Daily Classical Music Post

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/EX5fzwkMBCQ Anthony Holborne (c. 1545–1602) is known for his compositions for lute, cittern, and consorts, and most particularly for his dance music: in 1599 he published Pavans, Galliards, Almains and other short Aeirs, both grave and light, in five parts, for Viols, Violins, or other Musicall Winde Instruments , which contains 65 of his compositions. There isn’t a great deal known about Holborne, although we do know that he enjoyed the patronage of Sir Robert Cecil, Mary Sidney, and Elizabeth I. John Dowland dedicated his lute song “I saw my Lady weepe” “to the most famous, Anthony Holborne,” so Holborne must have been well known and respected in his lifetime. One of my favourite pieces in Pavans, Galliards, Almains . . . is the galliard “Muy Linda” (No. 34). Johan van Veen says, “ The fact that almost all the pieces in this collection are dances doesn...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/Ke_KR2xopFI The English composer and poet (and physician) Thomas Campion ( 1567–1620) also trained as a lawyer but was never called to the bar. He was a true Renaissance man, in all senses of the phrase. Campion composed masques, lute songs, and ayres. He wrote his own words and set them to music himself, which was unusual at the time. Campion also wrote a work on counterpoint, A New Way of Making Fowre Parts in Counterpoint By a Most Familiar and Infallible Rule , which was published in 1615.  Campion’s “It fell on a summer’s day” was published in Rosseter’s Book of Ayres in 1601. The article on “Poetry” in the Oxford Illustrated Companion to Medicine says, that “It fell on a summer’s day” is “among the miniature glories of English poetry and music. . . . The major preoccupation of poets in the Elizabethan age was amorous; . . . Campion excelled a...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/c_ixwO-AZnM John Wilbye ( 1574–1638) is mostly known for his madrigals, although he did compose some religious music as well as at least one piece for virginals. He never married, but his madrigals are full of stories of love and longing. Wilbye’s main influence was Thomas Morley. Edmund Fellowes once said of Wilbye (in 1915), “[I]n his two published Sets alone, Wilbye produced as many as sixty-four madrigals, scarcely any of which fall below the very highest standard of excellent, characterized, as they are, by a polished style, a keen sense of imagination, and a seriousness of purpose, showing also that their composer had a rare skill in all the musical devices known at the period in which he lived.” “Oft have I vowed” is in Wilbye’s Second Set of Madrigals for 3-6 voices, published in 1598. It is one of the darker madrigals; this is not a happy love s...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/vuf6rCX7D-E William Byrd wrote a set of six variations for virginals on a well-known tune, "All in a Garden Green." It was included in the collection My Lady Nevell's Book (1591), although most people believe that it was written much earlier than that. The words of the popular song on which this was based went something like this: All in a garden green, two lovers sat at ease, As they could scarce be seen above the leafy trees. They lovèd lofty full, and no wronger than truly, In the time of the year cam betwixt May and July. It was very common in the 16th and 17th centuries to write variations on a tune that people would instantly identify. Byrd was a master at this, and this early work shows that. My classical music post for today is William Byrd's "All in a Garden Green."

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/SfF3dXVezYs https://youtu.be/9sovW4pqhWQ   Thomas Morley (yes, him again) published A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke in 1597. He included some vocal compositions in this book (interestingly, in “table-book” format, so the singers could stand around a table and share the same book).   Tim Eggington says, “In A Plaine and Easie Introduction Morley explained and promoted all the Italian musical forms along with their underlying aesthetic premises. The treatise is divided into three sections, with the more complex matters consigned to Annotations at the end. A remarkable feature of the work is the degree to which Morley was able to display his immense learning throughout, without seriously detracting from his instructive purpose. This was to train the average and ignorant music lover to the point where he could compose a madriga...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/QfcvlnDBX7k John Bull ( 1562/1563–1628) was known particularly for his music for the virginals, a small type of harpsichord common in England during the 16th and 17th centuries. He was known for his skill as a keyboard performer as well as a composer, but also for his less-than-abstemious lifestyle. Apparently, the then Archbishop of Canterbury said of Bull, “the man hath more music than honesty and is as famous for marring of virginity as he is for fingering of organs and virginals.” That pretty much says it all. Although according to contemporary accounts Bull was prolific as a composer, a good deal of his music was lost when he left England. He most likely left before being charged with adultery, although he later claimed that he was trying to avoid religious persecution. David Schulenberg says, “In the case of Bull we have a composer whose biography ...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/YSI9nU5occ0 Not a great deal is known about William Corkine (fl. 1610 –1617) other than he published a couple of books of ayres for voice, lute, and viol, the first in 1610 and the second in 1612. Jessica Buck says, “In the Renaissance, patronage was essential for the production of literary works as well as art and music. William Corkine dedicated many of his books, and individual compositions, to a number of patrons and patronesses.” The lyra viol is very interesting. It was primarily an English 17th-century instrument, as was known as the “smallest of the bass viols.” It most often had six strings, although there is evidence of lyra viols with anywhere from four to seven strings. It made an important contribution to self-accompaniment and the development of polyphony throughout the 17th century. “Come Live With Me and Be My Love,” from Corkine’s Second...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/XVD648IOAK4 The English playwright Ben Jonson wrote a number of masques in the early 17th century. Masques, elaborate stage shows often based on mythological or allegorical themes, were especially popular in England, where they were primarily court entertainments. The masque is one of the forms of sung and staged entertainment that is seen as a precursor to opera. Jonson’s masques were the pinnacle of the form; he and his designer Inigo Jones produced many popular masques with music by top composers of the day. Jones’s stage designs and costumes were unbelievably detailed and really quite over the top. In 1611, Jonson and Jones collaborated with two musicians, Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger (c. 1575–1628) and Robert Johnson (c. 1583 –1633), on Oberon, the Faery Prince. The masque, with Henry, Prince of Wales, in the lead role, is particularly notable for...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/-p84oPpjTx4 The English composer John Cooke (1385-1442) is known for his setting of the Stella celi, a prayer for deliverance from the Black Death. Uncle Dave Lewis says, “ Medieval English composer John Cooke is one of the few composers in the Old Hall Manuscript about whom we know something. He is represented by nine pieces in that source as ‘Cooke’; an additional, incomplete manuscript of one of his two settings of the Credo gives his first initial as ‘J,’ leading to the generally accepted speculation that his first name was John.” Cooke was a member of the Chapel Royal of both Henry V and Henry VI. At some point, he fell out of favour; at least, it is assumed that he did, as someone tried to erase some of his compositions in the Old Hall Manuscript.  The Stella celi was a Latin text written as a prayer to the Virgin Mary, asking for her to save t...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/tP01Xy3eN54 Poor John Redford (c. 1500 – 1547). By all accounts, he was one of the most important composers and dramatists of the Tudor period. Although many of his keyboard works can be found in the Mulliner Book, pretty much everything else is lost. There is one sweet little anthem, "Rejoice in the Lord alway," that was at one time attributed to him, but it has been determined that Redford couldn't have composed it because the text was unknown until two years after his death. Thomas Morley set Redford's words in his anthem "Nolo mortem peccatoris." Redford’s famous morality play, The Play of Wyt and Science, is in a manuscript in the British Library, but it is incomplete. Much of the music that Redford composed for this play is lost. The synopsis sounds like it would still be pretty much relevant today: Wit, having fallen in...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/ZfFOELPs6_E In 1550, the Anglican theologian and musician John Merbecke (c. 1510–c. 1585) published his Book of Common Praier Noted, in which he set the new English prayer book to music adapted from Gregorian chant. Apparently Merbecke had been asked to do this by none other than Archbishop Thomas Cranmer; the requirements were that it would be simple enough for anyone to sing, and that there was to be “for every syllable a note.” The image today is from Merbecke’s Nicene Creed. Merbecke had an interesting life -- the little that we know about it, anyway. He was a chorister at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, and later organist there. In 1543, he was arrested for heresy: he had in fact converted to Calvinism in the early 1540s and had managed to keep that secret for a few years. He was sentenced to burn at the stake. Fortunately, the Bishop of Winchester int...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/c0PS0C77aRs The 17th-century English diarist Samuel Pepys left us a wonderful eyewitness account of life in the English Restoration period. His descriptions of major events including the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London, as well as other events in England and in Europe, are unparalleled. Pepys loved music, and he wrote about many of the great musicians of his day, including Matthew Locke, Henry and William (1602 –1645) Lawes, and Henry Purcell. See, for example, this excerpt from his diray dated 7 November 1660: "After all this he called for the fiddles and books, and we two and W. Howe, and Mr. Childe, did sing and play some psalmes of Will. Lawes's, and some songs; and so I went away." And, again, on 1 February 1664: "After supper a song, or three or four (I having to that purpose carried Lawes's book), and st...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/AopJkpHIBZk The greatest composer in 17th-century England, Henry Purcell (1659–1695), wrote music that was the culmination of a century of glorious music in the British Isles. Although there are elements of the great English Renaissance in his works, Purcell was a Baroque composer. He somehow managed to combine Italian and French styles with his own unusual English ideas, and there was no one like him during his short life, and certainly no one like him after he died. Purcell came from a family of musicians, and he was a chorister in the Chapel Royal from a very young age. He started composing when he was about nine years old, and his teachers included Pelham Humfrey and John Blow. Blow was organist of Westminster Abbey but resigned in favour of Purcell. Although Purcell mostly wrote sacred music, he did write music for the theatre, and his chamber opera...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/-zdrMPDIUZQ The English composer Henry Lawes (1595–1662) was the brother of William Lawes; at the time, Henry was considered to be more important, but it is William who is better known today. The great music critic Charles Burney said that Henry's greatest strength was his simplicity. Many people now recognise that Henry was one of the most significant 17th-century English songwriters. Henry and William were great supporters of King Charles I, and William died in 1645 in the service of the king. William's greatest works were written for viol consort. I've played a few and they are incredibly innovative, with fascinating textures and harmonies. Henry was more of a composer for voice than for instruments, and he does seem to have had a very fine ear for setting words to music. Izaak Walter wrote The Compleat Angler in 1653. This lovely celebrat...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/406oqiK3-x0 The wonderful English composer John Sheppard (c. 1515–1558) is one of my favourite composers of all time. His polyphony is extraordinary. He usually wrote for six voices: treble, mean, two countertenors, tenor, and bass (although today's piece is in seven voices), and his harmonies often were quite unusual for the 16th century. His enjoyment of dissonance can be heard in today's piece as well. Some of Sheppard's English settings as well as some of his Latin settings can be found in the Drexel partbooks, a set of manuscript copies compiled by John Merro in the early part of the 17th century. Merro included sacred as well as secular works, and it is a terrific resource. One of the Latin works by Sheppard included in the Drexel partbooks is his Libera nos, salva nos. Adam Binks says, "Without the proliferation of printing that ...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/XwPI_WrL8tA Giles Farnaby (1565–1640) received his Bachelor's degree in music from Oxford on the same day as John Bull, who was perhaps the greatest composer of keyboard music England ever produced (well, maybe not greater than Byrd). Some musicologists have speculated that Farnaby was influenced by Bull. In any event, Farnaby was considered important enough to have over 50 of his works included in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, our primary source for late Elizabethan and early Jacobean keyboard music. Farnaby was in great company; the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book contains works by Bull, Byrd, Gibbons, Peerson, Philips, and Sweelinck, to name but a few. Timothy Roberts Deia says, "Farnaby stands somewhat apart, the outsider among the others who, even those who held to their Catholic faith, were trained and worked within the established Anglican wor...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/5KyTxg_LoFA The English composer and organist Thomas Weelkes (1576–1623) is often overlooked, partly because his church music output was overshadowed by many of his contemporaries including Byrd and Tallis, and partly because he died so young. He is now recognized as one of the masters of the English madrigal, and his four published sets are among the very best of that genre. As Chris Whent says, “Thomas Weelkes, whose professional career spanned one of the most fertile periods in England's musical history, is without doubt one of her finest composers. Like Purcell, he had a vivid imagination and love of experiment, and died prematurely at the peak of his creative powers, but not before he had composed a very large amount of music. . . . [W]ell versed in the polyphonic techniques of William Byrd, he apparently devoted his creative energies to the pro...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/nm8RFLPC9oU https://youtu.be/mAahpO1Kw6Q Orlando Gibbons (bap. 25 December 1583–5 June 1625) was an English composer, virginalist, and organist of the late Tudor and early Jacobean periods. He was one of the leading composers in the England at that time. Although he died quite young (he was just 41), he composed a large quantity of music, for keyboards, viols, church music, and many madrigals. In the London of the sixteenth century, the cries of the street vendor, offering food, services such as knife grinding, rat-killing, and chimney sweeping, or even merely calling attention to lost belongings, were part of everyday life. Gibbons's attempt to collect this everyday ephemera into a musical setting, The Cries of London, for SATTB choir and viol consort, was not a one-off stroke of genius but part of a small repertoire of such pieces produced within a...

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/4bZ2CfB8iDw The great English Renaissance composer Thomas Morley (1557/8–1602) composed his Ballett "Now Is the Month of Maying" in 1595, and it is one of the most famous choral works of the time. A ballett was a vocal work based on Italian 16th-century song, and was a peculiarly English form. Lionel Pike describes a ballett as "strophic, binary with repeats, using nonsense syllables, with light-hearted texts set syllabically, and in a major tonality." The masters of this form were Thomas Weelkes, Thomas Tomkins, and Morley -- and also some other guys who were not named Thomas. Balletts, madrigals, and ayres were all different types of what we now group together as madrigals. This seemingly innocuous song is, as were many of the secular songs of 16th- and 17th-century England, all about sex. Just as an example, "barley-break...