Thomas Morley’s Magificat and Nunc Dimittis (Fauxbourdon)

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 madrigal or motet in Italian Renaissance style.”

 

One of the things that Morley discusses in A Plaine and Easie Introduction is a style well-known on the Continent at that time, “fauxbourdon,” in which the cantus firmus is sung by the top part and the two other parts sing a sixth and a perfect fourth below. Morley says that in England this is known as “fa burden,” and he and other 16th-century English composers used it in some choral settings and in hymn settings. Fa burden differed from fauxbourdon: the cantus firmus in fa burden is in the tenor part, and the treble, countertenor, and bass are freely composed around it. Ruth Wilson says, “In England, the improvised faburden replaced the plainsong itself as cantus firmus in four-part composition.”

 

My classical music post for today is Thomas Morley’s Magificat and Nunc Dimittis (Fauxbourdon).

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