Eton Choirbook Reconstructions
Selene is engaged in an ongoing project to record and sing in concert the recent editorial work of Dr Russell Blacker on partially preserved pieces from the Eton Choirbook.
The Choirbook
An early and valuable repository of English polyphony from the reign of King Henry VII, the Eton Choirbook was compiled between 1500 and 1505, quite possibly under the supervision of Robert Wylkynson, a heavily represented composer within it. It originally contained 93 pieces by 24 composers - of these, 29 are completely lost, while several more are preserved only incomplete, frequently with one folio of the two on which a section of music appeared missing, such that about half the voice parts are preserved.
The reconstructions
Following a creative gestation of almost half a century, following early encounters with the Eton Choirbook amid the burgeoning early music scene in 1970s London and Oxford, Dr Blacker began work in earnest in 2020 on the task of reconstructing the incompletely preserved works. This is a highly creative task that merges scholarship and imagination in equal measure. Our collaboration with him began when he attended our Roseland Music Society concert in Cornwall in early 2023. We were extremely pleased to release our first album of pieces in May 2025, Heavenly Light (CRD 3555), focusing heavily on the music of Wylkynson – increasing, in fact, the number of minutes of Wylkynson available to the general public by some 130%. It’s glorious music that we’re delighted to be bringing to public consciousness.
Our second disc, Earthly Solace (CRD 3569), moves away from the work of Wylkynson and comprises pieces by seven other composers: five world-premiere recordings of reconstructions by Dr Blacker, and two – Banester’s ‘O Maria et Elizabeth’ and Browne’s ‘Stabat Iuxta Christi Crucem’ – which survive complete in the manuscript. These two pieces frame the album and inspire its title: in contrast to the purely celestial focus of the rest of the texts, they have a very direct relation to events happening in the English royal family at the time of their composition, and bookend specifically the life of Arthur, ill-fated elder brother of the future Henry VIII.