Robert Whyte: Lamentations

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The Lamentations [of Jeremiah] is an Old Testament book belonging to the third section of the biblical canon, known as Ketuvim, or Writings. 

In the Hebrew Bible, the Lamentations is part of the Megillot - the five scrolls that are read on various festivals of the Jewish religious year. In the Jewish liturgical calendar, Lamentations is the festal scroll of the Ninth of Av, a day commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples of Jerusalem. Some of chapters consists of an acrostic poem with the each verse beginning with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The letters follow, starting with ALEPH, the second starting with BETH. The poems are laments over the destruction of Judah, Jerusalem, and the Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BC. 

Motets, Inscriptions and the Praise of Music in Robert Dow ...
Robert Dow Tudor Partbooks
Image source

Listen to Robert Whyte's musical setting of the lamentations (Chapter 1, verses 8 -13). Verse eight begins with HETH and notice how Whyte sets even the simplest word - a letter of the alphabet - in the most beautiful way. The settings ends with the words Ierusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum ("Jerusalem, return to the Lord thy God"). 



Robert Whyte (c.1538 - 1584) was a Catholic English composer, whose liturgical music for Latin texts is considered particularly fine. Robert Whyte was the son of an organ builder and later singer in the choir of Trinity College Cambridge, during which time (in 1560), he received a Bachelorship of Music from Cambridge University. In 1562 he moved to Ely, a few miles away, where he succeeded his father-in-law as Master of the Choristers. Whyte and his family died in a virulent outbreak of the plague in the Westminster area in 1574. Fortunately quite a large number of the composer's works have survived, several of which were included in the Dow Partbooks (pictured above). 


This blog is intended to be educational and to share knowledge about music. Daily Hit of Music does not claim to own anything contained in this post and declares its sources openly. 
The following sources were used for this blog post: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia. 
Image sources can be found in the image captions. 
Recordings can be found on YouTube by clicking the 'DHM YouTube Playlist' links. 

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