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Chelys, vol. 7 (1977), article 1 It may be that this pattern and the accompanying musical ideas came from a song entitled ‘De la court’, although no such model can be traced (the piece entitled De la court in Cambridge University Library, MS. Dd. 2.11 f. 2v has no connection with the Parsons composition). The title therefore remains a mystery. Judging by the discrepancy between the sources over the two parts of the work, performances of one part alone were obviously not uncommon. Even in Add. MS. 31390, where both sections are preserved, the two parts are not adjacent in the manuscript. 29 Parsons’s De la court is usually mentioned for the decorated ending of the second part of the piece found in Add. MS. 31390 and also (in almost identical form) in Add. MS. 32377. In the former source, the third voice also has a short decorated section: [19] Moreover, yet another embellished version appears in the source Tenbury, MS. 389. While the rubric ‘or this’ in the other sources suggests that the embellishment was an alternative ending, the Tenbury version is joined to the end of the piece. Unfortunately, no other parts survive in this source, but it would seem from this that the last few measures were to be repeated with the embellishment, the ending being played without any decoration the first time through. As Thurston Dart points out, 30 the similarity between these embellishments and the varied repetitions of the keyboard pavans and galliards is obvious. 29 This may be a scribal mistake. See W. E. Edwards : The Sources of English Instrumental Music, 1550-1603, (Ph.D. thesis, U. of Cambridge, 1974). 30 R. T. Dart The Interpretation of Music, (London, 1954, 4/1967), p.145.
Chelys, vol. 7 (1977), article 1 Ex. XVII This, then, is the surviving instrumental music of Robert Parsons, excepting those works thought to be spurious. While some of the pieces are below the stan<strong>da</strong>rd of the best models of the time, the scribe’s comment on the composer in the Oxford MSS. that he would have been a great composer had not death intervened, must surely ring true. Certainly when one examines the First Service, the respond motets, or in this case, the In nomine a5, The song called trumpets and De la court, it is easy to see why Parsons was such a popular composer both during and after his lifetime. [20] APPENDIX List of Sources IN NOMINE A4 (no. 1) 212 f.6 IN NOMINE A4 (no. 2) 212 f.23 IN NOMINE A4 (no. 3) 212 f.14 (ascr. Byrd) 354 f.17v Published edition: E. H. Fellowes ed.: The collected vocal works of William Byrd, Vol. XVII (London, Stainer and Bell 1948) IN NOMINE A4 (no. 4) 212 f.11 (ascr. White) 212 f.16 22597 f.55v (III only) Published editions: (ascr. Parsons) R. R. Terry ed., (London, Curwen, 1923); (ascr. White) 1. Spector ed. (Madison, AR Editions, 1972; Recent researches in the music of the Renaissance, 12) UT RE MI A4 804 p.44 (score) 30480 ff. 57v, 63v, 59v, 66
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