Following last week’s live rehearsal we are going to revise Byrd Ave Verum. It is one of our standard repertoire pieces that we haven’t done for a while; at least four of you haven’t sung it with us. As you know I have fondness for polyphonic music. In my opinion Byrd is the most skilful of the English Tudor composers and this little motet is a fine example of his skill.

Read the text and its translation.

Ave, verum corpus natum de Maria Virgine: vere passum, immolatum in cruce pro homine: cuius latus perforatum unda fluxit sanguine: esto nobis praegustatum, in mortis examine. O dulcis, O pie, O Jesu Fili Mariae. Miserere mei. Amen.

Hail the true body, born of the Virgin Mary: You who truly suffered and were sacrificedon the cross for the sake of man. From whose pierced flank flowed water and blood: Be a foretaste for usin the trial of death. O sweet, O merciful, O Jesus, Son of Mary. Have mercy on me. Amen.

Now watch and compare this performance by the Tallis Scholars with this one by The Sixteen. They are quite different; which is your preference? I reveal mine at the end of the rehearsal video.

Here is a short analysis:

The text is a Gradual for the Feast of Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ). Corpus Christi is commemorated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday and is thanksgiving for Holy Communion. This text is a personal prayer addressed to Christ. It needs to sung intimately and reverently but not without emotion.

Unusually, Byrd doesn’t set the text as an unbroken whole. The five phrases of the prayer are separated by rests. I wonder whether Byrd envisaged the rests to be rhymical or more fluid, general pauses. It would certainly raise eyebrows to sing them as such and would draw attention to the structure – we’ll try it sometime.

I love that fact that when you listen most of it sounds homophonic (as if all the voices are singing the same words at the same time). Byrd starts and finishes the phrases together but, very subtly after two or three syllables at least one of the voices diverges. In the first phrase it is the tenor and then the bass; the second, the tenor and alto; the third, the soprano followed by three bars of imitation and in the fourth, the tenor then alto and bass.

The repeated section (bars 29-43) deals in threes; an oblique reference to the Holy Trinity – Corpus Christi falls in the week after Trinity Sunday. You have the three invocations – O sweet, O merciful, O Jesus; three repetitions of O Jesu fili Mariae (soprano and bass bar 30, alto bar 31 and tenor bar 32) then nine (3×3) imitations of Miserere mei from bar 36 onwards – alto and tenor (36), bass (37),soprano (37), alto (38), tenor (38), alto (39), soprano (40), bass (40) and tenor (41). The Kyrie eleison  (Lord, have mercy) in the Mass has nine repetitions and the Agnus Dei also has three phrases. Reminder: Corpus Christi is a thanksgiving for the Eucharist.

Ave verum maybe a short motet but there is much symbolism and meaning in every phrase. Look at the way that the word fluxit (flows) is set with an imitating downward motif; the word perforatum (pierced) starts suddenly and contains one of the few discords (bar 18 beat 1) in the piece. Notice the moments when important words are repeated or there is a bit of melisma – for the sake of man (12-15); the trial of death (26-8); son of Mary (33-5); have mercy on me (36-43). Bear in mind that Byrd was a devout Catholic. He had to worship in secret, hiding from the newly protestant authorities.

Please watch and participate in this video rehearsal. You will need The Oxford Book of Tudor Anthems and this sheet of technical exercises.

When we next rehearse this live we’ll try and put it all together.