Osbert Parsley

Norwich, depicted in the Civitates Orbis Terrarum (1581). Osbert Parsley probably lived and worked in the city all his life.

Osbert Parsley was born in 1511;[4] the identity of his parents or place of birth are unknown.[5] In 1558 he was married to Rose and bought a house and premises in the parish of St Saviour's Church, Norwich from a man named John Hering and his wife Helen. Parsley owned the house until 1583.[5] Details of Parsley's life were first published in Henry Davey's History of English Music, first published in 1895, when he was described as a "lesser composer" from Norwich Cathedral whose works existed in manuscript form.[3][4]

Like many of his contemporary English composers, Parsley began his musical career as a choirboy.[6] He was appointed a 'singing man' in c.1534, a post he retained for 50 years.[4][7] He was first listed in Norwich Cathedral's extant accounts for 1538–1540. where he was named as a lay clerk, and he continued to be mentioned in the cathedral's records throughout his life.[5][note 2] He was probably the cathedral's unofficial organist from 1535 until his death. During the time Parsley was a chorister, William Inglott and his son William were in turn Master of the Choristers; the works written by the younger William are found in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.[4] Composers during the Tudor period were honoured by being awarded an academic degree from either Oxford or Cambridge, or by becomimg a member of the Chapel Royal—Parsley received neither of these highly-prized honours.[9]

The quire in Norwich Cathedral, where Parsley was a chorister for over 50 years

By the start of the 1570s, Parsley was being paid £12 a year, and the five other men in the cathedral choir were paid either £10 or £8, equivalent to the pay given to an unskilled construction worker. A decade later the master of the choirboys and the choirmen were being paid at the same rate.[10] The composer Thomas Morley, master of the choirboys from 1583, had a salary was not much more than those of the singing men.[11] Parsley was subject to ‘gifts’ from the cathedral, possibly for his compositions. In 1576, he received three pounds and ten shillings extra, making his yearly income substantially more than that of his fellow singers.[12]

In 1578, Elizabeth I and her royal court came to Norwich as part of a royal progress, and the city was expected provide accommodation, banquets and entertainment. Then the second city in England after London, Norwich was one of the few cities with such sufficient numbers of skilled musicians, but even so it had to resort to using viol, trumpet and cornet players from Elizabeth's entourage.[13] Together with her courtiers, the most prominent of Norwich's citizens, and the clergy of the cathedral, Elizabeth heard Parsley's "Te Deum" sung during the first evening of her visit,[2] with the choir being supported by the city's waits.[13] Parsley was paid 6+1⁄2 shillings "for the songs composed and sung by him" during the queen's visit.[2] His music was also performed before the queen when she returned to Norwich in 1597.[14] None of his compositions for Elizabeth's visits to Norwich have survived.[13]

Parsley's will, made on 9 December 1584, was proved by his widow on 6 April of the following year. He died in Norwich in 1585, aged 71, and was buried in the cathedral where he had worked throughout most of his life. He left bequests valued at about £75.[note 3][4][5] A friend of four Bishops of Norwich—Richard Nykke, Thomas Thirlby, John Parkhurst and Edmund Freke[4]—he was also well respected by his contemporaries for his musical ability and his personal character. The cathedral's organist Henry Manning bequeathed 20 shillings to his friend and "owld servant",[16] and his fellow lay singing-men uniquely honoured him by commissioning his memorial in the cathedral's north aisle.[5][17] The memorial, which once had indecipherable text, was restored in 1930. It was unveiled during an Evensong service on 10 July 1930, attended by the choirs of King's College, Cambridge, Ely Cathedral, and Norwich Cathedral.[18] The text reads:[4]

Musicae Scientissimo
Ei quondam Consociati
Musici posuerunt Anno 1585

Here lies the man whose Name in Spight of Death,
Renowned lives by Blast of Golden Fame:
Whose Harmony survives his vital Breath.
Whose Skill no Pride did spot whose Life no Blame.
Whose low Estate was blest with quiet Mind:
As our sweet Cords with Discords mixed be:
Whose life in Seventy and Four Years entwin'd,
As falleth mellowed Apples from the Tree.
Whose Deeds were Rules whose Words were Verity:
Who here a Singing-man did spend his Days.
Full Fifty Years in our Church Melody
His Memory shines bright whom thus we praise.

English composers of the late 15th century and early 16th century set a limited number of types of sacred music, each with a clear place in the liturgy.[19] Until the Reformation of 1534, when Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church, English composers based their works on the Sarum rite, abolished in 1547.[20] During the decades that followed the Reformation, the lives of English church musicians changed according to the policies of the reigning monarch. Henry allowed church music in England to continue to be written in a florid style, and use Latin texts, but during the reign of his son and successor, Edward VI, highly polyphonic music was no longer permitted, and there was a wholesale destruction of church organs and music. The damage done was never completely restored by Edward's successors Mary and Elizabeth.[21]

Parsley's compositional career spanned the reigns of all four monarchs, and he wrote church music for both the Latin and English rites.[22] The musicologist Howard Brown noted that Parsley belonged to a group of outstanding composers who during the middle period of the 16th century—William Mundy, Robert Parsons, John Sheppard, Christopher Tye, Thomas Tallis, and Robert White—who together produced a body of high quality music.[23]

The treble line of Parsley's Clock (BM Add. MSS 30480, British Library)

According to the scholar John Morehen, Parsley was less at ease when working with English texts, a trait Morehen finds Parsley had in common with similar Reformation composers.[22] His Latin music is fluent and attractive, with extended phrases that become increasingly melismatic as they progress. The parts in Latin are characteristically independent in a way that was typical of sacred polyphony in England before the Reformation.[24] The expressive psalm Conserva me, Domine has an elegant polyphonic style.[5] The technique shown in his English church music is less assured than his compositions for the Latin rite.[24] His five-part Lamentations, which differs from settings by his contemporaries Tallis and White in that the treble line is maintained throughout, was probably intended for domestic devotional use. The musicologist and composer W. H. Grattan Flood described Parsley's Lamentations as being "of particular interest".[4] One piece, a well-crafted three-part canonic setting of Salvator Mundi, was printed by Morley in 1597. Morley described Parsley's arrangement of this Gregorian hymn as a model of its kind,[1] and alluded to him as "the most learned musician".[4]

Parsley also composed secular music. Some instrumental music, nearly all for viols, survives, including six consort pieces.[25] His instrumental style combines both of his Latin and English vocal styles.[24] The composition known as Parsley's Clock is similar to Charles Butler's Dial Song, What strikes the clocke by Edward Gibbons, and an anonymous piece, all of which are built around a line that counts the hours.[26]

Peter Phillips, writing in The Musical Times, noted that "Parsley can be remembered as one of those men who just once conjured up a masterpiece, as it seems to us now, from nowhere."[27]

Parsley's surviving works consist mainly of church music, located in various places.[24] He is credited with the following compositions: Conserva Me Domine, his most substantial work;[28] two Morning Services, each consisting of a Benedictus (Canticle) and a "Te Deum";[5][29] an Evening Service previously attributed to Christopher Tye.[30] Spes Nostra, a motet for five viols;[31] Lamentations; five In Nomines; O praise the Lord all ye heathen, a tenor part recently found in a prayer book; a hymn Salvator mundi domine; a Service in C Major; Super septem planetarum; Parsley's Clock; and the anthem This is the Day the Lord has made.[32] Several examples of incomplete instrumental music have also survived.[25]

Of the four of the great Lamentations of the Tudor period for Holy Week date from the 1560s, two were composed by Tallis, and one each by William Byrd and Parsley. Earlier Lent services avoided polyphony, which was regarded as lacking in solemnity.[33] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes Parsley's Lamentations as his most famous work.[5]

• Boyd, Morrison Comegys (1962). Elizabethan Music and Musical Criticism (2nd ed.). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. OCLC 599711.
• Brennecke, Ernest (1951). "Shakespeare's "Singing Man of Windsor"". Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (PMLA). Cambridge University Press. 66 (6): 1188–1192. doi:10.2307/460166. JSTOR 460166 – via JSTOR.
• Brown, Howard Mayer (1976). Music in the Renaissance. Prentice Hall History of Music Series. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc. ISBN 978-01360-8-505-8.
• Butler, Katherine (2015). Music in Elizabethan Court Politics. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-18438-3-981-1.
• Davey, Henry (1921) [1895]. History of English Music (2nd ed.). London: J. Curwen. OCLC 890125681.
• Dovey, Zillah (1996). An Elizabethan Progress: The Queen's Journey Into East Anglia, 1578. Phoenix Mill: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 978-08386-3-721-0.
• Fellowes, Edmund H. (1969). English Cathedral Music (5th ed.). London: Methuen. ISBN 978-04161-4-850-3.
• Ford, Elliott (2019). A Study of the Musicians of Norwich, 1558–1660 (MA (unpublished dissertation)). University of East Anglia. Docket 100119792. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
• Gant, Andrew (2017). O Sing Unto the Lord: A History of English Church Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-02264-6-962-1.
• Grattan Flood, W. H. (1925). "New Light on Late Tudor Composers: XIII. Osbert Parsley". The Musical Times. 66 (993): 990. doi:10.2307/911434. JSTOR 911434 – via JSTOR.
• Kerman, Joseph (1998). "On William Byrd's Emendemus in melius". In Pesce, Dolores (ed.). Hearing the Motet: Essays on the Motet of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-01953-5-165-1.
• Milsom, John (1997). "The Passing of Time". Early Music. Oxford University Press. 25 (4 (25th Anniversary Issue)): 583–588. doi:10.1093/em/25.4.583. JSTOR 3128406 – via JSTOR.
• Morehen, John (1974). "The Instrumental Consort Music of Osbert Parsley". The Consort. 30: 67–72. ISSN 0268-9111.
• Morley, Thomas (1608). A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke. London: Humpfrey Lownes. OCLC 965139297.
• Murray, Tessa (2014). Thomas Morley: Elizabethan Music Publisher. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-18438-3-960-6.
• Oxford University (1937). "Reviews of Music". Music and Letters. 18 (2). doi:10.1093/ml/XVIII.2.218-a.
• Phillips, Peter (1997). "Voices from Nowhere". The Musical Times. 138 (1855): 16–21. doi:10.2307/1003540. JSTOR 1003540 – via JSTOR.
• Willis, Jonathan (2013). Church Music and Protestantism in Post-Reformation England: Discourses, Sites and Identities. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-14094-8-081-5.

• Baker, David; Baker, Jennifer (1978). "A 17th-Century Dial-Song". The Musical Times. 119 (1625): 590–593. doi:10.2307/958823. JSTOR 958823 – via JSTOR.
• Boston, Noel (1963). The Musical History of Norwich Cathedral. Norwich: The Friends of Norwich Cathedral. OCLC 450763.
• Buck, Percy Carter (1929). Hugh Aston, 1485(?)–(?), John Marbeck, 1510(?)–85(?), Osbert Parsley, 1511–85 (Scores). Tudor Church Music. Vol. 10. London: Published for the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust by the Oxford University Press. pp. 229–293. OCLC 1181367552.
• Buck, Percy Carter; Fellowes, Edmund H. (1948). Tudor Church Music: Appendix with supplementary notes. London: Oxford University Press. p. 55. OCLC 2652666.
• Daniel, Ralph T; Le Huray, Peter (1972). The Sources of English Church Music, 1549–1660. Vol. 1. London: Stainer and Bell for the British Academy. OCLC 1101353285.

• Free scores by Osbert Parsley in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores by Osbert Parsley at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
• Record of Parsley's will held at the Norfolk Record Office, Norwich.
• Information about MS 429 – Norwich Cathedral Musical Events held by the Norfolk Record Office, Norwich, which includes detailed records of Parsley's pay.