2 - The Nicene Creed: John Merbecke

Описание: The Nicene Creed
The Men’s Choir of St. Matthew's Anglican Church, Ottawa

John Merbecke (c. 1510-c. 1585) is most remembered today for his plainsong setting of the Anglican liturgy in 1550. By 1531, his name headed the list of choristers at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. He was arrested in 1543, charged with heresy and condemned to death for owning and writing a nearly completed English concordance of the Bible and Calvinist papers. The Bishop of Winchester won a reprieve for him, while the Windsor martyrs burned at the stake are considered the first English protestant martyrs.

Released from imprisonment, Merbecke returned to St. George’s until his death. In 1550, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer asked him to provide service music “containing so much of the Order of Common Prayer as is to be sung in Churches.” Reformers considered that Plainsong had been used from time immemorial but had given way to an “operose” and intricate style of music in which the people could neither take part nor perceive the meaning of the words, even if they understood Latin. The intent was to return to a simpler style that could be understood and sung by the entire congregation, based on the principle “for every syllable a note.”

In the same year that Merbecke wrote “The booke of Common Praier Noted”, he expressed regret for his Catholic compositions and association with the Chapel Royal and affirmed his Calvinist leanings, writing that “. . . in the study of music and playing on organs, I consumed vainly the greatest part of My life.” His book and the 1549 edition of the Book of Common Prayer became obsolete with the release of the 1552 edition of the Book of Common Prayer.

The Oxford Movement renewed interest in liturgical music within the Church of England in the early 19th century. John Jebb drew attention to John Merbecke's settings in 1841 and they have been reproduced and adapted many times since 1843, including by Winford Douglas (1867-1944) and Healey Willan (1880-1968).

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