Hugh Aston

Hugh Aston (also spelled Asseton, Assheton, Ashton, Haston;[1] c. 1485 – buried 17 November 1558) was an English composer of
the early Tudor period. While little of his music survives, he is notable for his innovative keyboard and church music writing. He was
also politically active, a mayor, Member of Parliament, and Alderman.

Contents
Music career
Political career
Death
Residence
Works
Notes
Recordings
References and further reading
External links

Music career
Little is known about the early life of this important early Tudor composer, and his date and place of birth are currently unknown.
However, on 27 November 1510 he supplicated for the degree of BMus at Oxford University, proposing for his examination an
[2] He stated that he had studied
oration on the volumes ofBoethius, and the submission (and performance) of a mass and an antiphon.
music in the University Music School for eight years (suggesting that he must have been in his mid-20s by that date, hence the
estimated date of birth of around 1485). Presumably his study of Boethius was of the 6th century philosopher's De Institutione
Musica, which had been published in Venice in 1491 and 1492 (one of the first musical works to be published).[3] The University
records show that his examination was successful,[4] and the University ordered that the University Proctors supervising the
examination should retain the two manuscripts. It seems most likely that these were Aston's five part Missa Te Deum Laudamus and
the clearly associated antiphon Te Deum Laudamus. Though the original manuscripts are not in Music School archives today,
excellent early copies of ca. 1528–30 almost certainly made for Cardinal's College (now Christ Church) Oxford are in the Forrest-
Heather Part Books[5] now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

After 1510 he may have lived in London, and it is suggested that he may have had some association with the court of Henry VIII. In
1520/21 he was paid by the Dean and Chapter of the Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick, to advise on the purchase and installing
of a new organ. By 1525 at the latest Aston was settled and working in Leicester, as a verbatim record of his evidence given to a
Bishop's Visitation on 27 & 28 November 1525 is preserved in the Lincoln Diocesan Records, and he seems to have stayed in
Leicester for the rest of his life. His appointment in Leicester was that of Keeper of the Organs and Magister Choristerorum (Master
of the Choristers) at the major Royal foundation, the Hospital and College of St Mary of the Annunciation. This was first established
by Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster in 1330, and re-endowed and substantially enlarged by his son Henry, 4th Earl and later 1st Duke of
Lancaster under a Charter of 24 March 1355/6. Later known as The Newarke, the institution had a Dean and twelve Canons (later
termed Prebends), thirteen Vicars-Choral, four Lay Clerks and six (boy) choristers. By the late 15th century it had achieved a high
status and musical reputation and had acquired the privilege, apparently shared only with the Chapels Royal, of having the right to
recruit outstanding musicians and singers from other institutions without their consent, in other words to poach the very best
musicians of the country. Perhaps the already highly regarded Aston was himself recruited by The Newarke using this privilege, but
there seems to be no surviving documentary evidence of exactly how or when he came to be engaged by the Leicester Choral
College.

The Charters required among many other things the use of the Salisbury ("Sarum") Rite, a daily sung Mass in honour of Our Lady,
and also the singing of Matins, a High Mass and Vespers on more than two dozen high feasts, led by the Dean in Choir, so there
would have been a heavy musical programme for the choir of around sixteen (including at least some of the Vicars) and its musical
director. His initial salary was £10 a year (only £2 a year less than that of the Dean) and by 1540 this had increased to £12 a year. In
addition Aston, also referred to in some documents as a singer and organist, was entitled to receive further significant payments for
additional services such as funerals. In 1525 he had been recommended to Cardinal Wolsey as the founder director of music at his
new Cardinal's College, Oxford, (now Christ Church College and Cathedral) but Aston seems to have declined the offer and in any
event Wolsey appointed John Taverner instead. Aston continued at The Newarke until shortly before the final dissolution of the
Foundation at Easter 1548, and on retirement he received a £12-a-year state pension in respect of his Newarke College office. By this
time he must have been holding at least advisory positions at a number of other important Midlands choral institutions, since he also
received further state pensions totalling £6 13s. 4d. in respect of loss of office at six other suppressed choral institutions: Sully and
Pipewell in Northamptonshire, Coventry and Kenilworth in Warwickshire, and the Leicestershire abbeys of Launde and St Mary de
Pratis (= Leicester Abbey).[6]

Political career
Before 1530 a Hugh Aston, almost certainly the musician as there are no others of the same name recorded in 16th century Leicester,
was already representing the Southgates Ward in which he lived as a member of the Town council and later as a Borough Alderman,
and by 1550 the Ward was even being referred to in the Leicester Borough Records as "the Ward of Mr Hugh Aston". From 1532 he
was a Justice of the Peace, Coroner for two years, Auditor of Accounts for a total of 16 years, Mayor for 1541–1542, one of the two
[7] and remained an Alderman to his death.
Members of Parliament for the Borough for the 1555 Parliament,

Death
The exact date of this is not known, but he was buried on 17 November 1558 in the parish church for the Southgates Ward, St
Margaret's. On 15 November 2008 a 450th anniversary Commemorative Service was held in St Margaret's, featuring two of Aston’s
surviving antiphons, the two known keyboard pieces and much of the Sarum Rite plainsong music for the Requiem Mass of the pre-
Reformation Sarum liturgy, which had been restored by Queen Mary.[8]

Residence
In Leicester the College provided him with a rent-free house just outside the South Gate of the Borough more or less directly opposite
the main gate of The Newarke in the Borough's First (soon to be renamed Southgates) Ward. It seems likely that before or at the time
of the dissolution of the College the property passed to Aston or his family and what was presumably the same property seems to
have remained his family's home to at least his grandson's time in the early 17th century
.

Most of the buildings of the medieval Hospital and College of the Newarke, including the Collegiate Church much admired by
Leland during his visit in ca. 1535, were demolished soon after the Dissolution, and the campus of De Montfort University today
covers almost the whole site. In March 2015 the University opened a new DMU Heritage Centre incorporating the remaining ruins of
the Church of the Annunciation together with displays explaining the history of the Newarke area. On 17 March 2010 Patrick
McKenna, founder and Chief Executive of Ingenious Media, declared open De Montfort University's new £35 million Faculty of
Business and Law, adjacent to the great Gateway to The Newarke and only 100 metres or so from the site of Aston's Hangman's Lane
house: this new building is called the Hugh Aston Building. The event was also marked by performances by singers from the choir of
the Holy Cross Dominican Priory, New Walk, Leicester (directed by David Cowen) of sections from Aston's Te Deum Mass and Te
Deum, two of Aston's keyboard compositions, and some of the 'Sarum Rite' medieval plainsong for 17 MarchSt.
– Patrick's Day.
Works
Four sacred vocal compositions by Aston survive substantially complete:

Missa Te Deum (five voices)

Missa Videte manus meas (six voices)
Gaude mater matris Christe(five voices)
Te Deum laudamus (five voices)
Other compositions survive in fragments.

In addition, he wrote keyboard music, most of which shows an unusually progressive use of idiomatic keyboard: his Hornepype in
particular is often cited as an example of early idiomatic keyboard writing.[1] Some other famous early keyboard pieces have been
attributed to him on stylistic grounds, including the often-recorded and anthologized
My Lady Careys Dompe.

0:00

Hugh Aston's Hornpipe

(harpsichord)

Notes
1. John Bergsagel. "Hugh Aston".In Deane L. Root. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University
Press. (subscription required)
2. Tudor Church Music vol. X, Hugh Aston, JohnMarbeck,and Osbert Parsley, p.xiv. London, Oxford University Press,
1929.
3. Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus,De Institutione Musica. Translated, with Introduction and Notes as
Fundamentals of Musicby Calvin M. Bower. Edited by Claude V. Palisca. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.
4. Oxford University: Register of Congregations.Oxford History Society vol. 38 (N.S.) pp. 106–7.
5. Digital Image Library of Medieval Music: Forrest-Heather Part Book – taken from
Census-Catalogue of Manuscript
Sources of Polyphonic Music 1400–1550, 5 vols. (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1979–1988.
6. The History of the Hospital and the New College of the Annunciation of St Mary in The Newarke, Leicester
, A.
Hamilton Thompson. Leicester: Leicestershire Archaeological Society
, 1937
7. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/aston-hugh-1496-1558
8. Hugh Aston (c. 1485–1558): Composer and Mayor of Leicester
, Patrick J Boylan. Leicestershire Historianno. 44, pp.
26–30, 2008.

Recordings
Music for Compline, Stile Antico, Harmonia Mundi USA HMU 907419. Includes Aston's Gaude, virgo mater Christi and works by
Byrd, Tallis, Sheppard and White.

Two Tudor Masses for the Cardinal, Christ Church Oxford Cathedral Choir, directed by Stephen Darlington. Metronome UK 1998,
MET CD1030. Disc 2 is Hugh Aston's Missa V
idete Manus Meas.

Three Marian Antiphons : Music from the Peterhouse Partbooks, directed by Scott Metcalfe. Blue Heron 2010, B003KWVNXS.

References and further reading

Aston, Hugh (d. 1558), Nick Sandon.Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004
Hugh Aston, John Marbeck, and Osbert Parsley . Tudor Church Music vol. X. Oxford University Press, 1929
Bergsagel, John (1980). "Aston, Hugh".In Sadie, Stanley. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. i (1
ed.). London: Macmillan. pp. 661–662.
 Patrick J Boylan. "Hugh Aston (c. 1485–1558): Composer and Mayor of Leicester". Leicestershire Historianno. 44,
pp. 26–30, 2008.
Nick Sandon. "Another mass by Hugh Aston?"Early Music, vol. 9(2), pp. 184 – 191, 1981.
Oliver Neighbour. "Hugh Aston's Variations on a Ground".Early Music, vol. 10(2), pp. 215–216. 1982.
A. Hamilton Thompson.The History of the Hospital and the New College of the Annunciation of St Mary in The
Newarke, Leicester. Leicester: Leicestershire Archaeological Society
, 1937.
Visitations in the Diocese of LincolnVolume 3, 1517–1531, edited by A. HamiltonThompson. Lincoln Record Society
vol. 37. 1947.
Records of the Borough of LeicesterVolume III, 1509–1603, M. Bateson. Cambridge University Press. 1905.
Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W. W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
F. Ll. Harrison, Music in Medieval Britain. London, 1958.

External links
Free scores by Hugh Astonat the International Music Score Library Project(IMSLP)
Free scores by Hugh Astonin the Choral Public Domain Library(ChoralWiki) (bio & worklist only as of 2014)

Ave Maria ancilla trinitatis(excerpt) performed byBlue Heron Renaissance Choir

For new performing editions by Nick Sandon of five of Aston's choral works see
Antico Edition, UK

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hugh_Aston&oldid=810082960

"

This page was last edited on 13 November 2017, at 07:18(UTC).

Text is available under theCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this
site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of theWikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.