Cambridge Early Music – Festival of the Voice: Marian Consort

In this programme, The Marian Consort explores exquisite music of mourning from the Renaissance. Works by Portuguese composers living under Habsburg rule and longing for the return of the mythic King Sebastian manifest their political sentiment in their lachrymose texts, or in the case of Duarte Lobo’s Missa Veni Domine, in their suggestive choice of musical model.

Similarly, Thomas Tallis settings of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, written during the Protestant Elizabeth I’s reign, had very specific political and personal resonances for their composer: Tallis was a devout Catholic who, like his younger contemporary William Byrd, is thought to have made his religious convictions clear in his choice of words. The same is true of Robert White, Tallis’ contemporary and a prolific composer of Latin sacred music, works thought to be a channel for the beliefs he could not openly voice in Elizabethan England.