Cantiones Sacrae I (William Byrd)

From ChoralWiki
Revision as of 21:27, 26 January 2006 by DaveF (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

A collection of Latin motets published by Byrd in 1589 and printed in London by Thomas East. Although mainly non-liturgical and intended as vocal "chamber music", many of these pieces would have carried a covert message to England's oppressed Roman Catholic community; notable are the frequent references to Jerusalem lying desolate and the pleas to God to remember his people. Indeed, Deus venerunt gentes, with its reference to the pouring-out of the blood of God's servants, is thought to have been written in specific response to the execution of St Edmund Campion in 1581.

The collection consists of 16 separate pieces, the subsections of which are numbered separately in the index:


1-2 Defecit in dolore - Sed tu Domine refugium

3-4 Domine praestolamur - Veni Domine noli tardare

5 O Domine adjuva me

6-7 Trisitia et anxietas - Sed tu Domine qui non derelinquis

8 Memento Domine

9-10 Vide Domine afflictionem - Sed veni Domine

11-14 Deus venerunt gentes - Posuerunt morticinia - Effuderunt sanguinem - Facti sumus opprobrium

15 Domine tu jurasti

16 Vigilate

17 In resurrectione tua

18-19 Aspice Domine de sede - Respice Domine

20-21 Ne irascaris - Civitas sancti tui

22-23 O quam gloriosum - Benedictio et claritas

24-26 Tribulationes civitatum - Timor et hebetudo - Nos enim pro peccatis nostris

27 Domine secundum multitudinem

28-29 Laetentur caeli - Orietur in diebus tuis


The Cantiones Sacrae were dedicated to Edward Somerset, Earl of Worcester. --DaveF 13:26, 26 January 2006 (PST)