Perth Festival: Secret Byrd
St John’s Kirk, Perth, 24/05/26
Gesualdo Six, Fretwork
St John’s Kirk of Perth (itself celebrating 900 years) was the venue for two performances of ‘Secret Byrd’, an historic theatrical concert by candlelight, on 24th May as part of this year’s Perth Festival of the Arts. Created by writer, director and composer Bill Barclay, former Director of Music at Shakespeare’s Globe, for the 400th anniversary in 2023 of the death of English composer of the Tudor Era, William Byrd, the immersive concert brought together vocal ensemble The Gesualdo Six and viol consort Fretwork to perform Byrd’s music. The composer, whose day job was writing music for the Protestant court of Elizabeth I, was a covert Catholic, in constant danger of exposure and persecution. His ‘Mass for Five Voices’ was written for worship in strictest secrecy. The concert was built around a celebration of the Mass, as it might have been in the home of a recusant Catholic family, with close and trusted friends in attendance. Other vocal and string pieces by Byrd were interleaved with the parts of the Mass. Of the two performances at 5:30 and 8:30 pm, I caught the earlier.
In the centre of the performance space, an oak table was set, as if for a meal (the symbolism of the fellowship of a communal meal pervades the Catholic Mass). As members of the audience arrived and were admitted through the South Door, small groups were guided by members of the vocal group dressed in period informal attire (one as a priest), revealing very little of what was in store. Chairs arranged elliptically at a distance around the table were for audience members in possession of the appropriate ticket (my comp was thankfully “appropriate”). Three members from Fretwork near the West Door were playing from three 3-part Fantasies, exquisite string polyphony from the English Renaissance. Audience members were free to walk around and view the posters and exhibits of the art installation component – once I had sat down, I was reluctant to relinquish my seat. The vocalists, carrying candles, moved around the performance space. The three viol players joined their three colleagues at the East end of the kirk and played a 5-part Fantasy.
The main performance kicked off with an ‘Ave Maria’ from the vocalists, displaying immediately the characteristics of their art that were to prove invariant: perfect shaping of note and phrase (each born, lived and died), perfect blending of the polyphonic lines, and flawless clarity of Latin diction. The viols played a 5-part ‘In Nomine’ with teasing ‘false relations’: scrumptious. Members of the audience were invited to join the singers at the table, as if dinner guests. The ‘Kyrie’ and the spellbindingly rich polyphony of the ‘Gloria’ followed. A 6-part Fantasia from the viols opened canonically and led to a suite of dances, some in triple time, quite charming. The magnificent ‘Credo’ was, to my ear, the peak of the Mass, the part that most emerged with ‘all guns blazing’. The thrillingly radiant triumph of “Et resurrexit” was almost outdone by the defiance of ‘Catholicam ecclesiam’. Fabulous. Another 6-part Fantasia for viols played as a new set of 6 audience members joined the singers at their “meal”, the “priest” blessing all around the table. They joined hands for the ‘Sanctus’, which did what it is supposed to do, namely, emulate a heavenly choir of angels, followed by the equally sweet ‘Benedictus’.
The delicate ‘Agnus Dei’ began as the “priest” blessed the bread of the communion. Suddenly, there was loud hammering on the North Door, the candles were snuffed out, and those at the table cowered in silence. A dramatic realisation of the terror of religious persecution. Twice more the hammering happened and the fearful stillness continued. When at last it was felt that the danger was past, the candles were slowly relit and the shocked silence was broken by counter-tenor Guy James, accompanied by the viols, singing Byrd’s ‘Elegy on the Death of Thomas Tallis’, the younger composer’s mentor and friend (and fellow closet Catholic). The interrupted ‘Agnus Dei’ was then replaced by the one from the ‘Mass for 4 Voices’, the symbolism not unlike the ‘broken wing’ formation of a display squadron. Then, while Fretwork played a 6-part ‘Pavan’ and ‘Galliard’, as a “communion”, the singers served cups of soup and bread to those with an appropriate ticket signified by a coloured wristband – once again, my complimentary ticket did the business.
Finally, after a lovely melancholy 6-part motet, ‘Infelix ego’, and the customary round of thanks to participants, the programme closed with singers and players together in the jovial ‘Haec Dies’.
With its immersive blend of theatrical historical realisation and historically-informed performance, ‘Secret Byrd’ delivers an experience of beautiful music and thought-provoking drama. The later performance will have benefitted from a more shocking ambience at the extinguishing of the candles but less of the beauty of St John’s stained glass. Swings and roundabouts, The music, though, which is what it is all about for me, was fabulous.