Patrick Douglas: In Convertendo [download]

Patrick Douglas: In Convertendo, for five voices.

Edited by Gordon J. Munro. Published by Musica Scotica, University of Glasgow Music Department, 1998. Computer typeset score (16pp), available as downloadable pdf with licence to print multiple copies for rehearsal and performance.

Patrick Douglas, ‘priste, scott borne,’ was active during the mid sixteenth century. He may well be the ‘Sir Patrik Douglas’ who held a prebend of st Giles’s Collegiate Church, Edinburgh, in 1556-7 and again in 1567. The motet In convertendo, a setting of Psalm 126 for five voices, is the only work by Douglas which survives complete.

The only other work known to be by him is a seven-part instrumental Miserere. Both pieces are recorded in English manuscripts of the late sixteenth century, suggesting Douglas, like Robert Johnson before him, fled Calvinist Scotland during the late 1560s. There was certainly no place within the Reformed Church for Latin polyphony such as In convertendo but Mary, Queen of Scots may possibly have heard the work at a private Mass in the Scottish Chapel Royal. The motet was doubtless sung at high-church establishments in England, possibly the Chapel Royal, where the part books seem to have been compiled. At any rate, In convertendo was a well-known work in its day, and was admired enough to have been transcribed at least twice for viols.