Daily Classical Music Post

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/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...