Twijfel

Ik ben zo door twijfel bevangen, dat ik moet stoppen met deze blog. U kunt, als u dat wilt, mijn verdere berichten hier lezen.

Dobbelen

Stel, u bent een echte christen. U gelooft in Jezus, dat die echt bestaan heeft, maar ook God was of is, en dat die man dood ging maar weer levend werd en daarna nog iets deed. Stel.
Dan gaan we een dobbelspelletje spelen. Allebei een dobbelsteen in onze handen. Wie zal er winnen, de heiden of de gelovige?
U zegt: dat weet ik niet. Maar dan is mijn goede raad: bidt U tot God! U gelooft toch in God? Bidden dus.
Mijn vraag aan het publiek is dan: wie wint deze dobbelpartij?

Waarom God niet bestaat

Much of what people do is done in the name of God. Irishmen blow each other up in his name. Arabs blow themselves up in his name. Imams and ayatollahs oppress women in his name. Celibate popes and priests mess up people's sex lives in his name. Jewish shohets cut live animals' throats in his name. The achievements of religion in past history -- bloody crusades, torturing inquisitions, mass-murdering conquistadors, culture-destroying missionaries, legally enforced resistance to each new piece of scientific truth until the last possible moment -- are even more impressive. And what has it all been in aid of? I believe it is becoming increasingly clear that the answer is absolutely nothing at all. There is no reason for believing that any sort of gods exist and quite good reason for believing that they do not exist and never have. It has all been a gigantic waste of time and a waste of life. It would be a joke of cosmic proportions if it weren't so tragic.

(Richard Dawkins in ‘Free Inquire’)

Bent u christelijk?

10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.

7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!

6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."

3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.

2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

(Overgenomen uit Evil Bible.com)

Mijn muziek (53)

Richard Bramston (1485? - 1554) was an English composer. Organist of Wells Cathedral 1507-31. Has a single work in the Peterhouse partbook and is also represented in the Gyffard partbook.

Mijn muziek (52)

Hugh Aston (c. 1485 – buried 17 November 1558) was an English composer of the early Tudor period. While little of his music survives, he is notable for his innovative keyboard writing.

Few details of his life are certain. In 1510 he attempted to obtain the degree of BMus at Oxford University by submitting a mass and an antiphon; it is not certain if the degree was granted. Between 1510 and 1525 he may have lived in London, and may have had some association with the court of Henry VIII. Most likely he was chorus master at St. Mary Newarke Hospital and College in Leicester between 1525 and 1548. He was an applicant for the position of chorus master at Cardinal Wolsey's new Cardinal College, but Wolsey chose John Taverner instead. His exact date of death is not known, but he was buried on 17 November 1558 in Leicester, at St. Margaret's parish. Additional records show that a pension was paid to him up until that date.

Four sacred vocal compositions by Aston survive complete:

• Missa Te Deum (five voices)
• Missa Videte manus meas (six voices)
• Gaude mater matris Christe (five voices)
• Te Deum laudamus (five voices)

Other compositions survive in fragments.

In addition, he wrote keyboard music, most of which shows an unusually progressive use of idiomatic keyboard technique. Some famous pieces have been attributed to him on stylistic grounds, including the often-recorded and anthologized My Lady Careys Dompe. His Hornepype is also cited as an example of early idiomatic keyboard writing.

Jean Meslier

Jean Meslier (1664-1729) was een Frans dorpspastoor die bij zijn overlijden een "tijdbom" achterliet, in de vorm van een bijzonder explosief manuscript.

Jean Meslier was zoon van een textielhandelaar en had aan een Frans seminarie gestudeerd. Veertig jaar lang, van 1689 tot 1729, had hij braaf zijn plichten vervuld als pastoor van de plattelandsparochie Étrépigny, niet ver van Charleville-Mézières in wat tegenwoordig het Franse departement Ardennes is.

Bij de bisschoppelijke inspecties had hij altijd een goede notering gekregen, met één uitzondering, in 1716, toen de plaatselijke landheer zich bij de bisschop erover beklaagd had dat de pastoor hem gekapitteld had voor zijn gebrek aan christelijke naastenliefde tegenover zijn pachters. Voor deze "onbeschaamdheid" had hij van de bisschop een reprimande gekregen. Maar verder was het - ogenschijnlijk - een heel rustige pastoorscarrière.

Bij zijn overlijden bleek dat hij een manuscript van meer dan duizend bladzijden had nagelaten – vervaardigd in drie verschillende handgeschreven kopieën, in bewaring gegeven bij drie verschillende notarissen – waarin hij alle leerstellingen van de kerk weerlegde. Hij stelde honderden interne tegenstrijdigheden vast in de tekst van de bijbel en stelde een groot aantal absurditeiten aan de kaak. Het is duidelijk dat hij in de loop der jaren eerst was gaan twijfelen aan de juistheid van het christelijk geloof, en dat die twijfel vervolgens was verhard tot volledige verwerping, gepaard gaande met een grote frustratie omdat het priesterschap het enige vak was dat hij geleerd had en hij geen andere broodwinning had, zodat hij zijn parochianen jaar in, jaar uit dezelfde verhalen moest vertellen, die naar zijn eigen overtuiging leugens waren.

In de bibliotheek van de pastoor vond men een exemplaar van het destijds beroemde werk van Fénelon, Démonstration de l'existence de Dieu (Bewijs van het bestaan van God), dat door de van zijn geloof gevallen pastoor in de marge koortsachtig van aantekeningen was voorzien, waarin hij de redeneringen van Fénélon stuk voor stuk probeerde te weerleggen.

In zijn "Testament" vroeg Jean Meslier zijn parochianen om vergiffenis voor het feit dat hij hen jarenlang had misleid. Het duurde niet lang voordat kopieën van uittreksels van het "Testament" onderhands begonnen te circuleren.

Voltaire, d'Holbach, Frederik II van Pruisen, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Diderot, d'Alembert en alle Encyclopedisten zouden het werk lezen en de invloed van Meslier ondergaan. Voltaire liet in 1762 uittreksels publiceren van dit werk, dat zo subversief was dat hij er een "gekuiste" versie van maakte waarin het radicale atheïsme van Meslier wordt afgezwakt tot het door Voltaire voor maatschappelijk veiliger geachte deïsme. De radicale atheïst D'Holbach zou een onverzachte uitgave publiceren, onder de titel Le bon sens du Curé Jean Meslier, suivi de son testament.

Het beruchtste citaat uit het "Testament" van Meslier luidt:

« Je voudrais, et ce sera le dernier et le plus ardent de mes souhaits, je voudrais que le dernier des rois fût étranglé avec les boyaux du dernier prêtre. »

("Ik zou willen, en dit zou de laatste en vurigste van mijn wensen zijn, ik zou willen dat de laatste koning zou worden gewurgd met de darmen van de laatste priester.")

Heilige

De Zalige Mariano de la Mata Aparicio (Barrio La Puebla, Palencia, 31 december 1905 - Sao Paulo, 5 april 1983) was een Spaans geestelijke en missionaris.

Mariono groeide op in een diep gelovig gezin en trad in 1921 in bij de augustijnen. Na studies in Valladolid en Burgos werd hij in 1929 priester gewijd. In 1931 trok hij als missionaris naar Brazilië. Daar werd hij bekend als boodschapper van de liefdadigheid voor de allerarmsten. Hij was geestelijk leider van de liefsdadigheidsateliers van de heilige Rita van Cassia, die zich bezighielden met het maken van stevige kledij voor de armen. Tijdens pater Mariano's leven hadden die ongeveer 9.000 vrouwen als lid. Pater Mariano bezocht steeds de vier klinieken van de Sint Augustinudparcohie van Sao Paulo. Hij zag heel graag kinderen en had altijd snoepjes voor hen in zijn zakken, zodat die steeds rondom hem zwermden. Hij was ook een groot natuurliefhebber en postzegelverzamelaar. Pater Mariano stierf in april 1983 aan kanker.

Mariano de la Mata werd in 2006 zalig verklaard door paus Benedictus XVI.

De katholieken

Waar zijn de dames, heren priesters?

En gij geleuft dat?

Wat er mis is met deze goochelarij is het volgende. Dames, heren! Let u op! Er wordt helemaal niet gegoocheld. Niet met enig ‘brood’, noch met enige wijn. Er wordt alleen maar gezegd dat dat brood iets heel anders is. Dat die wijn zomaar Jezus’ bloed zou zijn.
Als u de volgende keer in een katholieke kerk zulke amateuristische trucs tegenkomt, moet u daar eens naar vragen.

Rozenkrans

De Rozenkrans is een gebedssnoer (met 15 grote en 150 kleine kralen), dat wordt gebruikt voor het rozenkransgebed. Dit bestaat uit 150 maal (15 x 10) het Wees Gegroet, afgewisseld, na ieder 'tientje', met een Onze Vader. In plaats van het volledige rozenkransgebed wordt veelal een derde gedeelte, met gebruik making van een kleiner snoer, het zgn. rozenhoedje, gebeden. De rozenkrans dankt zijn ontstaan aan zeer verschillende religieuze gebruiken, o.a. het herhalend gebed, dat we bij de oude egyptische kluizenaars aantreffen dat in de oosterse kerken leeft (Jezusgebed) en ook in buitenchristelijke godsdiensten (zoals het hindoeisme, boeddhisme en de islam) aangetroffen wordt. In de liturgische getijden van kloostergemeenschappen werden alle psalmen (150) gebeden; voor de ongeletterden werden de psalmverzen vervangen door 150 Onze Vaders. In de 12de eeuw kwam hiervoor het Wees Gegroet in de plaats. De verdeling in tientjes, waartussen telkens een Onze Vader wordt gebeden, ontstond in de 15de eeuw. Ook ontstond in deze eeuw de aanroepingen bij elk tientje van de rozenkrans, de zogeheten geheimen

Bij het bidden van de rozenkrans staan wij stil bij elk van de vijf onderdelen van de blijde, de droevige en de glorievolle geloofsgeheimen. Dat zijn respectievelijk de geheimen van de menswording, van het lijden en van de verheerlijking van Jezus Chrsitus. Paus Johannes Paulus II heeft 16 oktober 2002 in de Apostolische Brief Rosarium Virginis Mariae vijf ‘Geheimen van het Licht’ toegevoegd aan het traditionele rozenkransgebed. In deze brief zegt de Paus dat de rozenkrans, als deze met devotie en niet mechanisch wordt gebeden, een ware meditatie is over de geheimen van het leven van Christus. "Door de aanroepingen van het Weesgegroet te herhalen, kunnen wij diepgaand reflecteren op de essentiële gebeurtenissen van de missie van Gods Zoon op aarde, die aan ons zijn doorgegeven door het Evangelie en de Traditie", aldus de Paus. Omdat de vijftien geheimen die tot nu toe bij de rozenkrans werden overwogen, niet de grote gebeurtenissen uit het Openbare Leven van de Heer omvatten, voegt de Paus in zijn apostolische brief vijf geheimen aan de rozenkrans toe, die hij de "geheimen van het licht" heeft genoemd. Deze benaming, zo legde de Paus uit, is gebaseerd op het feit dat Jezus Zich tijdens Zijn openbaar leven gemanifesteerd heeft als het "geheim van het licht": "Zolang Ik in de wereld ben, ben Ik het licht der wereld" (Joh. 9,5). Het gaat om vijf momenten uit het openbare leven van de Heer, te beginnen met Zijn doop in de Jordaan, de aanvang van het openbare leven, en eindigend vlak voor Zijn lijden, dus vlak voor het begin van de droevige geheimen. Op maandag en zaterdag worden de ‘Blijde Geheimen’ overwogen, op donderdag de 'Geheimen van het Licht', op dinsdag en vrijdag de ‘Droevige Geheimen’ op woensdag en zondag de ‘Glorievolle Geheimen’. Bij het bidden van de rozenkrans staan wij stil bij - dat onzinnige gedeelte moet u eens lezen.

Heilige

Gaetano Catanoso (Chorio de San Lorenzo, Reggio Calabria, 14 februari 1879 - Reggio Calabria, 4 april 1963) was een heilige in het christendom.

Hij werd priester gewijd voor het aartsbisdom Reggio Calabria-Bova. Hij was kapelaan en pastoor in verscheidene parochies. Zijn bisschop benoemde hem ook tot kathedraal kanunnik penitentiarius. Verder was hij spiritueel directeur van het diocesaan seminarie, ziekenhuispastor en biechtvader voor kloosterlingen. Catanoso stichtte ook een zustercongregatie, de Congregatie van de Dochters van de Heilige Veronica (Missionarissen van het Heilig Gelaat).

Hij werd heilig verklaard op 23 oktober 2005. Zijn feestdag is op 4 april.

Je vraagt je toch werkelijk af.

Mijn muziek (51)

William, Monk of Stratford (fl. late 15th - early 16th century) was an English composer. Stratford has a single work, a four-part Magnificat, in the Eton Choirbook. Nothing more is known.

Mijn muziek (50)

Christopher Hoskins (fl. before 1548) was an English composer. Represented by a single work, a Speciosa facta es, in the Gyffard partbooks.

Heilige

Nikolaas (Mykolay) Charnetskyi (Semakivtsi, 18 december 1884 - L'viv, 2 april 1959) was een Oekraïens martelaar.

Mykolay was de oudste van een vrome boerenfamilie. In 1903 ging hij naar Rome om filosofie te studeren en in 1909 werd hij tot priester gewijd in de Grieks-katholieke Kerk. In 1910 werd hij pmrofessor filosofie en dogmatische theologie iaan het seminarie van Stanislaviv. In 1919 trad hij in in het noviciaat van de redemptoristen in Zboiska, nabij L'viv.

In 1926 stichtten de redemptoristen van de ordeprovincie L'viv een missiehuis in Kovel. Na de opening van het klooster en de kerk won pater Charnetski de achting van de bevolking en zelfs van de orthodoxe geestelijken. Hij zette zich in om de oostelijke liturgie zuiver te bewaren. Paus Pius XI benoemde hem tot titulair bisschop van Lebed en tot apostolisch visitator van de Oekraïense katholieken in Wolhynië en Pidliashsha.

Als eerste Oekraïens bisschop uit de congregatie der redemptoristen werd Mykolay Charnetskyi van in het begin een schietschijf. Tijdens de Sovjetbezetting van het Westen van Oekraïene in 1939 werden de redemptoristen er toe gedwongen om Wolhynië te verlaten., Bisdchop Charnetskyi trok zich vervolgens terug in het klooster der redemptoristen in L'viv om moraaltheologie te onderwijzen. Na de intocht der Duitse troepen in 1941, doceerde hij filosofie, psychologie en moraaltheologie aan de theologische academie. Nadat de sovjettroepen in 1944 Galicië heroverd hadden, werd hij in april 1945 gearresteerd, gevangen genomen en meermaals mishandeld. Vervolgens wordt hij Kiev gebracht en veroordeeeld tot 10 jaar gevangenis omdat hij als agent van het Vaticaan gewerkt had. In zijn periode van gevangenschap onderging Charnetskyi samen 600 uur foltering en verhoor. Hij zat op 30 verschillende plaatsen vast, o.m. in Siberië. In 1956 verslechterde zijn gezondheidstoestand zodanig dat de artsen niet meer op zijn overleven rekenden. Hij werd vrijgelaten en naar het ziekenhuis van L'viv gebracht. Hij herstelde echter en betrok een woning samen met de redemptoristenbroeder Klymentiy een woning, voerde zijn apostolaat verder als plaatsvervanger van de bisschop van de Grieks-katholieken Kerk van Oekraïene en bracht zijn tijd door met lezen en bidden, dikwijls in extase verzonken. Hij ondersteunde zijn medebroeders, begeleidde kandidaat-priesters en wijdde meer dan 10 van hen tot priester.

Allen die Mykolay Charnetskyi hebben gekend, getuigen over zijn heilige levenswijze. Van verre bezoeken zieken zijn graf voor genezing. Hij werd in 2001 zalig verklaard als martelaar door paus Johannes Paulus II. Zijn gedenkdag is op 2 april.

De Gyffard en Christ Church partbooks

In the early sixteenth century choirbooks gradually passed out of use in favor of partbooks. (At least for a time some choirs seem to have preferred one type of manuscript, some the other, for in 1524 all the polyphonic music at Magdalen College, Oxford was contained in choirbooks, nine of which had been bought between 1518 and 1524, while in 1529 King's College, Cambridge relied almost entirely on partbooks). Partbooks with small paper leaves were undoubtedly cheaper to produce than large elaborately bound choirbooks of parchment. They were also easier to handle, and probably more convenient for a large number of singers to read from. The choir would no longer gather round a lectern, but would presumably sing from the choir-stalls, except in votive antiphons performed before images, where, unless singing from memory was the practice, each book must have been held by one or more singers for all of those on that part to see.

The number of partbooks surviving is quite considerable, but complete sets are very few. These few include the important Forrest-Heyther and Gyffard sets and the source of Ludford's Lady Masses, British Museum Royal Appendix MSS. 45-48. The Peterhouse and Christ Church sets both lack their tenor books; reconstruction is easy where proper plainsongs in equal notes are involved, but at other times it is an awkward task.

The Gyffard partbooks (British Museum Additional MSS. 17802-5) are an invaluable source for smaller-scale works for the Sarum rite by Taverner, Tye, Tallis and Sheppard in particular: concordances have been traced for only three out of ninety-four pieces. The basic arrangement is: music for the Lady Mass, including Kyries and Alleluias; works for the Office in liturgical sequence from All Saints to Whit Sunday; the Proper of the Jesus Mass, and the three Masses Apon the square; Magnificats; and votive antiphons.

The books were copied in the middle years of the sixteenth century. Work on them may have begun 'as early as the 1540s', but much or most of it was probably done during the Marian reaction of 1553-8, by which time William Mundy and Robert Whyte (b. c. 1530) could have been composing. It would be easy to assume that the manuscripts were still incomplete when Mary died, for the name of 'mr birde' appears. But in fact the man who composed In exitu Israel jointly with Sheppard and William Mundy is probably not the great William Byrd, but Thomas Byrd, Gentleman of the Chapel Royal 1546-8, or the William Byrd who was a chorister at Westminster Abbey when William Mundy was head of the choristers there in 1543-4. Similarly it seems rather improbable that the John Mundy who composed a Kyrie was William Mundy's son John who died in 1630; possibly William had a brother John, or possibly the Christian name is wrong. The Gyffard partbooks show no sign of use, and contain many uncorrected scribal errors. But if designed for liturgical use under Mary, the brevity of their 'working life' might be sufficient reason for this.

The Christ Church Oxford partbooks (MSS. 979-83 ) were copied between about 1580 and 1600 by John Baldwin, who had a hand in completing the Forrest-Heyther manuscripts and who kept a fascinating musical commonplace-book sometimes known as the Baldwin manuscript. The Christ Church books are beautifully neat, and have been used little if at all; they probably formed a kind of private musical treasury. Today they are the leading source for compositions written in the last years of the Sarum rite (especially for numerous responds and hymns by Sheppard and Tallis), and an important one for Latin works composed under Elizabeth. It is interesting to note that some works by Fayrfax and Taverner are still included, as indeed they are in other late sixteenth century manuscripts.

The Gyffard and Christ Church partbooks contain a number of works by lesser composers who, like Tallis, Sheppard and Tye, are known or assumed to have been active before the death of Henry VIII.

Gyffard has works by four men known also from Peterhouse: Knyght (with three works, including a stylish Alleluia Obtine sacris), Appleby (whose Mass for a Mene is a rather pedestrian effort in something of the same style as Taverner's similarly titled piece), Bramston, and Whytbrook (composer of a Mass Apon the square briefly noted in the article on William Mundy). Other composers, most of them represented by single works, include Philip Alcoke, Robert Barber, (?Thomas) Byrd (joint composer with Sheppard and Mundy of In exitu Israel), Robert Cooper, John Ensdale, John Hake, Christopher Hoskins, Hyett, Robert Okeland, Stenings, and Thomas Wryght. Finally there are three composers known also from the Christ Church partbooks: Robert Johnson, John Redford and Philip van Wilder. Gyffard has unusually many anonymous pieces for a mid or late sixteenth-century source, eighteen out of ninety-four. There is a St Matthew Passionand four settings of the Asperges(these seem to be among the oldest works in the manuscript), aVidi aquam, a setting of the Jesus Mass Proper, aKyrie, aTe Deum on the faburden, several responds and short antiphons.

Christ Church contains Wood'sExsurge Domineand a Dum transissetby John Strabridge. There are a few Continental pieces includingIn convertendoand Ubi est Abel, ascribed to (Robert) Douglas, a Scot, but by Lassus.

Mijn muziek (49)

Thomas Ashwell or Ashewell (c. 1478 – after 1513 (possibly 1527?)) was an English composer of the Renaissance. He was a skilled composer of polyphony, and may have been the teacher of John Taverner.

His admission to St. George's Chapel as a chorister in 1491 suggests a birthdate of approximately 1478, but nothing else is known about his early life. He stayed at St. George's until 1493, and account records at Tattershall College in Lincolnshire list him as a singer there in 1502 and 1503.^[1] He was in a position of authority at Lincoln Cathedral in 1508, according to records there, and was employed at Durham Cathedral as Cantor or Master of the singing boys, and to provide music for the Lady Chapel, in 1513; no further records survive of his life. The Durham Cathedral archives show the first successor to his duties there as being a William Robson, who began his duties in 1527, and this may be an indication of Ashwell's death some time before that.

Only scattered remnants of Ashwell's music survives. As was common for pre-Reformation music in England in Latin, the large majority of manuscripts were destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII (and a large proportion of English-language sacred music was destroyed during the subsequent reign of Mary, during her attempt to re-impose Roman Catholicism on the island). Two masses, both for six voices, survive complete in the Forrest-Heyther Partbooks, the first layer of which were copied for Taverner's usage at Cardinal College in 1526-1530. With the fall of Cardinal Wolsey in 1529 the college founded by him was not able to devote resources to such music and so the manuscript was discontinued, and this situation was probably the reason for Taverner's departure that year. This first layer contains the Missa Jesu Christe (for 6 voices) and ten other works by various composers, including Taverner. The other Mass-setting (Missa Ave Maria, also for 6 voices, which is the finer of the two and an outstanding work with similarities to Taverner's Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas) was copied into the partbooks mid-century along with five other settings by other composers, though the dates of composition of both Ashwell Masses were considerably earlier: their style indicates dates of composition possibly even before his appointment at Durham. A few other works survive in other sources, mostly very fragmentary, including a fragment of a Mass for St. Cuthbert, which must date from his time at Durham. A song, "She may be callyd a sovrant lady", printed in a 1530 collection, is Ashwell's only surviving secular composition.

The connection with John Taverner as his possible teacher is tenuous but suggestive. The unsubstantiated suggestion has long existed that Taverner was a chorister at Tattershall, and should this have been the case he would have been there at the same time as Ashwell. Taverner seems to have at least been very familiar with the two Ashwell Masses, as he appears to have used them as models for his own (if the apparent dating is not incorrect, and Ashwell based his on Taverner's). A personal connection with Ashwell would account for the inclusion of his Masses in the Forrest-Heyther Partbooks, copied either by Taverner or for him when he became head of music at Cardinal College, Oxford in 1526. The first layer of the Forrest-Heyther partbooks is headed by Taverner's own Mass Gloria tibi Trinitas (which seems to have much in common with Ashwell's Missa Ave Maria) in six voices, and the only other six-part Mass in this layer is Ashwell's Jesu Christe, all the other works in this first layer being for only five voices (however, the piece immediately following Gloria tibi Trinitas is the hexachord Mass by Avery/Davy Burton: but although there are only five parts in the partbooks, it seems that a sixth part was unintentionally omitted). These partbooks contain generally rather newer music than that of Ashwell, and his inclusion would be typical of a student-teacher relationship.

However, it may equally go some way to explaining Ashwell's presence in the Forrest-Heyther partbooks to recall that the partbooks were compiled for Cardinal Wolsey's new college, and that Wolsey was also Bishop of Durham earlier in his career, and many of the composers had connections to institutions which had connections to Wolsey. It could be that the partbooks were also meant to act as a kind of survey in homage of the most important composers from many of Wolsey's dioceses.

Ashwell's reputation survived at least until the end of the 16th century, since Thomas Morley listed him as an authority in his 1597 treatise A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke.

Mijn muziek (48)

William Rasor (fl. 1499 - 1514/15) was an early 16th century English composer. Took the Cambridge BMus degree in 1616, and was organist at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1628-44. His output includes English and Latin church music, a dialog between Saul and the Witch of Endor on the text later used by Purcell, and madrigals among which is a lament in the dialog form on the death of Prince Henry. The influence of the new Italian style can be seen in his work, especially in the settings of Latin texts.He composed a Mass found in the Forrest-Heyther Partbooks.

Mijn muziek (47)

Avery Burton (c. 1470 - c. 1543) was an English composer. He is known as the composer of a Mass, Ut re mi fa sol la, in the Forrest-Heyther partbooks (this is probably not the Mass of 1494) and of a Te Deum for organ.In November 1494 he was paid 20 shillings by Henry VII for composing a Mass; in 1509 he became a gentleman of the Chapel Royal. In 1513 he went to France with the Chapel Royal, a Te Deum of his being sung after Mass at Tournai in September; in June 1520 he was present at the historic meeting between Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France, known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold. His name disappears from the records of the Chapel Royal after 1542.

Ruimtefotografie

Could life exist beneath Enceladus? A recent flyby of Saturn's icy moon has bolstered this fascinating idea. Two years ago, images from the robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn led astronomers to the undeniable conclusion that Saturn's moon Enceladus was spewing fountains of gas and ice crystals through cracks in its surface dubbed tiger stripes. Last month, Cassini dove through some of these plumes and determined that they contained water vapor laced with small amounts of methane as well as simple and complex organic molecules. Surprisingly, the plumes of Enceladus appear similar in make-up to many comets. What's more, the temperature and density of the plumes indicate they might have originated from a warmer source -- possibly a liquid source -- beneath the surface. A liquid water sea containing organic molecules is a good place to look for life. Pictured above is a vertically exaggerated close-up of some long, venting tiger stripes. The computer composite was generated from images and shadows taken during the recent Cassini flyby. Nine more flybys of Enceladus by Cassini are planned.

Mijn muziek (46)

Hacomplaynt (c. 1455 - 1528) was a King's scholar at Eton in 1469, and Provost of King's 1509-28 - his name is on the King's Chapel lectern. He has a single work, a setting of Salve regina, in the Eton Choirbook.

Heilige

De heilige Hugo van Grenoble (nabij Valence, 1053 - Grenoble, 1 april 1132) werd in 1078 kanunnik in Valence en in 1080 bisschop van Grenoble. Overtuigd van zijn eigen onkunde, trok hij zich terug en werd hij benedictijner monnik in Chaise-Dieu, maar paus Gregorius VII beval hem weer zijn functie in Grenoble op te nemen. Het was Hugo die land gaf aan de H. Bruno van Keulen om er zijn abdij van Chartreuse te bouwen, de eerste abdij van de kartuizers.

Hugo van Grenoble was een oom van de heilige Hugo van Bonnevaux.

In 1134, slechts twee jaar na zijn dood, werd hij door paus Innocentius II heilig verklaard. Zijn feestdag is op 1 april. Hij is de patroonheilige van Grenoble en wordt aanroepen tegen hoofdpijn.

Topjaar

Het is 1981. We bevinden ons in het laatste jaar van Glenn Gould, zijn topjaar. Zijn allerbeste jaar, met de Goldberg Variaties onder meer. Het hoogtepunt van de barokperiode: dit en dit.

Mijn problemen

Het kunnen er niet zoveel zijn. Er zijn ook mensen, van het liefste geslacht, die bijvoorbeeld borstkanker krijgen.
Ik ken een man die gescheiden is van zijn vrouw, nadat ze borstkanker had gekregen. Ik weet niet of het daardóór was dat ze gescheiden zijn. Maar het lijkt me wel. Een halve vrouw, of zo, heb ik overgehouden.
Die man heeft het leven, dacht ik, niet doorgehad. Na elke operatie zie je elkaar, en je omhelst elkaar - wetend dat er nooit iets stuk kan gaan.

Mijn muziek (45)

Richard Sampson (died 25 September 1554) was an English clergyman and composer, who was Anglican bishop of Chichester and subsequently of Coventry and Lichfield. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, the Paris Sorbonne and Sens (also in France). Having become Doctor of Canon Law, he was appointed by cardinal Wolsey diocesan chancellor and vicar-general in his Diocese, the bishopric of Tournai, where he lived till 1517. Meanwhile he gained English preferment, becoming Dean of St. Stephen's, Westminster and of the Chapel Royal (1516), Archdeacon of Cornwall (1517) and prebendary of Newbold (1519). From 1522 to 1525 he was English ambassador to Emperor Charles V. He was now Dean of Windsor (1523), Vicar of Stepney (1526) and held prebends at St. Paul's Cathedral and at Lichfield; he was also Archdeacon of Suffolk (1529).

Being a man of no principle, and solely bent on a distinguished ecclesiastical career, he became one of Henry VIII Tudor's chief agents in the royal divorce proceedings, being rewarded therefor by the deanery of Lichfield in 1533, the rectory of Hackney (1534), and treasureship of Salisbury (1535). On 11 June, 1536, he was elected Bishop of Chichester, and as such furthered Henry's political and -from the Catholic point of view schismatical- ecclesiastical policy, though not sufficiently thoroughly to satisfy archbishop Thomas Cranmer.

On 19 February, 1543, he was translated to the bishopric of Coventry and Lichfield on the royal authority alone, without papal confirmation. He held his bishopric through the reign of Edward VI, though Dodd says he was deprived for recanting his disloyalty to the pope. Godwin the Anglican writer and the Catholic John Pitts both agree that he did so retract, but are silent as to his deprivation. He wrote an "Oratio" in defence of the royal prerogative (1533) and an explanation of the Psalms (1539-48) and of the Pauline Epistle to the Romans (1546).

He died at Eccleshall in Staffordshire.

Mijn muziek (44)

All that is known for certain about Richard Davy's life (c. 1465 - c.1507) is that he was at Magdalen College, Oxford from 1490 to 1492, first as organist and joint choirmaster, then as choirmaster and one of the organists.

But it is very probable that he was the Richard Davy, priest, who was a vicar choral at Exeter Cathedral between 1497 and 1506.

Davy is third among the Eton choirbook composers in size of contribution, and probably in excellence of achievement as well. His work shows somewhat less diversity than Browne's or Lambe's, with its preference for the long antiphon in five parts for men and boys, and it has less 'depth'. Instead there is a certain facility which makes quite credible the Eton scribe's note that O Domine coeli terraeque creator(Davy's second longest piece at 260-odd bars) was written in one day ('hanc antiphonam composuit Ricardus Davy uno die Collegio Magdalenae Oxoniis'). Short passages of very rapid soloistic display are more prominent than in Browne's music or in Lambe's. At the same time there is an avoidance of the most complex rhythms which, despite a somewhat more limited use of imitation, puts Davy's music a little closer to that of the early sixteenth century than Browne's is.

Mijn muziek (43)

Robert Fayrfax (1464-1521) was born in Deeping Gate, Lincolnshire, on April 23, 1464; nothing is yet known of his childhood or early musical training. The first information that we have about Fayrfax's musical career is that he became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal by December 6, 1497 when he was granted a chaplaincy of the Free Chapel at Snodhill Castle, a post which was relinquished a year later to Robert Cowper, a fellow Gentleman. He is reported as being organist of St Alban's abbey from 1498-1502. Fayrfax gained a Mus.B. from Cambridge in 1501, and a Mus.D. in 1504; he later acquired a D.Mus. from Oxford (by incorporation) in 1511. He became a member of the Fraternity of St Nicholas in 1502.

As a singer he is first recorded in 1500 among the lay clerks at the funeral of Prince Edmund, the third son of Henry VII; he was also present at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, wife of Henry VII, on February 23, 1503, Later lists place him at the head of the singingmen at the funeral of Henry VIl (May 11, 1509), the coronation of Henry VIII (June 24, 1509), the funeral of Prince Henry (February 27, 1511), and the great Anglo-French summit at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in the summer of 1520. Henry VIII, who was somewhat of a skilled musician himself, evidently admired Fayrfax's musical talents and granted the composer numerous royal benefices during the last few decades of his life. From 1509 he was awarded an annuity of £9 2s 6d on top of his salary as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal.

Henry VIII made Fayrfax a Poor Knight of Windsor on September 10, 1514 to supplement his existing income; he received 12d a day for life. Henry continued to reward him by paying most handsomely each New Year's Day from 1516 to 1519 for books of music; in 1519 payment was for 'a ballad book limned' (that is, illuminated, or more probably simply copied), but the other sums for a 'book', 'a book of anthems' and a 'pricksong book' may have been for composition as well as copying. Fayrfax was paid enormous sums of money for music manuscripts, some amounting to £20. In June 1520, only a year before his death, Fayrfax once more headed the list of Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal when Henry went to France to meet Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

From 1502 he may have been on the musical staff at the very rich St Alban's Abbey, though it is not known in what capacity. It has been suggested that Fayrfax was never likely to have been employed at St Alban's and probably held some sort of honorary post there; however, as he composed a mass and antiphon dedicated to St Alban and requested burial in the Abbey, a more substantial connection would seem once to have existed. Very little is known of Fayrfax's private life; a seventeenth-century rubbing of the monument brass which once marked his tomb in St Alban's Abbey reveals that he died on October 24, 1521 at the age of 57. He was survived by his wife, Agnes, and an unknown number of children.

Fayrfax may have been a composer of some national repute by his mid-thirties when a few of his compositions were copied into the Eton Choirbook (c.1500); Although Fayrfax, born in 1464, was therefore little over ten years younger than Browne and Lambe, only three of his surviving works were included in the Eton choirbook (Salve regina, Regali Magnificat, and Ave lumen gratiae). The Caius and Lambeth Choirbooks (assembled in the mid to late 1520s) contain the earliest surviving collections of his masses. Missa O quam glorifica is perhaps Fayrfax's most complex if not most impressive work. According to an inscription in the Lambeth Choirbook it was composed 'for his forme in proceading to bee Doctor'; no doubt this was his exercise for Cambridge University in 1504, the earliest English example known to us. The standard requirement for an early Tudor doctorate was the submission of a mass and antiphon, which were to be performed on the day of taking the degree (no antiphon of this type is known to have survived among Fayrfax's output).

Three of his works preserved in later sources (Aeterne laudis lilium,O quam glorificaand Lauda vivi Alpha et O) are known to have been composed as well as copied after c. 1500; probably a good number more are of similar date since, as we shall see in a moment, Fayrfax was very active musically in the first two decades of the sixteenth century. Aeterne laudis liliumis assumed from its words to be the antiphon in honour of the Virgin and St Elizabeth for which Queen Elizabeth of York paid Fayrfax twenty shillings at St Alban's in 1502: there is an obvious compliment to the Queen in the treatment of the name 'Elizabeth', because some voices sing this more than once despite the usual ban on verbal repetition, and because additional parts are specially introduced. Lauda vivi Alpha et Owas written in or after 1509 because it ends with a prayer for Henry VIIL

Fayrfax's surviving Masses, antiphons and Magnificats show that his reputation was well deserved. They are the work of an extremely thoughtful, discriminating composer who in particular achieved most subtle rhythmic effects very economically, and one who had little time for florid display. Even his scoring and textural schemes show restraint and economy: they are less obviously colourful than those of many Eton works, with for example no use of the gimel.

The decline in floridity is very important as one of the first marked signs of the sixteenth-century stylistic revolution. Crotchets are employed less, often much less, than before, and in particular the use of more than two or three in succession is now not common. Quavers, never frequent, appear scarcely at all, and triplet figures are virtually abandoned. There is even a tendency for minims to be used less freely and to attract syllables less often than in earlier music, even in sections with many syllables. All this might seem to imply just a total shift towards longer values and a quicker semibreve beat, but comparison of Fayrfax's notation as a whole with that of earlier men does not confirm this.

Mijn muziek (42)

Het is haast onmogelijk meer informatie te geven dan dit weinige: William Corbronde (fl. 1480-1500) was also represented in the Eton Choirbook.

Mijn muziek (41)

John Browne (fl c 1490) is first among the composers of the Eton Choirbook both in size of contribution and excellence of achievement. It is astonishing that work of such exceptional interest should be known to us only from the Eton Choirbook, even given the paucity of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century sources; works by Walter Lambe and Richard Davy are after all found elsewhere. Carols ascribed simply to 'Browne' are preserved in the early sixteenth-century Fayrfax Book (British Museum, Additional MS. 5465), but it is possible that they were composed by William Browne, Gentleman of the Chapel Royal from 1503 to 1511.

Nothing is known for certain about Browne's life. A John Browne from Berkshire, born in 1425 and scholar successively of Eton and the sister College of King's, Cambridge in the 1440s, is almost certainly too old to be our man: for musical reasons we should expect Browne the composer to have been born at about the same time as Lambe, or a little later, rather than a quarter of a century earlier. Therefore it is extremely likely that the composer was the John Browne from Coventry elected scholar of Eton in July 1467 at exactly the same time as Lambe, and aged 14 in December of that year (which would make him just a year or two Lambe's junior). The John Browne (d. c. 1498) who was Rector of West Tilbury and canon of St Stephen's, Westminster had important legal and civil service connections and is almost certainly not the composer.

John Browne stands apart from the other Eton composers in his exceptionally varied choice of vocal forces - no two surviving works employ exactly the same - and in some predilection for very sombre texts. He stands apart from Lambe and the older composers in his greater liking for imitation and his somewhat less rigid handling of it (with for example more entries at intervals other than the unison or octave, notably at the fifth). Like Davy he is less inclined to use the old 'under-third' or 'Landini sixth' progression at a cadence (with leading-note falling by step before rising to its tonic) so beloved of John Dunstaple and Guillaume Dufay.

Mijn muziek (40)

Robert Wylkynson (c. 1450 - 1515 or later) was at Eton from 1496 to 1515, first as parish clerk and then from 1500 as master of the choristers. His nine-part Salve regina and his Apostles' Creed are the last entries in the manuscript and possibly were copied by him. Wylkynson's work, like Cornysh's, has suffered severe losses, for only three of his eight works survive complete; but what remains shows Wylkynson to have been an extremely ambitious composer and a more than competent one. The Salve regina in the Eton Choirbook is the only work from our period in nine parts. To some degree it was probably intended to outdo Browne's eight-part O Maria salvatoris mater.

Heilige

Gwynllyw, ook Woollos en Gundleus genoemd, was een Welshe koning en heilige uit de 6de eeuw.
Gwynllyw dong volgens de legende naar de hand van Gladys, de dochter van Brychan. Toen Brychan echter weigerde, ontvoerde Gwynllyw het meisje en begon hij met haar een gewelddadig bestaan. Hij werd de vader van Cadoc en deze kon Gwynllyw en Gladys er van overtuigen hun gewelddadig bestaan op te geven en hun religieuze roeping te volgen. Hij werd monnik in Newport in Monmouthshire. Op het einde van zijn leven werd hij kluizenaar in Wales. De Anglicaanse kathedraal in Newport is aan hem toegewijd. Hij wordt als heilige gevierd op 29 maart.

Mijn muziek (39)

Walter Lambe was an English composer ( c. 1450 - after 1499). Of the three leading Eton choirbook composers, Walter Lambe's music has a little more in common with that of such older composers as Horwood and Banester than has Browne's or Davy's: there is often a very limited use of imitation, cadence practice is a little more old-fashioned, and once or twice there are very old-fashioned sonorities as at 'peperisti' in Nesciens mater with its prominent open fifths. Lambe's music is remarkable for showing several correspondences with that lesser tradition of the late fifteenth century.
A Walter Lambe from Salisbury, clearly the composer, was elected King's scholar at Eton in 1467; he was aged fifteen the year before, and so was born in 1450 or 1451. Lambe was installed as a clerk at St George's, Windsor in 1479, and held the post of master of the choristers jointly until 1480 and on his own from 1482 to 1484. He then probably sought further advancement elsewhere, because his name does not appear in the records again until 1492. After that year the records are very incomplete, but he was still a clerk in 1499-10.
Lambe's music shows an imagination and technical mastery exceeded only by Browne's. His achievement is very diverse; for example, he wrote the longest antiphon in the Eton choirbook, O Maria plena gratia, and one of the shortest, Nesciens mater. More important, his antiphons display opportunity for brilliant vocal display and imaginative counterpoint.

Mijn muziek (38)

Henry Prentes (also spelt as Prentyce) (? - 1514), like Edmond Turges, is represented by one work in the Caius Choirbook, a Magnificat that is actually a reworking of Cornysh's setting in the same collection. Prentes joined the Chapel Royal by 1509, when he is listed last among the singingmen at the coronation of Henry VIII on June 24 (he was not present at the funeral of Henry VII in the previous month). He next appears at the funeral of Prince Henry on February 27, 1511. A 'Harry Prentes' is also mentioned in the churchwardens' accounts of St Mary-at-Hill, London, as a visiting singer of the church in 1510/11. However, Prentes appears to have been a parishioner (and resident) of Westminster. The register of the Fraternity of St Nicholas, which he joined in 1502, records his death in 1514, and the churchwardens' accounts of St Margaret's register the funeral of a Henry Prentes in the same year. There is no reference to Prentes in any of the surviving records of the Abbey for the period c.1500 to 1514, although his burial within the church of St Margaret testifies to his strong Westminster connections. It is possible that at some point in his career he was based at St Stephen's, but no contemporary records for this institution are extant.

Mijn muziek (37)

Richard Mower (fl. ca. 1450 - 1470) was an English composer, represented in the
Ritson MS by a Beata Dei genitrix and a Regina coeli.

Mijn muziek (36)

Henry Petyr (also spelt Petre, Peter) (fl. 1470?-1516?) is an English composer.
Became an Oxford BMus in 1516 after studying and practising music for thirty years. Represented in the Ritson MS by a Mass without Kyrie.

Mijn muziek (35)

Edmund Sturges or Turges (1445 - 1501?) is now known from two settings of Gaude flore virginali in the Eton Choirbook, a very florid Magnificat in the Caius Choirbook, and presumably the Kyrie and Gloria ascribed to Sturges in the Ritson manuscript. A very great deal by him has been lost--three four-part Magnificats from Eton, and the eight six-part pieces listed in the 1529 King's College Inventory. The style of his music in Eton and Caius does not always argue very decidedly for an early date; but the three-part Ritson piece does have frequently crossing lower parts in the old-fashioned way.
Edmund Turges is the earliest composer in the Caius Choirbook, being represented by one work, a Magnificat, which is considered to be one of the most intricate and technically challenging works in the early tudor repertoire. He joined the Fraternity of St Nicholas (or the London Guild of Parish Clerks) in 1469. Of the other composers represnted in the Choirbook, Fayrfax and Prentes joined the Fraternity in 1502, Pasche in 1513, and Ludford in 1521. William Cornysh 'senior' joined in 1480.
No other biographical information on Turges has yet been unearthed, although his membership of the Guild indicates that he was working in or around London at this time. Roger Bowers has proposed that Turges's song From stormy wyndis may have been written around 1501, when Prince Arthur and Catherine of Aragon travelled to Ludlow shortly after their marriage, so the composer is likely to have died after this date.

U kunt hier luisteren naar wat maten van Turges’ muziek.

Mijn muziek (34)

English composer Gilbert Banester (c. 1445 - 1487) was possibly born in London. He was Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal from 1478. He contributed a carol in florid style to the Fayrfax Manuscript, and wrote and produced pageants at Henry VII's court; his latin motets include one probably for Henry's wedding. He is represented in the Eton Choirbook.
Gilbert Banester's only work in the Eton Choirbook is the antiphon O Maria et Elizabeth. This is similar in many ways to Horwood's music, but a compact, consistently syllabic style is employed very much more widely because the text is exceptionally long. As in only two other Eton antiphons, the text is in prose; this choice of form is all the more remarkable since there are two poems ascribed to Banester, the Miracle of St Thomas (1467) and the first known version of Boccaccio in English (c. 1450). O Maria et Elizabeth is partly about the motherhood of the Virgin and of St Elizabeth, but ends with a prayer for king, church and people. The king's name is omitted, and unfortunately the three notes provided for it could fit 'Henricum', 'Edwardum', or even 'Ricardum'. In view of the allusions earlier to St Elizabeth, it is possible that the piece was composed for the marriage of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York on January 17, 1486. The tenor, in place of a regular cantus firmus, twice quotes the opening phrase from 'Benedicam te Domine', third antiphon at Lauds for the Sunday before the wedding, the first after the Octave of the Epiphany. But in spite of this it is perhaps possible that Banester's piece was written during Elizabeth's pregnancy, or after the birth of Prince Arthur in September 1486. Why should the king's name be omitted? Was the king in fact Edward (IV), whose order in the 1460s that the Eton treasures be handed over to his own St George's, Windsor could well have discouraged the scribe from perpetuating his name? The Elizabeth would then have been Edward's queen and Henry VII's mother-in-law, Elizabeth Wycleville. Banester after all appears in records as the 'king's servant' in 1471, received corrodies at two Abbeys from Edward, became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1475 and master of the choristers in 1478; he had ample reason to pray for Edward's success.