(Lat.).
Title given to a number of exclusively English instrumental compositions of the 16th and 17th centuries that use the Sarum antiphon Gloria tibi Trinitas as their cantus firmus. The In Nomine was the most conspicuous single form in the early development of English consort music, over 150 examples surviving by some 58 composers from Taverner to Purcell.
2. The 16th-century consort In Nomine.
3. The 17th-century consort In Nomine.
4. In Nomines for keyboard and other media.
7. Later use of the In Nomine.
WARWICK EDWARDS
The origin of the term In Nomine may be traced to a single work, John Taverner’s six-part Mass Gloria tibi Trinitas. The cantus firmus on which this work is built was an antiphon sung at first Vespers on Trinity Sunday in the Sarum rite (ex.1). The Benedictus section of Taverner’s mass falls into two unequal parts, the second setting the words ‘In nomine Domini’ for four of the six voices. This extract seems to have become detached from the main work and circulated as a separate movement. Some idea of its popularity over the 100 or so years following may be gathered from the number of surviving arrangements. With the original Latin text it is found in GB-Lbl Add.4900, f.61v, as a piece for voice and lute (but with the latter part torn out). The words became ‘In trouble and adversity’ in Day’s Certaine Notes (1565) and Lbl Add.15166, f.88v, and ‘O give thanks’ in Lbl Add.30480–84, f.53r etc. The movement was also arranged for keyboard and for lute, but most sources present it in four textless parts. Naturally the title attached to these is not that of the cantus firmus in the second lowest part but the incipit of the original words, ‘In nomine’.
It is not difficult to appreciate the reasons for the acceptability of the In Nomine section of Taverner’s mass as instrumental part music in the second half of the 16th century. The normal complexities of early Tudor church music are absent, for it is the only section of the mass in which the whole of the plainchant melody appears in notes of equal length (breves), in duple time and with only three accompanying parts. Of no less importance, it is a fine piece in its own right and not surprisingly attracted imitations using the same cantus firmus, the same title and also in many cases similar melodic material. Taverner’s opening phrase, derived from the plainchant (ex.2a), was taken up by over a score of composers, and a later phrase (ex.2b) was used as an opening by Thorne, Strogers, Bevin, Parsons and Byrd. But stylistically Taverner’s In Nomine stands apart from the main repertory, which in the 16th century is more strictly imitative in the manner of chansons by Flemish composers. A gap of some 20 years may separate Taverner’s composition (?before 1530) from that of its successors, though the tradition must have been established by the end of the 1550s. In Nomines exist by Thomas Preston and Robert Golder who died in the mid-1560s, and the earliest extant source of In Nomines, the Mulliner Book (Lbl Add.30513: Taverner, Johnson, White), has been dated about this time. One of the major sources (Lbl Add.31390) bears the date 1578, by which time the form had undergone considerable development which was not to be taken substantially further until the beginning of the next century.
The favoured number of parts seems to have risen during this early phase from four to five: Lbl Add.31390 contains a number of four-part In Nomines ‘brought up to date’ with an added part of inferior quality. The plainchant is still most commonly found in the second part down with its final on D, but it may occur in any part (less commonly the lower two) and transposed to G or A. A close relationship may be seen between many of the settings; the opening of Parsons’s popular five-part In Nomine (ex.3), for example, was copied by Alcock and Woodcock, and Byrd was clearly influenced by the whole piece in his fifth In Nomine (numbering in Collected Works, xvii). This ‘friendly emulation’, as Peacham put it, inevitably led to the production of ‘clever’ pieces. The plainchant appears in notes of five-minim value in settings by Parsley, Strogers and Tye, while Picforth contrived an In Nomine in which each part has a different note value maintained throughout. No less contrived but with a more musical result are In Nomines that use only one point (Tye, Parsons, White).
The most prolific writer of In Nomines was Christopher Tye, many of whose pieces bear nicknames. His work is often referred to in connection with the growth of an instrumental style in English consort music. The In Nomine ‘Rounde’, for instance, has an exceptionally wide overall range of parts (D to c'''), and the In Nomine ‘Saye so’ has many wide leaps and awkward melodic lines (ex.4a). Particularly striking is the opening to the In Nomine ‘Crye’ (ex.4b). (For an illustration of Tye’s In Nomine ‘Blamles’, see Sources of instrumental ensemble music to 1630, fig.4.) Tye’s In Nomines, especially the more original ones, do not appear to have been widely circulated and few composers seem to have been influenced by them. More interesting from the point of view of the development of a style distinct from vocal forms are the In Nomines by Tallis, Robert Parsons (i), Robert White, Nicholas Strogers, Alfonso Ferrabosco (i) and a number of lesser figures. They used certain distinctive features in a desire to heighten tension towards the end, including the use of short imitative phrases broken up by rests (Tallis, Parsons, Strogers), scale passages in quavers (Ferrabosco) and change of time from duple to triple (Tye, Strogers). Against this background may be seen Byrd’s In Nomines which stand out not only for their technical mastery, but also for their well-handled structure, their expressiveness and their rhythmic vitality.
Composition of In Nomines seems to have fallen off in the later part of the 16th century, though some composers such as Bull left examples which must be early works, perhaps exercises in composition. However, the upsurge of interest in consort playing at the turn of the century sparked off a vast new range of instrumental music. In Nomines featured alongside fantasias and shared their style with its intricate rhythmic patterns and proliferation of small note values. Among the best are the five-part settings by Orlando Gibbons. A further search for originality is reflected in the In Nomine Fantasia of Alfonso Ferrabosco (ii), in which each part in turn has a variation on the plainchant. Tomkins’s two In Nomines are unique in employing only three parts. John Milton is rumoured to have outdone all predecessors by composing an In Nomine in 40 parts, but if it was ever written it is not now extant. Some years later William Lawes and John Browne gave a new aspect to the cantus firmus by transposing it from minor to major. Browne's composition is also notable for the instructions it contains about speeds, ‘come of’ (fast) and ‘drag’ (slow). Another In Nomine by William Lawes in six parts allows the plainchant to wander between the two treble and two bass viols. The last of the In Nomines, by Purcell, are among the greatest in their austerity and dignity. Particularly telling is Purcell’s exploitation of seven viols together using a formula of repeated minims (ex.5) that goes back to Parsons and beyond, thus emphasizing the continuity of a 150-year tradition.
A number of consort In Nomines were transcribed for the keyboard and other media, while others were subjected to reworkings, for example Byrd’s keyboard version of Parsons’s five-part In Nomine. A cittern part (GB-Cu Dd.4.23, f.24v) survives from another consort arrangement of the same piece. One of Dowland’s Farewell fantasias seems to be a unique example of an In Nomine written specifically for lute. In Nomines composed originally for keyboard belong to an entirely different tradition which is closer to earlier liturgical plainchant settings for keyboard. The writing may be either in a keyboard idiom, often of some rhythmic complexity, or in a vocal manner similar to consort settings of other cantus firmi such as the Sarum hymn Christe qui lux es. The cantus firmus unit is usually based on the semibreve, not the breve, and significantly many settings bear the title of the plainchant Gloria tibi Trinitas (no consort In Nomines do). Early examples are six by Blitheman, three anonymous ones in Och 1142A, two (or possibly three) by Nicholas Strogers, two by Alwood and one each by Byrd, Nicholas Carleton and Tallis. Bull’s 12 settings (one with the cantus firmus laid out in groups of ‘five minims and a crotchet’ as described by Morley) and a keyboard duet by Nicholas Carleton are slightly later examples. Finally there are seven settings by John Lugge and six (dated 1647–52) by Thomas Tomkins. The influence of Taverner’s In Nomine and its successors on these pieces is not a strong one, the main connection being that they happen to use the same plainchant, and in some cases the same title as a result of a confusion of traditions.
A few pieces called ‘In Nomine’ are not based on the plainchant Gloria tibi Trinitas. The title is clearly an error in the case of one of Byrd’s Clarifica me, Pater settings in GB-Lbl Add.30485 (the plainchants have similar openings) and William Lawes’s On the plainsong in Lbl Add.29410–44. An error is again possible in a plainchant fantasia for keyboard attributed to Gibbons, but perhaps by Bull, which is described as ‘In Nomine’ in only one of its six sources. The case of Alwood’s In Nomine in the Mulliner Book is different. It is built on a five-note treble ostinato which also served as the basis for his Mass Praise him praiseworthy. The title of the keyboard piece may reflect a loose melodic connection with the ‘In nomine Domini’ of the mass. The bass part of a short anonymous ‘In Nomine’ in the Scottish manuscript Lbl Add.36484 is probably part of a mass setting. No satisfactory explanation has yet been given for the title In nomine pavin which appears in Morley’s Consort Lessons (1599) and, together with a galliard, in versions for solo lute attributed to Nicholas Strogers. A consort piece by William Cobbold called Anome has no demonstrable connection with the present subject.
There is a remarkable absence of contemporary comment on the In Nomine, and it is particularly surprising that there is no mention of the form in Morley’s Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (no In Nomines by Morley survive). We have to wait until the end of the 17th century for significant information. Living in an age temperamentally unsuited to ‘grave music’ in which phrases and cadences were not clearcut, Roger North did not have a high opinion of most In Nomines:
It is a sort of harmonious murmur, rather than musick; and in a time when people lived in tranquillity and at ease, the enterteinement of it was aggreable, not unlike a confused singing of birds in a grove. It was adapted to the use of private familys and societys; and for that purpose chests of violls, consisting of 2 trebles, 2 means, and 2 bases were contrived to fullfill 6 parts, and no thro-base (as it is called) was then thought of, that was reserved to other kinds of musick.
North’s account of the early background of the In Nomine may not be far from the truth (though his account of its origin is wide of the mark):
But it is sure enough that the early discipline of musick in England was with help of the Gamut to sing plainsong at sight, and moreover to descant, or sing a consort part at sight also, with such breakings, bindings and cadences as were harmonious and according to art; and this not of one part onely, but the art was so farr advanced that divers would descant upon plaine-song extempore together, as Mr Morley shews. And this exercise was performed not onely by voices and extempore, but whole consorts for instruments of 4, 5 and six parts were solemnly composed, and with wonderfull Art and Invention, whilst one of the parts (comonly in the midle) bore onely the plain-song thro’out. And I guess that in some times, little of other consort musick was coveted or in use. But that which was styled In nomine was yet more remarkable, for it was onely descanting upon the 8 notes with which the sillables (In nomine domini) agreed. And of this kind I have seen whole volumes, of many parts, with the severall authors names (for honour) inscribed.
Though the music itself suggests that 16th-century In Nomines were composed for instruments, there are indications that they were often sung. The title-page of Lbl Add.31390 reads A booke of In nomines & other solfainge songes of v: vj: vij: & viij: parts for voyces or Instrumentes, and the cantus firmus part of one of the In Nomines is accompanied by the instruction ‘this must be songe 4 notes lower’. A fragment of a six-part In Nomine by Blancks exists to the words ‘With waylinge voice from out the depth of sinne’, and Gibbons’s Cryes of London might be described as a pair of In Nomines, each section having the plainchant in the second voice. Three anonymous consort songs employ the Gloria tibi Trinitas plainchant, as does Milton’s song If that a sinner’s sighs. The ‘whole volumes’ of In Nomines that North saw may have been the earlier layer of Ob Mus.Sch.D.212–16, the only extant set of partbooks devoted exclusively to this type of composition.
In Nomines have attracted the attention of some 20th-century composers. In Die schweigsame Frau Richard Strauss, requiring some characteristic early 17th-century English music, quoted from one of Bull’s keyboard In Nomines. On a more serious level the Gloria tibi Trinitas plainchant and In Nomines by Taverner, Blitheman and Bull permeate many of the works of Peter Maxwell Davies, notably the two Taverner Fantasias, Seven In Nomine and the opera Taverner. The Blitheman In Nomines form the basis for Roger Smalley’s Gloria tibi Trinitas I and Missa brevis.
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TABLE OF CONSORT IN NOMINES |
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The following summary of consort in Nomines in approximately chronological order includes those for voices. Alfonso Ferrabosco (ii)’s In Nomine Fantasia, and fragments. Pieces with conflicting attributions are included under the most unlikely composer. For further information see arrticles on individual composers. Thmatic catalogues are in Meyer (1934) and, for 16th-century In Nomines, in Edwards. All known keyboard In Nomines are mentioned in the main text. For details of sources and modern editions see Caldwell (1965). |
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Composer |
No. of parts |
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a 4 |
a 5 |
a 6 |
a 7 |
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John Taverner |
1 |
– |
– |
– |
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William Whytbroke |
1 |
– |
– |
– |
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|
Thomas Preston |
1 |
– |
– |
– |
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Robert Golder |
1 |
– |
– |
– |
|
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Johnson |
1 |
– |
– |
– |
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|
Robert Johnson (i) |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
|
|
T. Pointz |
1 |
1 |
– |
– |
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|
Christopher Tye |
1 |
21 |
1 |
– |
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Thomas Tallis |
2 |
– |
– |
– |
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|
Osbert Parsley |
2 |
3 |
– |
– |
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|
Robert Prsons (i) |
2 |
1 |
– |
2 |
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Robert White |
4 |
1 |
|
1 |
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[?Philip] Alcock |
– |
1 |
– |
1 |
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Henry Mudd |
1 |
2 |
– |
– |
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William Mundy |
– |
2 |
– |
– |
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John Thorne |
1 |
– |
– |
– |
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Brewster |
1 |
1 |
– |
– |
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Edward Hake |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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Mallorie |
– |
2 |
– |
– |
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Nayler |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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Picforth |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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Henry Stonings |
1 |
1 |
1 |
– |
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Nicholas Strogers |
– |
5 |
– |
– |
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Clement Woodcock |
– |
3 |
1 |
– |
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Edward Blancks |
– |
– |
– |
– |
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Alfonso Ferrabosco (i) |
|
3 |
– |
– |
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William Byrd |
2 |
5 |
– |
– |
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John Sadler |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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John Baldwin |
1 |
1 |
– |
– |
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Elway Bevin |
– |
2 |
– |
– |
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John Bull |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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John Mundy |
– |
2 |
2 |
– |
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Richard Allison |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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John Bucke |
1 |
– |
– |
– |
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Arthur Cocke |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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John Eglestone |
– |
2 |
– |
– |
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Edward Gibbons |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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John Gibbs |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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Matthew Jeffries |
– |
2 |
– |
– |
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Thomas Mericocke |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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William Randall |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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William Stanmar |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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Leonard Woodeson |
– |
4 |
– |
– |
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John Milton |
– |
– |
1 |
– |
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Thomas Weelkes |
1 |
2 |
– |
– |
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Alfonso Ferrabosco (ii) |
– |
3 |
3 |
– |
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Orlando Gibbons |
1 |
4 |
– |
– |
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John Ward (i) |
– |
1 |
2 |
– |
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Thomas Tomkins |
2 in 3 parts |
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[?Richard Dering] |
– |
– |
1 |
– |
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William Cranford |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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John jenkins |
– |
– |
2 |
– |
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Simon Ives |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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William Lawes |
– |
– |
2 |
– |
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John Ward (ii) |
5 |
– |
– |
– |
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John Browne |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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George Gill |
– |
1 |
1 |
– |
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John Withy |
– |
1 |
– |
– |
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Henry Purcell |
– |
– |
1 |
1 |
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Anon., 4vv: GB-Lbl Add.30480–83, f.73 etc. |
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Anon., 5vv: Lbl Add.31390, f.92; Och Music 984–8, nos. 100–02 |
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and Lnl Add.17797, ff.6v–7 etc. (3 consort songs); Lbl R.M. |
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24.d.2, f.63v; US-Ws V.a.408, f.23; GB-Ob Mus.Sch.C.64–9, |
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nos. 9, 10 |
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Anon., 6vv; Lbl Add.31390, f.9 |
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See also Sources of instrumental ensemble music to 1630. |
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Modern editions of In Nomines are in HM, cxxxiv (1956/R; Baldwin, Bull, Johnson, Taverner, Tye, White); MB, i (1951, 2/1966; keyboard: Alwood, Blitheman, Carleton, Johnson), v (1955, 2/1964/R; keyboard: Tomkins), ix (1955, 2/1966/R; Bull, Alfonso Ferrabosco (ii), Gibbons, Ward (i) and (ii), Weelkes), xiv (1960–63; keyboard: Bull), xv (1957, 3/1975; Robert Johnson (i)), xxi (1963; Lawes), xxii (1967; anon. vocal, Gibbons), xxviii (1971, 2/1976; keyboard: Byrd), xliv–xlv (Elizabethan consort music), xlviii (consort: Gibbons), lix (consort: Tomkins); Byrd, Collected Works (1976–), xvii; Purcell, Works (1968–), xxxi; Tallis, Complete Keyboard Works, ed. D. Stevens (London, 1953); and Tye, The Instrumental Music, RRMR, iii (1967) |
MeyerECM
MeyerMS
E.H. Meyer: ‘The “In Nomine” and the Birth of Polyphonic Instrumental Style in England’, ML, xvii (1936), 25–36
R. Donington and T. Dart: ‘The Origin of the In Nomine’,ML, xxx (1949), 101–6
G. Reese: ‘The Origins of the English “In Nomine”’, JAMS, ii (1949), 7–22
D. Stevens: The Mulliner Book: a Commentary (London, 1952)
E.E. Lowinsky: ‘English Organ Music of the Renaissance, II’, MQ, xxxix ( 1953), 528–53
J. Jacquot: ‘Sur quelques formes de la musique de clavier élisabéthaine’, La musique instrumentale de la Renaissance: Paris 1954, 241–58
J. Noble: ‘Le répertoire instrumental anglais (1550–1585)’, ibid., 91–114
D. Stevens: ‘Les sources de l' “in nomine”’, ibid., 85–90; Eng. trans in MMR, lxxxiv (1954), 199–205
J. Ward: ‘Les sources de la musique pour le clavier en Angleterre’, ibid., 225–36
R.W. Weidner: ‘New Insights on the Early In Nomine’, RBM, xv (1961), 29–46
J. Caldwell: ‘Keyboard Plainsong Settings in England, 1500–1660’, MD, xix (1965), 129–53
W. Edwards: The Sources of Elizabethan Consort Music (diss., U. of Cambridge, 1974)
P. Doe: ‘The Emergence of the In Nomine: some Notes and Queries on the Work of Tudor Church Musicians’, Modern Musical Scholarship: Oxford 1977, 79–92
C.D.S. Field: ‘Consort Music, I: Up to 1660’, Music in Britain: the Seventeenth Century, ed. I. Spink (Oxford, 1992), esp. 219-22; see also 448n.
