Thomas Morley, II, Services, and: Consort, Full, and Verse Anthems, and: Selected Anthems and Motet Recompositions (review)

Thomas Morley. II, Services. Transcribed and edited by John Morehen. (Early English Church Music, 41.) London: Published for the British Academy by Stainer and Bell, c1998. [Foreword, 1 p.; acknowledgments, 1 p.; introd., p. ix-xiii; score, 101 p.; sources, p. 103-4; crit. commentary, p. 105-18. Cloth. ISMN M-2202-1887-3; ISBN 0-85249-842-X. £45.]

Matthew Jeffries. Consort, Full, and Verse Anthems. Edited by John Cannell. (Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance, 113.) Madison, Wisc.: A-R Editions, c1998. [Abbrevs. and sigla, p. vi-vii; acknowledgments, p. viii; introd., p. ix-xv; texts, p. xvii; 3 plates; score, 116 p.; crit. report, p. 119-29; appendix, p. 131-35. ISBN 0-89579-413-6. $51.95.]

Henry Aldrich. Selected Anthems and Motet Recompositions. Edited by Robert Shay. (Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 85.) Madison, Wisc.: A-R Editions, c1998. [Acknowledgments, p. vi; introd., p. vii-xi; texts, p. xiii-xiv; 5 plates; score, 116 p.; crit. report, p. 117-20. ISBN 0-89579-393-8. $45.]

Each of these volumes of church music by Thomas Morley (1557 or 1558-1602), Matthew Jeffries (ca. 1558-ca. 1615), and Henry Aldrich (1648-1710) is a valuable addition to the musician's library, and each one contains a splendid introduction. Stainer and Bell and A-R Editions have well served editors John Morehen, John Cannell, and Robert Shay, with each edition being beautifully printed and presented --and commendably with few mistakes. (In m. 15 of the Venite in Morley's First Service, the sharp in the organ part precedes F rather than D, while the A in the organ part in m. 28 of the Nunc dimittis from Morley's Short Service should not be there at all; these are presumably computer errors and should mislead no one.) The editorial work in Shay's Aldrich edition raises some problems, with details to follow. The music itself is excellent in the Morley and Jeffries volumes, though "interesting" would perhaps be a more accurate description of Aldrich's output.

Morehen's work on Morley is well known, and his edition of Morley's services as volume 41 of Early English Church Music completes his edition of this composer's church music (the preceding volume of English anthems and liturgical music [1991] is vol. 38 in the series). Morehen's work is an absolute model of how things should be done--scrupulously careful scholarship demonstrating a sophisticated knowledge of the sources and the style of the period--and scholars and students will greatly welcome this edition. In his introduction to the volume, Morehen discusses the apparent confusion among the various sources, and the fact that features otherwise assumed to be head motives (or tail motives) in one service are liable to crop up in another, which is certainly unusual. It is tempting to take a frequently found device (a 6-5 progression over A followed by a 6-5 over G, or something similar) as a further unifying factor, although in the end it seems to be no more than a cliché, turning up again in Jeffries's music (at mm. 9-10 of In Thee, O Lord, for example). Morley's objection to "English cadences," against which he rails in A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (1597), is as well known as is the fact that he nevertheless wrote them himself. The music in the volume of services provides a host of examples to show that Morley did not always practice what he preached--although he does follow his own advice not to write laughably obvious text illustration, for at "The sharpness of death" (mm. 90-91) in the Te Deum of the First Service he avoids abnormal sharps, even though many of his contemporaries indulge in "eye-music" for these words.

There is other evidence of the influence of Anglican music by Morley's forebears: his...