespers and Compline sung by the choristers at the image of the Virgin in the Lady Chapel. Two masses and the services of Prime, Terce, Sext and None were said, but Matins, High Mass, Vespers and Compline were sung, as was the Litany on most Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. It was only at the Lady Mass that the statutes expressly required polyphony, assuming that the expression ‘cum cantu organico et organis’ means ‘in polyphony and with organ’. By the 1490s the choir possessed settings of the Mass ordinary, votive antiphons and other pieces with special ceremonial, particularly for Holy Week and Easter. So if Taverner had been admitted as a boy he would have enjoyed an excellent musical upbringing. Later there was much to engage him as a singer and as a composer.

In 1526 Taverner moved from Tattershall to become informator choristarum (instructor of the choristers) at the newly-founded Cardinal College in Oxford. As at Tattershall, choristers were the boy singers, not the men, who were termed clerks: Taverner was first among equals so far as they were concerned. It was presumably to the Cardinal College post that John Baldwin referred in the partbook Och 983: the votive antiphon Gaude plurimum is attributed there to ‘mr john tavernar of cardinall wolsayes chappell who died at bostone and there lieth’. Taverner is not known to have sung in Wolsey’s household chapel, although some temporary association is possible.¹⁵

The founder of the college, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, had entrusted the recruitment of the choir and its instructor to the bishop of Lincoln, John Longland, in whose diocese Oxford then was. It appears from Wolsey’s letter of 4 September 1525 that Longland had arranged for some priests and singers to begin residence by 25 March 1526, even though the opening of the college had been deferred ‘till about the feast of Saint Frideswide’, 19 October 1526.¹⁶ So far no instructor had been appointed, for Longland had been unsuccessful in his approach to Hugh Aston (c.1485–1558) of Leicester. It is not surprising that Aston was initially preferred to Taverner, as he was probably some years Taverner’s senior, and was a Bachelor of Music of the University of Oxford.¹⁷ Longland then called for Taverner, perhaps on the strength of good reports from the recent Tattershall visitation. But again there was an unfavourable answer, as Longland informed Wolsey on 17 October 1525:

It may please you to understand [that] Taverner, a singing man whom I sent for by virtue of the king’s commission to have been informator of the children of your chapel in your honourable college at Oxford (who no doubt of [it] is very meet for the same), I can in no wise have his good will thereunto. He allegeth the assurance and profit of his living at Tattershall: and that he is in way of a good marriage which he should lose if he did remove from thence.¹⁸

Taverner’s reluctance may have resulted from caution or diffidence, but more probably he was trying to drive a hard bargain. Longland’s temporary solution was to recommend the choice of someone from Wolsey’s own household chapel. He outlined what was required of the man appointed:

It shall be meet for him that your Grace will appoint … to have both his breast at will [a good singing voice], the handling of an instrument, pleasure, cunning and exercise in teaching, and to be there four or five days before your appointed day [for officially opening the college], for the ordering of his children, to feel them, to know them, and to be acquainted with such songs as shall be the day of solemnity there sung.

Perhaps pressure was brought to bear on Taverner, or additional incentives caused him to change his mind. He must have been tempted by the prospect of working with twelve clerks and sixteen choristers, and was involved in recruiting singers from Boston by May 1526.¹⁹ He would have taken up residence in time for the official opening in October.²⁰ His annual salary was £10, but he received allowances for food and clothing that brought his total pay to more than £14, much more than a clerk at Tattershall received.²¹

Expectations of Taverner would have been high in an institution that seemed set to outshine all other colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. The Protestant martyrologist John Foxe, no admirer of Wolsey, praised the new institution:

This ambitious cardinal gathered together into that college whatsoever excellent thing there was in the whole realm … Besides that, he also appointed unto that company all such men as were found to excel in any kind of learning and knowledge [including] Taverner of Boston, the good musician.²²

And on 2 April 1528 Thomas Cromwell was able to write to Wolsey that ‘your chapel … [is] most devoutly and virtuously ordered, and the ministers within the same not only diligent in the service of God, but also the service daily done within the same so devout, solemn, and full of harmony, that in mine opinion it hath few peers’.²³ This degree of diligence had not always existed, however. In February 1527 it had been necessary for the dean to ask for an additional statute to discourage absenteeism among ‘the ministers of the chapel [chaplains and clerks], for diverse of them are very negligent, and often absent, especially from Matins and the Mass of Requiem’, and to introduce fines for those who missed services.²⁴ This may not imply slackness on Taverner’s part, for his authority was over the boy choristers only.

The pattern of daily services and devotions²⁵ was broadly similar to that of Tattershall Collegiate Church, but even more extensive, with more singing. For although the Office of the Virgin was still said by the choristers, all parts of the daily Office, including Terce, Sext and None, were sung. The expressions ‘cum nota’ and ‘cum cantu’ (‘with note’ and ‘with singing’) imply the use of plainsong, whereas at the Lady Mass and for votive antiphons polyphony (‘intorto cantu’) was demanded. Particularly remarkable was the requirement for three votive antiphons after Vespers and Compline, one each to the Trinity, the Virgin and St William of York, and for a further three at seven o’clock in the evening.

The college statutes also demanded that the instructor, who must be a man very skilled in music, should teach his choristers the art of music as well as instruct them: in other words, both theoretical and practical guidance were expected. The following translation gives some indication of Taverner’s duties:

The instructor of the choristers is not obliged to be present at the divine offices [services such as daily Matins and Vespers] on non-feast days, on feasts on which the choir is not ruled, and on other days when commemorations²⁶ are observed (which we require to be four, namely of the Trinity, of St Mary, of All Saints and of St Frideswide); but we require that at those times he diligently instructs and teaches his choristers music. On all remaining days and feasts however, the said instructor is obliged to be present with his choristers at all services from beginning to end (so many of the choristers as in the judgement of the dean seem to suffice for Matins, Mass, the procession and Vespers); unless, for a reason which must be approved by the dean, sub-dean or precentor, he happens to be absent. In this case we require that he provides at his own expense another who is willing and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Plates
• List of Tables
• List of Music Examples
• List of Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Life of John Taverner
• 2 The Sources of Taverner's Music
• 3 Some Performance Issues
• 4 Music and Worship, with a Catalogue of Taverner's Work
• 5 Taverner's Musical Background
• 6 Taverner's Style and Technique: Gaude plurimum
• 7 Ave Dei Patris filia and Ο splendor gloriae
• 8 Mater Christi, Ο Christe Jesu pastor bone and the Incomplete Antiphons
• 9 The Masses Gloria tibi Trinitas, Corona spinea and Ο Michael
• 10 The Masses for Five and Four Voices
• 11 Music for the Office
• 12 The Songs, and Quemadmodum
• 13 Conclusion
• Appendixes
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Discography
• Index