Thomas Ashwell or Ashewell (c. 1478 – after 1513 (possibly 1527?)) was an
English
English usually refers to:
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* English people
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* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
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composer of the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
. He was a skilled composer of
polyphony
Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, ...
, and may have been the teacher of
John Taverner
John Taverner ( – 18 October 1545) was an English composer and organist, regarded as one of the most important English composers of his era. He is best-known for ''Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas'' and ''The Western Wynde Mass'', and ''Missa Coro ...
.
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
Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...
list him as a singer there in 1502 and 1503.
[John Bergsagel, Grove online] 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.
Surviving Ashwell compositions
Only scattered remnants of Ashwell's music survive. As was common for pre-
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
music in England in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, 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
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* Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...
, during her attempt to re-impose
Roman Catholicism on the island). Two
mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...
es, both for six voices, survive complete in the ''
Forrest-Heyther Partbooks,'' the first layer of which were copied for
Taverner's use at
Cardinal College
Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to:
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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.
Connection to Taverner
The connection with
John Taverner
John Taverner ( – 18 October 1545) was an English composer and organist, regarded as one of the most important English composers of his era. He is best-known for ''Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas'' and ''The Western Wynde Mass'', and ''Missa Coro ...
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
Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to:
Animals
* Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds
**''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae
**''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...
,
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
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
Thomas Morley (1557 – early October 1602) was an English composer, theorist, singer and organist of the Renaissance. He was one of the foremost members of the English Madrigal School. Referring to the strong Italian influence on the Engl ...
listed him as an authority in his 1597 treatise ''A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke.''
References
*John Bergsagel, "Thomas Ashwell," and also "Sources, MS, §IX: Renaissance polyphony, 19" in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980.
*John Bergsagel: "Thomas Ashwell", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed December 18, 2007)
(subscription access)
External links
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ashwell, Thomas
1470s births
16th-century deaths
English classical composers
Renaissance composers
16th-century English composers
15th-century English people
English male classical composers