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Andrew Cichy, Lost and found: Hugh Facy, Early Music, Volume 42, Issue 1, February 2014, Pages 95–104, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/cat117
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Abstract
Hugh Facy, an English singer and organist at Exeter Cathedral in the early 17th century, last appears in the notes of the Cathedral Chapter in 1619, after which his whereabouts were unknown. Using documents from the archives of the Congregation of the Evangelisation of the Peoples (Propaganda Fide) in Vatican City and the Douai Diaries, it is now possible to trace Facy’s movements after 1619, first to the English College at Saint Omer, and then to the English College at Douai, where he probably lived for the rest of his life. Other documents from Propaganda Fide also provide information about the disputes over music between the Roman Congregation and the President of the College, and therefore the background to Facy’s arrival at Douai. The consequence of this newly discovered connection between Facy and the English College at Douai is a glimpse of the kinds of music used at the college through Facy’s surviving Latin-texted choral work—a setting of the Magnificat—and his Ave maris stella organ verset. This is significant, because the French Revolution and its aftermath completely destroyed the college’s library and most of its archives, and no 17th-century music from the college is known to have survived. Connections between English Catholic institutions and exiled musicians have yet to be fully explored, and the simultaneous study of them has the potential to provide new insights into both.
