Illustrissima omnium - John Sheppard

Illustrissima omnium is one of three fragments from a much larger, lost pre-reformation 'votive antiphon'; a genre of large-scale catholic music. The longest might last 20’ or more, and the stamina of both singers and listeners was sustained by periodic changes of scoring, from a few soloists to large-scale tutti sections.
Votive antiphons continued to circulate among under Elizabeth I, but very few private individuals had the means to pay a choir to sing them complete. So, old Latin anthems were often dismembered: their five- or six-part tutti were discarded, and the modest counter-verses copied into small partbook sets for three-or-four voices or instruments, or arranged for one singer plus lute.
This fate befell one of Sheppard’s antiphons from the mid-1550s. Its grand choruses are all lost: all we have are three counter-verses. We can deduce their original order. Illustrissima omnium must have come first: it is in triple time (the standard mensuration for the first half of an antiphon).
After 1558 Sheppard’s antiphon was scattered in fragments. All three sections found their way to the household of the Norfolk Catholic, Edward Paston (1550-1630). A tireless collector of old Latin polyphony, Paston was responsible for preserving most of the disjecta membra that survive today. The Sheppard fragments were in the hoard of Henrician antiphon extracts intabulated in the Paston lutebook, British Library Additional MS 29246; they are also in a Paston three partbook set (Royal College of Music, MS 2035); and Singularis privilegii is copied in old-style choirbook layout in another Paston book (Bodleian Library, MS Tenbury 342: see overleaf). Another recipient was the singer-copyist, John Baldwin of Windsor, who copied Illustrissima omnium into his commonplace book (BL, RM 24 d 2).

Copyright Professor Magnus Williamson. 2021. Tudor Music Afterlives Exhibition Catalogue.

A collaboration between Newcastle University and Ensemble Pro Victoria.

Elisabeth Paul - alto
Oscar Golden-Lee - tenor
Piers Kennedy - bass
Toby Carr - lute