| Description: |
This mass on a cantus firmus quoting the nine notes to which the name Albanus is sung in an antiphon from the feast of the protomartyr of Christian Britain must surely have been composed for performance at St Alban’s Abbey, a very wealthy Benedictine house with which Fayrfax had some sort of connection probably for many years, eventually being accorded the privilege of burial among the great and good in the presbytery of the abbey church. It is one of his most polished and immediately appealing works, in which he deploys the motto theme forwards, backwards, in inversion and in retrograde inversion, and also revisits the isorhythmic constructional techniques favoured by Dunstable and Power two generations before him. Associated with it is the votive antiphon O Albane deo grate, published by Antico as RCM58. Both works may have been commissioned to mark an important anniversary at the abbey some time during Fayrfax’s maturity. For five voices: SATBarB. 2025. xiv + 50 pages. ISMN 979-0-57039-214-8.
Sample page(s)
|
