Rejoice in the Lord Always

Always? Not Alway? What are you doing?

A new release from Iterum Press - the well-known piece from the Mulliner Book Reioice in the Lorde Allaways. The Mulliner Book is what music people called a commonplace book - a compilation of knowledge - poetry, recipes, facts, information, music - for remembering ideas and thoughts. They were very popular starting in the Renaissance. Thomas Mulliner, who was the organist at the Corpus Christi College in Oxford at around 1563, put together this book. He possibly put it together either as an accompaniment collection of works to play along with the choir in services, or as a set of pieces he could play for "filler" at services. In any case, It is a source of pieces which cannot be found anywhere else, including this work.

Rejoice in the Lord Always is an Advent anthem found in The Mulliner Book, an early music
collection containing chants and music by Redford, Thomas Tallis, Christopher Tye, and
John Taverner. This anthem was originally attributed to John Redford, an important composer
(and a dramatist!) of the Tudor period. Why was the piece thought to be by Redford? Many of Redford's works are found in The Mulliner Book. However, the text set here did not become important
until after the publication of the first Book of Common Prayer (BCP), two years after Redford's death in 1547. Therefore, it is likely not by him.

The music in the Mulliner Book is intended for keyboard, cittern, and gittern; Rejoice in the Lord is written out on two staves. What is different with this piece, however, is that a later hand has added the text into the score, and it is decidedly not the version in the 1549 edition of the BCP. It is closer to the Coverdale Great Bible. The liminary text has Reioice in the Lorde allwayes, and not with the alway of BCP, or in fact, of the Coverdale Great Bible or Tyndale Bible.The first person that is known to have owned The Mulliner Book is John Stafford Smith (yes, the one that wrote the tune to the American national anthem); perhaps it was he who wrote the text into the book. Smith certainly wrote several other memoranda throughout the book, but specifically biographies of the composers mentioned. If Stafford Smith did write the text under the music, it must be said that he did not write any other words to any other pieces in the collection.

Certainly parts of the BCP version can be easily fitted onto the music. Other parts, however, do not fit without alterations of the notes throughout.  For example, as others have noted, the placement of Be not careful from the Coverdale Great Bible is difficult, but, more often than not, the older version seems to slide into place with the minimum of effort. A few notes have been altered even here, though (possibly because of Middle English pronunciation). The final Amen is also questionable, being over giant melismas for the last measures; why? Mulliner wrote out a plagal cadence in giant notes at the end; why would he bother if it wasn't intended to be the Amen?