This famous canon at the fifth and unison or octave is
now generally accepted by musicologists as not having
been written by Byrd:
Recent research has shown that the two related figures
which form the basis of the 'Non nobis Domine' canon
were extracted from the motet 'Aspice Domine' (a5) by
Philip van Wilder (c. 1500-1554). In the motet both
figures are set to the text-phrase 'Non est qui
consoletur' ('there is none to console') which was
presumably the text to which the original version of
th...(+)
This famous canon at the fifth and unison or octave is
now generally accepted by musicologists as not having
been written by Byrd:
Recent research has shown that the two related figures
which form the basis of the 'Non nobis Domine' canon
were extracted from the motet 'Aspice Domine' (a5) by
Philip van Wilder (c. 1500-1554). In the motet both
figures are set to the text-phrase 'Non est qui
consoletur' ('there is none to console') which was
presumably the text to which the original version of
the canon was sung by the Elizabethan recusant
community as an expression of nostalgia for the old
religious order. The 'Non nobis Domine' text to which
the canon is sung today was apparently taken from the
first collect from the thanksgiving service added to
the Book of Common Prayer to celebrate the thwarting of
the Gunpowder Plot on 5 November 1605. The earliest
source of the canon dates from 1620 to 1625 and is
preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, in the
"Bull" manuscript, MS 782, f.122v, where it is
anonymous, unbarred and untexted. It is however clear
from the repeated notes and the contour of the melody
that this version was already designed to fit the 'Non
nobis Domine' text, which was evidently sung in a
spirit of thanksgiving for deliverance. The canon was
published anonymously in three 17th century
collections, yet the earliest attribution to a specific
composer was made as late as 1715 by Thomas Tudway, who
ascribed it to Morley; the woefully inaccurate Dr
Pepusch ascribes it to Byrd in his 1731 Treatise on
Harmony; and in 1739 the theme is quoted in a concerto
by Count Unico Willem van Wassenaer (formerly
attributed to Pergolesi) as Canone di Palestrina! The
canon is known to have been admired by Mozart and
Beethoven, whomever its composer was. ? Philip Legge'
(ed. David Humphreys)
