ピーターハウス・パートブックの音楽

ケンブリッジ大学のカレッジ中で最古のピーターハウスに伝わる写本の音楽が蘇る!
ピーターハウスは1284年創建。チャペルの新設に伴い1635年に合唱団(聖歌隊)が創設され、そのレパートリーとなる作品群の筆写譜が集成されました。この写本はスコアの形ではなく、高音域から低音域まで5つに分かれた声部とオルガンについて、パート単位で製本されていることから「パートブック」と呼ばれる形を採っています。収録されているのはルネサンス期のモテットが中心で短めの作品が多く、イギリスの作品のみならずイタリア伝来の楽曲も含まれています。この写本でしか伝わっていない曲も少なからずあり、特に1635年のピーターハウス合唱団創設時にオルガニストに任命されたトーマス・ウィルソンの作品群は、彼の作曲家としての成長を辿ることができるため研究対象としても貴重なものとなっています。このCDでは、その伝統を今に伝えるピーターハウスの音楽監督と合唱団を起用。SATB=7/5/5/5名からなる合唱団は特有の温かみのあるサウンドでこれらの作品を聴かせてくれます。
ナクソス・ジャパン

Those investigating this 2025 release may see the claim that the Peterhouse Partbooks are "among the most significant collections of English sacred music manuscripts from the 16th and early 17th centuries," and wonder why they have never heard of these partbooks from Peterhouse College, Cambridge. The answer is that the manuscripts were squirreled away during the English Civil War, with some of them being hidden behind a panel in the college library. They were slow to resurface, in some cases taking centuries, and some of the partbooks were missing, necessitating reconstruction. Because of these events, the music is just now beginning to be recorded; this album contains five world premieres, and that is counting the Evening Service of Thomas Wilson as a single work. Most of the music is Anglican, in English, but there are a few Latin pieces. William Byrd and Thomas Tallis are here, but many of the composers will be unknown to all but specialists, and this helped place the album on classical best-seller lists in the summer of 2025. Composers like Wilson, John Ammer, and Robert Stone are almost completely obscure. There are some wonderfully direct examples of the English verse anthem; sample Thomas Tomkins Jesus came when the doors were shut, a setting of the doubting Thomas passage from the biblical Book of John. Several organ works are provided as interludes, although they werent included in the original manuscripts, and these, played on a small organo di legno, also hold ones interest. The youthful Choir of Peterhouse, Cambridge, is not quite on the level of the famed collegiate choirs, but there is a convincing X factor here coming from a sense of direct descent from the people who first sang this music, even if those were boys and men, while the current group is mixed in gender. Interestingly, the music was recorded, not at Peterhouse College, but at St. Georges Church in Chesterton. A few of these pieces are beautiful enough that they might rewrite the English choral repertory a bit, and for that reason alone, beyond the historical interest, this album is worth ones shelf or hard drive space. ~ James Manheim