Nicholas Sturgeon

This English composer's life was well documented and adds to his import in Renaissance music though few of his compositions survive. Sturgeon's will is among the earliest surviving fifty wills written in English. It unfortunately contains no information about his musical life. Other documents attest to his service and inventory his station. Sturgeon worked at Exeter, Wells, St. Stephen's Westminster, Hastings, Windsor and St. Paul's Cathedral. The seven surviving works include mass parts of the Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and a Salve mater Domini. Characteristics of the works include concern for timbre and syncopated rhythms, some changes in mensuration, and more extensive movements in the superious than the lower voices. The countertenor in one of the Glorias and in the Sanctus crosses above the discant and below the tenor, an unusual practice for this period in music. ~ Keith Johnson