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Tessier and the ‘Essex Circle’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

John M. Ward
John M. Ward*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

In a recent issue of this Quarterly, Gustav Ungerer called attention to several hitherto unnoticed documents concerning the English sojourn of the French lutenist and composer Charles Tessier and on the basis of this evidence concluded that the musician was for a time admitted to the ‘Essex Circle.’ The conclusion should rather be a conjecture, I believe.

The documents published by Ungerer include three letters written by Tessier to Anthony Bacon, the brother of Francis, in the spring of 1597. In the first, Tessier asks to be taken into Bacon's service or, failing this, to be recommended to another gentleman for service. In the second, written some weeks later, he describes some newly composed airs which he intends to present to Bacon, but illness has prevented his doing so, and he begs for money.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1976 , pp. 378 - 384
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1976

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References

1 28 (1975), 190-203.

2 PRO, SP 78/4.

3 See Doughtie, E., Renaissance News 18 (1965), 124–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 See The Poems, ed. H. E. Sandison (Oxford, 1953), pp. 43-44, 94.

5 CSP, Foreign, Eliz., 18, 64.

6 Two forms of the work are found. One (complete copy in Paris, Bibl. Sainte-Geneviève; superius and bassus part-books in the Huntington Library; title page and two preliminary leaves in Lambeth Palace Library) carries an advertisement at the foot of the title page stating that copies can be had ‘ches Edouard Blount Libraire’ and giving the address; the dedication of the work to ‘La Signora Penelope Riche,’ A2; two poems in praise of Tessier, A2V (dedication and poems are reprinted by Ungerer, pp. 200-202); and a dedication of the first air to Lady Rich, at the head of the music on sig. B. The other (complete copy in Paris, Bibl. Nat.) is without the title-page advertisement, the two dedications to Lady Rich, and has one of the poems in praise of Tessier on A2, the second on A2V. In addition, the Bibl. Nat. copy has the words: ‘Ne extra hanc Bibliothecam efferatur. Ex obedientiâ.’ printed on a paste-on label at the foot of the title page of the tenor, contratenor, and bassus part-books and at the foot of sig. B of the superius part-book.

7 Goodman, G., The Court of King James the First (London, 1839), 1, 70.Google Scholar

8 Mus. Sch. d. 237.

9 The poem, in accord with modern typographical conventions, reads:

Je chante à ton honneur ces vers qui trouveront
Une place aseuree au beau pare de ton front
Ton front brave ou l'honneur de jour se trace
Pour d'un divin laurier orner ta belle face
Laurier qui tombera de la cime des cieux
Pour ombrager ton front & tes celestes yeux
Yeux ou le sainct Amour se place pour defendre
Ceux qui voudront pervers sur toy seul entreprendre
Toutesfoys qui pourroit quelque chose atenter
Qui voudroit devant toy se venir presenter
Cognoissant tes vertus cognoisant ta prudence
Cognoissant que tu es la mesme sapience
Les enfans d'Apolon (comme estant leur rocher)
Divins pourront de toy sainctement s'a procher
Nul ne pourra qu'iceux prendre pres de toy place
Nul avoir ne pourra autres qu'iceux ta grace
Comme toy qui d'honneur & de gloire vétu
Chase le vice & n'ayme en tout que la vertu; /

10 Details aside, the text is the same in both sources, with the exception of the second stanza, which, in the 1597 printing, is full of Penelope Rich's name; the quite different stanza in the Bodleian MS is not. The order in which the stanzas are printed in Ungerer's article is wrong; [printer's error: Ed.]; it should be the same as that given here.

11 See Verchaly, A., Airs de cour pour voix et luth, 1603-1643 (Paris, 1961), pp. viii–ix.Google Scholar

12 In the dedication of the 1597 printing, he declares: ‘Subito ch'io fut gionto in questo … floridissimo regno, mi diedi a comporre alcune Canzonette, le quali udite et viste da diversi miei signori et amici, a quali per loro gentilezza di sorte piacquero, che fui da loro stimolato a mandarle in luce… .’