Nathaniel Pattrick’s “Send forth thy sighs”

Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England.


https://youtu.be/UCu3uShAVYs

Very little is known about Nathaniel Pattrick (?1569–1595) other than he was Organist of Worcester Cathedral and Master of the Children at Worcester Cathedral from 1590 to 1595. He apparently composed a good number of choral works, sacred and secular, but very little is extant. In 1597 he published his "Songs of Sundrye Natures, whereof some are Divine, some are madrigalles and the rest psalms and hymns in Latin, by Nathaniel Patrick, sometyme Master of the Children of the Cathedral Church of Worcester and organist of the same." This is now lost, but we do have a few consort songs that he may have arranged from these madrigals.

John Bryan says that during the early part of Elizabeth I’s reign, “[c]onsort songs for solo voice and viols were particularly esteemed, since their rich polyphonic fabric shared musical interest between all the parts without detracting from the clarity of a single voice declaiming the text. The voice was often the highest part, and therefore most clearly audible, as in the simple beauty of Pattrick's Send forth thy sighs. . . . Many Elizabethan choirboys were skilled viol players as well as singers: records of a banquet in 1561 tell how 'All ye dynner tyme ye syngyng children of paules played upon their vyalls and songe very pleasaunt songes to ye great delectacion & reioysyng of ye whole companie’.”

My classical music post for today is Nathaniel Pattrick’s “Send forth thy sighs.”

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