Musica Scotica Vol VIII: Robert Johnson - Instrumental Consorts [download]

Edited by Elaine Moohan and Kenneth Elliott.

Instrumental consorts by Johnson include two strongly dissonant settings of O lux beata, and Trinitas (both in three parts), which seem to be early works. The five-part In Nomine is more finely wrought and A knell, based on an ostinato and containing much effective instrumental writing, especially in those passages employing short repeated figures in close imitation, that point towards later sixteenth-century developments, e.g. in the consort music of William Byrd, appear to be mature middle- or even late-period works. Gaude Maria virgo is a five-part instrumental version of Johnson’s four-voice vocal setting of this Responsory (The Complete Works of Robert Johnson, No. 6)

From Musica Scotica Vol VIII: The Complete Works of Robert Johnson, full volume available here.