Philip van Wilder
Encyclopedia
Philip van Wilder, (c. 1500 near Wormhout
– February 24, 1554, London) was a South Netherlandish
lutenist and composer
, active in England.
Like Peter van Wilder, who also worked in the Tudor
court and was presumably related to him, Philip was probably born in Millam
, near Wormhout, or in the nearby village of Wylder
("Wilder" in Dutch). A note in Italian in the Jacobean
scorebook anthology GB-Lbl Egerton 3665 describes him as ‘Master Philip of Flanders
, musician to King Henry VIII
, who lived in England around the year 1520’. He was certainly in London by 1522, living in the parish of St Olave's Hart Street (close to the Tower of London
) and having £60 ‘in goodes’ and £48 ‘in fees’. The court account books for the year 1525-6 describe him as ‘mynstrell’; he was later designated ‘lewter’. Van Wilder steadily advanced his position at the Tudor court. By 1529 he was a member of the Privy chamber
, the select group of musicians who played to the king in private. He was also active as a merchant
, being given a licence to import Toulouse
woad and Gascon
wine, and in purchasing instruments for the court. He taught the lute to Princess (later Queen) Mary
, who rewarded him with a gift on the occasion of his marriage to a woman named Frances in 1537. Later he also taught Prince Edward (later Edward VI
), who wrote a letter to his father in 1546 thanking him for ‘sending me your servant Philip, as excellent in music as he is noble ... that I might become more excellent in striking the lute’.
In 1539 Van Wilder became a denizen, which allowed him to own land. This enabled him to profit from the dissolution of the monasteries
and engage in a number of lucrative property deals with the Crown. At various times he was granted leaseholds on former monastic properties in London, as well as in Middlemarsh (in the parish of Minterne Magna
) and Littlebredy
in Dorset
, previously owned by Cerne Abbey
. By 1540 he was a Gentleman of the Privy chamber, a prestigious position which enabled him to accept financial inducements to raise legal issues and private grievances with the King. At the time of Henry VIII's death in 1547 Van Wilder was Keeper of the Instruments and effectively head of the Court instrumental musical establishment, a post later known as Master of the King's Music.
Van Wilder continued to enjoy royal favour during the reign of the boy-king Edward VI (reigned 1547–1553). At Edward's coronation he was placed in charge of a special group of nine singing men and boys. He was granted a coat of arms and a crest, and in 1551 was given powers of impressment to recruit boys for the Chapel Royal
from anywhere in England. On his death, which took place on 24 February 1554, Van Wilder was buried on the south side of the choir in his parish church of St Olave's Hart Street. His tomb was still in existence in 1733, but has since disappeared. An elegy in the poetry anthology known as Tottel's Miscellany
(1557) praises Van Wilder's skill as a lutenist:
Four sons and a daughter survived him; the eldest son, Henry, also became an instrumentalist in the Court establishment. The musicians Matthew and Peter Van Wilder, who also worked in the early Tudor court, were probably related to Philip (it is possible that Matthew, Peter and Philip were a father and two sons).
and English sources. He was primarily a composer of chanson
s, of which thirty survive, but there are also seven motet
s, an English psalm setting, one consort piece and at least one composition for lute
. The Continental sources, most of them printed anthologies published between 1544 and 1598, generally give the text and music of the chansons in good order, but the English manuscripts present them in various guises, generally left untexted for instrumental performance or solmization
and in arrangements for keyboard
, lute, cantus
with lute accompaniment, or even with substitute English texts. The most extensive English source is the table-book
manuscript GB-Lbm Add. 31390, which contains seventeen textless chansons and motets attributed to ‘Mr Phillipps’. The five-part scoring and imitative textures employed in most of the chansons suggest that Van Wilder took a Flemish stylistic model, contrasting with the lighter, more homophonic style favoured by native French composers. A number of them are resttings of texts already set, sometimes several times, by other composers. The fragmentary En despit des envyeulx (a7) is a canonic
treatment of a 15th century monophonic
chanson, and is one of five polyphonic surviving settings. Je dis adieu de tout plaisir (also a7) is a French contrafactum
of a Dutch part-song to a text beginning Ik seg adiu, which was also based on a derived melody.
The motets are more varied in character, ranging from four to twelve-part scoring. The brief ‘monster’ motet Deo gratias (a 12), which was perhaps composed for a state occasion, is a cantus firmus
treatment of the plainsong
(Liber Usualis Mass XI). Homo quidam fecit cenam magnam (a7), which sets the plainsong as a cantus firmus in canon, is partly modelled on the setting by Josquin. The others employ the Franco-Flemish technique of through-imitation. Sancte Deus, sancte fortis (a4) has a general similarity of design with Tallis
's setting of the same text. Van Wilder made two distinct, though closely related, settings of Aspice Domine quia facta est (a5 and a6). The five-part setting was particularly popular with English musicians, as the seven surviving manuscript sources show. It provided the model for Byrd
's Civitas sancti tui (Part II of Ne irascaris Domine) and the source for the famous Non nobis Domine canon. One English manuscript
(GB-Ob Tenbury 1464) preserves an interesting version with a substitute text in which the setting is changed from Jerusalem to Thebes, perhaps in order to serve as a play-chorus. The English psalm setting Blessed art thou that fearest God (a5) was also popular in Van Wilder's adopted country, providing the model for Byrd's If in thine heart (Songs of sundrie natures, 1589). Four lute pieces from English sources can be attributed to Van Wilder with varying degrees of probability, the best authenticated being a fantasia
found in the two Matthew Holmes
Lute Books. A curiosity is the Fantasia con pause e senza pause for four-part consort, which can be performed either with or without the rests.
Edition: J. Bernstein, (ed.) Philip van Wilder Collected Works (Masters and Monuments of the Renaissance 4, New York, 1991); Part I: Sacred Works; Part II: Secular works, Instrumental works, Appendices)
Wormhout
Wormhout is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.The town's name is of Germanic origin.Neighbouring towns and villages :*Ledringhem to the south-west, separated by river Peene Becque*Esquelbecq-Heraldry:...
– February 24, 1554, London) was a South Netherlandish
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
lutenist and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, active in England.
Like Peter van Wilder, who also worked in the Tudor
Tudor dynasty
The Tudor dynasty or House of Tudor was a European royal house of Welsh origin that ruled the Kingdom of England and its realms, including the Lordship of Ireland, later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1485 until 1603. Its first monarch was Henry Tudor, a descendant through his mother of a legitimised...
court and was presumably related to him, Philip was probably born in Millam
Millam
Millam is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.A chapel dedicated to the Mercian Saint Mildrith , Abbess of Minster-in-Thanet, who is said to have stayed there, exists in Millam, but is privately owned and not easily visited....
, near Wormhout, or in the nearby village of Wylder
Wylder
-References:*...
("Wilder" in Dutch). A note in Italian in the Jacobean
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
scorebook anthology GB-Lbl Egerton 3665 describes him as ‘Master Philip of Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
, musician to King Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
, who lived in England around the year 1520’. He was certainly in London by 1522, living in the parish of St Olave's Hart Street (close to the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
) and having £60 ‘in goodes’ and £48 ‘in fees’. The court account books for the year 1525-6 describe him as ‘mynstrell’; he was later designated ‘lewter’. Van Wilder steadily advanced his position at the Tudor court. By 1529 he was a member of the Privy chamber
Privy chamber
A Privy chamber was the private apartment of a royal residence in England. The gentlemen of the Privy chamber were servants to the Crown who would wait and attend on the King and Queen at court during their various activities, functions and entertainments....
, the select group of musicians who played to the king in private. He was also active as a merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
, being given a licence to import Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
woad and Gascon
Gascony
Gascony is an area of southwest France that was part of the "Province of Guyenne and Gascony" prior to the French Revolution. The region is vaguely defined and the distinction between Guyenne and Gascony is unclear; sometimes they are considered to overlap, and sometimes Gascony is considered a...
wine, and in purchasing instruments for the court. He taught the lute to Princess (later Queen) Mary
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
, who rewarded him with a gift on the occasion of his marriage to a woman named Frances in 1537. Later he also taught Prince Edward (later Edward VI
Edward VI of England
Edward VI was the King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant...
), who wrote a letter to his father in 1546 thanking him for ‘sending me your servant Philip, as excellent in music as he is noble ... that I might become more excellent in striking the lute’.
In 1539 Van Wilder became a denizen, which allowed him to own land. This enabled him to profit from the dissolution of the monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
and engage in a number of lucrative property deals with the Crown. At various times he was granted leaseholds on former monastic properties in London, as well as in Middlemarsh (in the parish of Minterne Magna
Minterne Magna
Minterne Magna is a village in west Dorset, England, situated at the source of the River Cerne in the Dorset Downs, on the A352 main road half way between Dorchester and Sherborne. The village has a population of 188 .-Minterne House:...
) and Littlebredy
Littlebredy
Littlebredy is a village in south west Dorset, England, seven miles west of Dorchester. The village has a population of 85 .-External links:* **...
in Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
, previously owned by Cerne Abbey
Cerne Abbey
Cerne Abbey was a Benedictine monastery founded in 987 AD in the town now called Cerne Abbas by Æthelmær the Stout. Ælfric of Eynsham, the most prolific writer in Old English was known to have spent time at the abbey as a priest and teacher....
. By 1540 he was a Gentleman of the Privy chamber, a prestigious position which enabled him to accept financial inducements to raise legal issues and private grievances with the King. At the time of Henry VIII's death in 1547 Van Wilder was Keeper of the Instruments and effectively head of the Court instrumental musical establishment, a post later known as Master of the King's Music.
Van Wilder continued to enjoy royal favour during the reign of the boy-king Edward VI (reigned 1547–1553). At Edward's coronation he was placed in charge of a special group of nine singing men and boys. He was granted a coat of arms and a crest, and in 1551 was given powers of impressment to recruit boys for the Chapel Royal
Chapel Royal
A Chapel Royal is a body of priests and singers who serve the spiritual needs of their sovereign wherever they are called upon to do so.-Austria:...
from anywhere in England. On his death, which took place on 24 February 1554, Van Wilder was buried on the south side of the choir in his parish church of St Olave's Hart Street. His tomb was still in existence in 1733, but has since disappeared. An elegy in the poetry anthology known as Tottel's Miscellany
Tottel's Miscellany
Songes and Sonettes, usually called Tottel's Miscellany, was the first printed anthology of English poetry. It was published by Richard Tottel in 1557, and ran to many editions in the sixteenth century.-Richard Tottel:...
(1557) praises Van Wilder's skill as a lutenist:
- Bewaile with me all ye that have profest
- Of musicke thart by touch of courde or winde
- Laye downe your lutes and let your gitterns rest
- Phillips is dead whose like you can not finde . . .
Four sons and a daughter survived him; the eldest son, Henry, also became an instrumentalist in the Court establishment. The musicians Matthew and Peter Van Wilder, who also worked in the early Tudor court, were probably related to Philip (it is possible that Matthew, Peter and Philip were a father and two sons).
Works
More than forty compositions by Van Wilder survive in about sixty ContinentalEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and English sources. He was primarily a composer of chanson
Chanson
A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur" or "chanteuse" ; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.-Chanson de geste:The...
s, of which thirty survive, but there are also seven motet
Motet
In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...
s, an English psalm setting, one consort piece and at least one composition for lute
Lute
Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
. The Continental sources, most of them printed anthologies published between 1544 and 1598, generally give the text and music of the chansons in good order, but the English manuscripts present them in various guises, generally left untexted for instrumental performance or solmization
Solmization
Solmization is a system of attributing a distinct syllable to each note in a musical scale. Various forms of solmization are in use and have been used throughout the world.In Europe and North America, solfège is the convention used most often...
and in arrangements for keyboard
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
, lute, cantus
Cantus
A cantus , is an activity organised by Belgian, Dutch, French, Baltic and Afrikaans student organisations and fraternities. A cantus mainly involves singing traditional songs and drinking beer. It is governed by strict traditional rules...
with lute accompaniment, or even with substitute English texts. The most extensive English source is the table-book
Table-book
A table-book is a manuscript or printed book which is arranged so that all the parts of a piece of music can be read from it while seated around a table. They were made in the 16th and 17th century for both instrumental and vocal pieces...
manuscript GB-Lbm Add. 31390, which contains seventeen textless chansons and motets attributed to ‘Mr Phillipps’. The five-part scoring and imitative textures employed in most of the chansons suggest that Van Wilder took a Flemish stylistic model, contrasting with the lighter, more homophonic style favoured by native French composers. A number of them are resttings of texts already set, sometimes several times, by other composers. The fragmentary En despit des envyeulx (a7) is a canonic
Canon (music)
In music, a canon is a contrapuntal composition that employs a melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a given duration . The initial melody is called the leader , while the imitative melody, which is played in a different voice, is called the follower...
treatment of a 15th century monophonic
Monophony
In music, monophony is the simplest of textures, consisting of melody without accompanying harmony. This may be realized as just one note at a time, or with the same note duplicated at the octave . If the entire melody is sung by two voices or a choir with an interval between the notes or in...
chanson, and is one of five polyphonic surviving settings. Je dis adieu de tout plaisir (also a7) is a French contrafactum
Contrafactum
In vocal music, contrafactum refers to "the substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music"....
of a Dutch part-song to a text beginning Ik seg adiu, which was also based on a derived melody.
The motets are more varied in character, ranging from four to twelve-part scoring. The brief ‘monster’ motet Deo gratias (a 12), which was perhaps composed for a state occasion, is a cantus firmus
Cantus firmus
In music, a cantus firmus is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition.The plural of this Latin term is , though the corrupt form canti firmi is also attested...
treatment of the plainsong
Plainsong
Plainsong is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Catholic Church. Though the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Catholic Church did not split until long after the origin of plainchant, Byzantine chants are generally not classified as plainsong.Plainsong is monophonic, consisting of a...
(Liber Usualis Mass XI). Homo quidam fecit cenam magnam (a7), which sets the plainsong as a cantus firmus in canon, is partly modelled on the setting by Josquin. The others employ the Franco-Flemish technique of through-imitation. Sancte Deus, sancte fortis (a4) has a general similarity of design with Tallis
Thomas Tallis
Thomas Tallis was an English composer. Tallis flourished as a church musician in 16th century Tudor England. He occupies a primary place in anthologies of English church music, and is considered among the best of England's early composers. He is honoured for his original voice in English...
's setting of the same text. Van Wilder made two distinct, though closely related, settings of Aspice Domine quia facta est (a5 and a6). The five-part setting was particularly popular with English musicians, as the seven surviving manuscript sources show. It provided the model for Byrd
William Byrd
William Byrd was an English composer of the Renaissance. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard and consort music.-Provenance:Knowledge of Byrd's biography expanded in the late 20th century, thanks largely...
's Civitas sancti tui (Part II of Ne irascaris Domine) and the source for the famous Non nobis Domine canon. One English manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
(GB-Ob Tenbury 1464) preserves an interesting version with a substitute text in which the setting is changed from Jerusalem to Thebes, perhaps in order to serve as a play-chorus. The English psalm setting Blessed art thou that fearest God (a5) was also popular in Van Wilder's adopted country, providing the model for Byrd's If in thine heart (Songs of sundrie natures, 1589). Four lute pieces from English sources can be attributed to Van Wilder with varying degrees of probability, the best authenticated being a fantasia
Fantasia (music)
The fantasia is a musical composition with its roots in the art of improvisation. Because of this, it seldom approximates the textbook rules of any strict musical form ....
found in the two Matthew Holmes
Matthew Holmes
Matthew Holmes was Chief Mechanical Engineer of the North British Railway from 1882 to 1903..-Locomotives:Locomotives designed by M. Holmes include:* NBR Class C, later LNER Class J36, 0-6-0...
Lute Books. A curiosity is the Fantasia con pause e senza pause for four-part consort, which can be performed either with or without the rests.
Edition: J. Bernstein, (ed.) Philip van Wilder Collected Works (Masters and Monuments of the Renaissance 4, New York, 1991); Part I: Sacred Works; Part II: Secular works, Instrumental works, Appendices)