Music has, it seems, always played a major part in funeral and burial ceremonies. The Irish ensemble, Sestina, is focussing in on this important, if less than cheery, aspect of our musical culture with Threnody, a concert programme brought to Belfast and Dublin on 6 and 7 September respectively.

The group, a vocal ensemble directed by Mark Chambers and joined by the harpsichordist David Adams and violone player Malachy Robinson, will perform a programme built around two important funereal or memorial works from the seventeenth century: Henry Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary and Heinrich Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien. The programme is augmented with works written by the composers Weelkes, Tomkins, Ramsey and Vautor in memory of Prince Henry Frederick, a son of King James I, who died of typhoid fever in 1612.

Setting the text

Chambers told The Journal of Music that the unifying feature between the Purcell and Schütz works is the setting of the text. ‘I first came across the music of Schütz when I was just fifteen in the National Youth Choir of Great Britain with his Psalm settings,’ he says. ‘Every word had new imaginative music and was the perfect teaching tool for teaching young singers. Henry Purcell has to be also the finest setter of the English language of his generation. His use of repetition and harmony demand an emotional response from the singer.’

Sestina have explored Purcell’s music before in The Fairy Queen. ‘It suits our voices perfectly,’ says Chambers. ‘We are also planning a King Arthur next year, so we are making Purcell very much our focus at the moment.’

A certain kind of music

Chambers notes that writing funeral music came with certain restrictions and protocols. ‘The service for Queen Mary of course followed the very strict protocol for Royal Funerals with the procession requiring a certain amount of music,’ he says, adding that at the crucial times of the service the music took centre stage. ‘Purcell was setting the standard “Funeral Sentences” which would have been said over any coffin at the time but again was given free range as to how he approached the setting.’

Schütz had a different experience in that he worked to a specific text written by his friend Prince Heinrich Reus Posthumus, who chose the text for his own burial service. ‘Von Reuss also had many of the same texts inscribed on a lavish copper coffin used at the service,’ says Chambers. ‘Schütz however sets the texts with such imagination, never scoring for the same ensemble twice. We have eleven voices at our disposal for this performance so I am using as many different colours and combinations as I can find.’

Schütz uses the voices as metaphors for the earth, the soul, and heaven. ‘The final piece in Musikalisches Exequien uses a very specific combination of singers; a low voice choir to represent the Earthly and a high voice trio of two sopranos and baritone to represent the soul being taken upwards to heaven,’ says Chambers. ‘Schütz specifies that this trio should be placed at a distance, so it will fun to try and find the ideal placing for them.’

Presenting the historical context

Sestina assert that they intent to present their reperoire in its historical context. ‘Our approach is to read as much as possible about the contemporary situation at the time of composition, the composer’s life circumstances, and to get as close to the source as possible,’ says Chambers. ‘For these works the main consideration is whether to include Purcell’s “March” and “Canzona” when we do not have the required instruments (Flatt trumpets). On this occasion I have replaced the introductory music with a Fantasia by William Lawes.’

Vocal practices have also changed since the seventeenth century. ‘Vocally of course the “Funeral Sentences” would have been sung by boys, but we have women singing,’ says Chambers. ‘In terms of the correct instruments playing, we have followed the composer’s wishes of having a bowed bass and chamber organ or harpsichord and using gut strings on the violins.’

Schütz provided specific instructions as to the division of voices, asking for two identical sets of voices for different sections. The composer wrote of the final motet that ‘by making one or two copies of their second choir, and by setting it up at different places around the church, according to the possibilities that present themselves… the effect of the work might be greatly enhanced’. ‘We will split the group into an earthly choir of five male voices and two trios of soprani and baritones which we will divide around the space,’ says Chambers. ‘Overall the most important approach is to inform the audience regarding the circumstances of this extraordinary music being written and to take them them to another place for a short while.’

Sestina perform Threnody at the Ulster Museum, Belfast, on Friday, 6 September, and at the Pepper Canister Church, Dublin on Saturday, 7 September. For more information see the Sestina Facebook page.