Review: Fifteenth-Century Liturgical Music, IX: Mass Music by Bedyngham and his Contemporaries. Early English Church Music, 58. Transcribed by Timothy Symons and edited by Gareth Curtis and David Fallows. London: British Academy/Stainer & Bell, 2017.

Abstract

As David Fallows, Gareth Curtis and Timothy Symons note in the most recent volume of Early English Church Music (EECM), John Bedyngham was clearly a figure whose music enjoyed international appeal during his lifetime. His secular output seems to have been rather better known than his sacred – a state of affairs that arguably continues today. It is therefore pleasing to see a volume devoted to the sacred output of this important and unfairly overlooked composer, together with that of his contemporaries. The selection of pieces for this volume highlights an enduring problem for those of us interested in this repertory. Only two of the works here presented are by the composer named on the spine; his ‘contemporaries’ outnumber him, and all are anonymous. As pleasing as it is to have his entire Mass output collected in one edition (useful since, though both settings are in Rebecca Gerber’s edition of Trent 88, they are somewhat lost in the enormity of the repertory contained within), this is not an opera omnia and we are unable to consider Bedyngham’s sacred and secular repertory together without recourse to the collection of his songs edited in David Fallows’s excellent Musica Britannica volume. Of course, it was never intended to perform such a function and should not be judged in these terms. English composers for whom we could produce a collected edition of reasonable length number but a few. The challenge is therefore to find other ways to group such English works together in a manner which makes sense and enables interesting connections to be made. By these criteria, this volume is undoubtedly a success. It presents an interesting mixture of works which generally make good sense as a collection, bringing those items of the Ordinary of possible English origin which appear (alongside the two Bedyngham items) in Trent 90 and 93 and which are yet to have been edited for EECM. Two items are also included which appear in the slightly younger source Trent 88. The first of these, a Kyrie labelled M20, is a valuable addition. It has been