Lighten Mine Eyes

A fascination for the music of William Lawes is not something to be taken lightly by anyone who plays the viol. For Lawes, one of the last great generation of composers for the viol consort, wrote contrapuntal 5- and 6-part works of immense complexity, far less approachable than other, older pieces by such as William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons, which offer young viol players a more practical tool with which to learn their apprenticeship in this chamber music form. As a culminating point of this intimate musical genre, William Lawes’ consort music is aimed at more experienced musicians, while also providing an enhanced insight into the composer’s overflowing imagination.

As for his vocal output, I first came across it by chance in 2018, when the album Perpetual Night was issued by the Ensemble Correspondances. That was how, in all innocence, I discovered some of his compositions for voice, unaware how much they would come to fascinate me. In 2021, on hearing again his Music, the master of thy art is dead, something clicked inside me. Composed for the death of John Tomkins, organist of the Chapel Royal and half-brother to the celebrated Welsh-born composer Thomas Tomkins, in it William Lawes pays homage to one whom he ranks as ‘the master’ of the art of music. Listening intently to this elegiac lament stimulated and deepened my interest in his vocal music. I wondered if it was an isolated one-off, or whether there were other pieces of his written for the same line-up, and resolved to engage in further research on the subject. I immediately stumbled on a goldmine: Gordon J. Callon’s publication of the complete vocal works of William Lawes. As soon as all three volumes had arrived from the US, I read through Vol. 3, the one dedicated to sacred music, with the excitement of a traveller who finally glimpses an unknown but long dreamed of landscape, whose contours he has not even been able to imagine as it has never yet been photographed. One afternoon at my parents’ house, sitting at an upright piano I worked my way through dozens of other psalms for three voices and basso continuo that had evidently never been recorded, a new, unknown repertoire, of extraordinary beauty… and so Lighten mine eies came into being.

William Lawes, born in 1602, is often confused with his elder brother Henry, thanks to whom William was able to join the court of King Charles I, obtaining in 1635 the post of singer and lutenist. Both brothers contributed equally to the development of the English musical language in vocal music, composing numerous declamatory songs in which a degree of freedom and lyricism are developed, enabled by the use of a continuo part, and already prefiguring the characteristics of English opera. It is this song repertoire of theirs, illustrated in our album by Whiles I this standing lake, that most strongly shows the similarities of style between the two Lawes brothers, who left behind a body of work that appears to have inspired the type of theatre music composed by Henry Purcell’s predecessors, such as Matthew Locke and John Blow.

It was during the 1630s that William Lawes composed the greatest part of his chamber music output and his finest songs. The success of his pieces made him rapidly become one of the major English musicians of the period, enabling to engage with the world of theatre as well as that of courtly festive entertainments to which he also frequently contributed, such as the masque The Triumph of Peace. His songs Love I obey and O My Clarissa were probably written for one of these lavish courtly allegories. They illustrate the repertoire of popular songs, which had its golden age during the reign of Elizabeth I, and was still an established way for musicians to find fame.

In the song Love I obey, the ritornello passage of diminutions that I have composed for viol and violin follows the harmonic progression of another song by William Lawes, Can beauty’s spring. I have also provided the viol part for Whiles I this standing lake, as well as the vocal diminutions for two other songs.

The music that William Lawes wrote during his brief but brilliant career is transfixed by many flashes of genius, astonishing the ear with its harmonic and contrapuntal daring. It presents a synthesis between the polyphonic Elizabethan style inherited from Renaissance composers, the Seconda Pratica and basso continuo style of Italian origin, as well as the French dance suite, while also being seriously forward-looking. The Harp Consorts illustrate remarkably well his eclecticism and creativity, being one of the first examples of English chamber music including a part uniquely conceived for the harp, here accompanied by a viola da gamba, violin and theorbo. These Harp Consorts were probably composed for the King’s private chambers, whose musicians counted among their ranks several harpists and several kinds of harp, including the triple harp as well as a single harp with metal strings.

These pieces are still only in manuscript, dispersed between several libraries, such as the Oxford Bodleian Library. Here the harp occupies the role usually intended for a keyboard or lute, with a sparing use of counterpoint and an abundance of solo melodies. Among these harp rarities we find a majority of dances as well as a Fantazia. Extensive ornamental diminutions are applied to these dances, and to the long pavanes that cite themes from other musicians, such as John Coperario, who taught William Lawes. 1642 saw the outbreak of the Great Rebellion, which set the Royalists against the Parliamentarians, bringing to a head a conflict of many years over financial, religious and social matters. At the height of the Civil War, William Lawes was killed on 24 September 1645 during the Siege of Chester, having been assigned to defend the city walls as part of the Royalist army. The death at 43 of one of the best-loved composers of the period was justly perceived as a tragedy by the English artistic world. Following his passing, many poets penned mourning eulogies, such as Robert Herrick, Robert Heath, and John Tatham, who in 1650 wrote (in his volume Ostella):

‘Who says Will Lawes is dead? Had not his breath
Virtue enough to charm the Spleen of Death?
He that to Discord could pure Concord give,
Instructing all Society to live.’

In 1648, a posthumous collection of William’s sacred music published by Henry Lawes, Choice psalmes put into Musick for Three Voices, includes a set of eight pieces composed in homage to William by his brother Henry and by further eminent musicians of the period: John Wilson, John Taylor, John Cobb, Captain Edmund Foster, Simon Ives, John Jenkins and John Hilton. It is thanks to this collection that we have an important source for all the psalms for three voices and continuo on this album. William Lawes was never appointed a Gentleman of the Royal, but the appointment of his elder brother to the post in 1626 must have allowed William to have his own sacred works performed. 

The harmonic extravagance of these pieces certainly distinguishes them from other Anglican religious works of the period. In Judah in exile wanders, or in How Long wilt thou forget me O Lord, or In resurrectione tua Domine, the many dissonances are extremely characteristic of William, who never shrinks from quite violent false relations, particularly where long chromatic phrases are followed by poignant suspensions. In some of these pieces in the volume published by Henry (e.g. Ne irascaris), the cantus primus and secondus parts are assigned to men’s voices. For our recording they have been transposed an octave higher, so the pieces can be sung by female voices as well as by a bass. This is also the case for the first track of the album, whose primary position underlines the creative freedom the musician enjoyed, as well as his tragic fate. It is also the piece to which this recording owes its existence. With this sublime work, William Lawes’ elegiac praise for one of his late friends becomes our own, through the homage we have here attempted to offer him.

After our two releases devoted to Elizabethan song, Come Sorrow and Blessed Echoes, Lighten mine eies enables the Ensemble Près de votre oreille to explore a new period of English music. The album, which borrows its title from a psalm attributed to King David (a musician and harpist himself ), forms a musical portrayal of one of the most important of 17th-century English composers, the beauty of whose music should be lastingly recalled – ‘from generation unto generation’.

ROBIN PHARO
Translation: John Thornley