Name: Fires of Faith: Music of the English Reformation
Start: 2025-10-18T18:15:00+01:00
End: 2025-10-18T21:15:00+01:00
Location: St Mary's, Bourne Street

Our first concert of 2025—26 is 'Fires of Faith: Music of the English Reformation', with a pre-concert talk by Dr Kerry McCarthy.
Our programme is inspired by a fleeting, audacious moment of musical sabotage. In May 1538, during a service in St George’s Chapel Windsor, one of the professional singers, Robert Testwood, took it upon himself to amend the text of the votive antiphon he was singing: Lauda vivi Alpha et O by Robert Fayrfax. During an exposed section of the music he pointedly reversed the meaning of the Latin text, to deny that the Virgin Mary was redeemer and saviour (‘redemptrix et saluatrix’).
This premeditated act of artistic vandalism exposes for us the doctrinal, political and social tensions which shaped the sacred music that survives from this time, and which had very real consequences for all involved: Testwood himself would go on to die at the stake in 1543, one of the so-called Windsor Martyrs.
Drawing on recent research by distinguished musicologist Dr Kerry McCarthy, our programme navigates the musical and doctrinal minefield of the mid-16th century.
Aside from Fayrfax’s magnificent music, we shine a light on Testwood’s reform-minded colleague at Windsor, John Merbecke. His immense antiphon O Domine Jesu Christe sounds like a conventional early Tudor Catholic work yet its text contains nothing to trouble a reformer. And we sing the simple chant melodies he published for the new Anglican rite.
We see musicians including Tallis and Sheppard reaching for solutions in the new genre of the English anthem, while still honouring the native polyphonic tradition. And, to counterbalance the heartfelt simplicity of Sheppard’s anthems, we sing his Gaude Virgo Christipara, a six-voiced motet to the Virgin which was almost certainly sung at Durham Cathedral in late 1569 during a brief bout of rapidly-suppressed Marian devotion.
Pre-concert talk by Kerry McCarthy
We are delighted that Dr Kerry McCarthy will be with us in person on the evening of the concert, giving a pre-concert talk putting the music into context. The talk will begin at 6.15pm and last about 45 minutes and is included in the price of your ticket. Doors for the talk open at 6pm, and for the concert shortly after 7pm.