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Madrigals of Thomas Morley
BG-577, original LP cover

Thomas Morley, who "did shine as the Sun in the Firmament of our Art, and did first give light to our understanding with his Praecepts," was born (probably in London) about 1557, and lived in the city almost exclusively until his death in 1605. Ravenscroft's tribute to him, quoted above, was not an isolated one; Morley's renown as a composer was enhanced in his forties by the publication of A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practical Musicke, while his social status was enhanced by the grant of a royal license to print music and music-paper. Thus, while the earlier entries in the parish register of St. Helens, Bishopsgate, describe him as "musician," the later ones firmly insist on the term "gentleman." His first important professional appointment was at St. Paul's Cathedral, where he became organist in, or shortly before, 1591. In the following year he was made a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and it was about this time that he began to compose, edit, and publish the nine volumes of songs and instrumental music that have since placed him in the front rank of the Elizabethan madrigalists. The compositions chosen for this disc afford a generous sampling of his principal madrigalian publications, which began with the Canzonets or Little Short Songs to Three Voyces of 1593. This was reprinted, with four additional items, in 1606, and again in 1631; German translations appeared in Cassel (1612) and Rostock (1624). The deft counterpoint and lively imitative style of Whither away so fast? and Arise, et up, my dear show the mastery that Morley had acquired even in his very first book, while one of the 1606 additions (Though Philomela lost her love) is no less delightful in spite of its straightforward simplicity. Morley was modest about his canzonets, as may be gathered from the definition he gives of this form in his Plaine and Easie Introduction: "little short songs (wherein little art can be showed, being made in strains, the beginning of which is some point lightly touched and every strain repeated except the middle) which is, in composition of the music, a counterfeit of the Madrigal."

Morley's Madrigalls to Foure Voyces followed in 1594, and was reprinted (with two extra items) in 1600. The music has wit enough to match the conceit of the lyric in April is in my mistress' face, and more than ample expressive powers for the sad pastoral In dew of roses and the two happy ones Besides a fountain and Say, gentle nymphs. In the last there are many felicitous instances of pairs of voices being played off in dialogue fashion.

The First Booke of Balletts to Five Voyces were frank imitations of the Italian ballets by Gastoldi, some of whose texts Morley had translated for his own use. The original texts exercised an exotic appeal that was strong enough to persuade Morley to bring out an Italian edition as well, in London, in the same year as the English version (1595). A German edition was printed at Nuremberg in 1609. These "songs which being sung to a ditty may likewise be danced" are noted for their gay fa-la refrains, which take up nearly half the music of Shoot, false love, Now is the month of maying, and Fire! fire! On an entirely different emotional and formal plane is Leave, alas, this tormenting; the sustained and intense part-writing make this one of the most expressive of all Morley's madrigals, using the term in its broadest sense.

The First Booke of Canzonets to Two Voyces was printed in 1595 and again in 1619, and besides the songs it also contained nine fancies for two viols. The freshness and spontaneity of melodic ideas in When, lo, by break of morning, the flexibility of I go before, and the convoluted expressiveness of Miraculous Love's wounding fully demonstrate Morley's expert grasp of a restricted and difficult medium.

In 1597 came the one and only edition of Canzonets or Little Short Aers to Five and Sixe Voyces, a great landmark in Morley's career. The texture of these canzonets, though light and finely-drawn, is often intricate and full of brilliant contrapuntal touches. O grief almost becomes a tenor lied at one point, while I follow, lo, the footing alternates rapid entries of descriptive points with sections in calmer homophony. The elegiac Hark, Alleluia shows Morley in more serious vein, commemorating the death of a music-loving courtier, Henry Noel. Another fine six-part madrigal, Hard by a crystal fountain, comes from Morley's great edition of The Triumphes of Oriana, compiled in honor of Anne of Denmark.

Madrigals of John Wilbye
BG-578, original LP cover

"If Thomas Weelkes may be called a romantic among madrigalists, John Wilbye is a classic." There is no need to question Donald Francis Tovey's considered opinion in the face of the 65 madrigals by Wilbye that now survive, for their quality is uniformly high and their reputation well deserved. If there is a question, it is the slightly baffling one concerning Wilbye's generous life-span of 64 years and his consequently sparse average output of one madrigal per year. He was born is 1574 at Diss in Norfolk, and by his eighteenth year he had entered the service of Sir Thomas Kytson of Hengrave Hall, a stately Elizabethan manor (still standing today) situated not very far from Bury St. Edmunds. There he lived and worked, apart from occasional visits to his master's town house in London, until 1628, when he removed to Colchester to serve Lady Rivers, the daughter of Sir Thomas Kytson. Wilbye died in 1638, a man of considerable means, with landed property in his birthplace and around Bury St. Edmunds. He is mentioned by Henry Peacham in The Compleat Gentleman along with a select handful of English composers as "inferior to none in the world… for depth of skill and richness of conceit."

The First Set of English Madrigals to 3. 4. 5. and 6. voices was published in 1598 with a dedication to "the Right Worshipful and Vallerous Knight Sir Charles Cavendish" who was related by marriage to the Kytson family. There are 30 madrigals in the set, and they remind us constantly of the brilliant technique of this precocious youth, scarcely out of his twenties, yet already on a par with some of the most eminent of his older contemporaries. Like many of them, he was inspired by Italian musical models and poems: his four-part madrigal Thus saith my Cloris bright is a paraphrase of a poem by Guarini, set by Marenzio and reprinted in the second set of Musica Transalpina as So saith my fair. Wilbye's madrigal Lady your wards do spite me is similarly a paraphrase of Rinaldi's Donna se voi m'odiate, set by Ferrabosco and included in the earlier of Yonge's two sets. Thus, by innumerable ties, were English and Italian poets and musicians linked, sometimes perhaps unknown even to themselves. One of the finest things in Wilbye's first book is the madrigal in two sections, I always beg yet never am relieved, and Thus Love commands. The almost kaleidoscopic texture and contrapuntal cunning are truly remarkable for so youthful a composer. In The Lady Oriana, written when Wilbye was 26 or 27, and included in The Triumphes of Oriana (1601) there is an even greater mastery, a positive revelling in the possibilities afforded by the sonority and colour of six voices. Yet greater workers were to come.

The Second Set of Madrigals to 3. 4. 5. and 6 parts apt both for Voyals and Voyces appeared in 1609, dedicated this time to "the most Noble and Vertuous Lady, the Lady Arabella Stuart." This new patroness was also related to Wilbye's master, for she was the daughter of Charles, Earl of Lennox and Elizabeth, sister of Sir Charles Cavendish, to whom the first book of madrigals had been dedicated. The two three-part madrigals Come shepherd swains and As fair as morn show Wilbye in pastoral and amorous vein respectively: in both pieces he extracts the maximum of harmonic meaning from the slim texture at his disposal. In Happy, O happy he, Wilbye indulges in new and fanciful combinations of four voices, evincing a likeness for paired inner parts and an independent soprano and bass. Oft have I vowed gives us more than a glimpse of exciting new harmonic vistas, brought even more sharply into focus in Weep, weep, mine eyes, possibly one of the most moving of all Wilbye's madrigals. Another five-voice madrigal of high quality is Ye that do live in pleasures plenty, stated by Thomas Oliphant to have been written in memory of Thomas Morley.

Once again, in his six-part madrigals, Wilbye reaches fabulous heights of technique and inspiration. The sensitive declamation of Ah, cannot sighs is a model of its kind, while the transition in Stay, Corydon from solemn antiphony to rapid imitation not only matches the conceit of the lyric but also makes for a satisfying musical balance. In Draw on, sweet night, Wilbye has penned a masterpiece beyond compare, in which sustained beauty of line is more than matched by harmonic richness and variety of texture.

– Denis Stevens

Originally released as Vanguard/The Bach Guild BG-577 (tracks 1-19) and BG-578

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