Robert Carver (ca.1485 – ca.1570) was a Scottish Renaissance monk and composer of Christian sacred music. He spent much of his life at Scone Abbey in Perthshire and is regarded as Scotland's greatest 16th Century composer. He is best known for his sacred choral music, of which there are five surviving masses and two surviving motets. The works that can definitely be attributed to him can be found in the Carver Choirbook, previously known as the Scone Antiphonary, held in the National Library of Scotland. These include the mass L’Homme Armé and his motet for 19 voices, O Bone Jesu. His work, noted for the gradual build up of ideas towards a resolution in the final passages, is still performed and recorded today. Unusually, Carver was influenced by continental Europe, so his work was unlike anything his contemporaries in Scotland or England produced at the time.
External links
- Free scores by Robert Carver in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
- Digitised scores can be viewed through the Five Centuries of Scottish Music collection hosted by AHDS Performing Arts
- Classical.net
- Cappella Nova - The Complete Works of Robert Carver
- James MacMillan interview On his own O Bone Jesu, and Carver's music
