Please note that music files that are linked to are not necessarily the same edition we will be using on the night and therefore there may be some slight differences.
Caurroy Noel or YouTube link SATB
Caurroy was a French Renaissance composer, who wrote in the style of musique mesurée, a method of composition whereby long syllables were set to long notes and short syllables to short ones, as a means to creating a (for then) contemporary understanding of Greek text declamation. The practice was also popular in Italy and led to the first recitatives and eventually to opera itself. Caurroy’s posthumously-published ‘Melanges de Musique’ of 1610 contains several Noëls, Christmas songs that begin with repetitions of the word ‘Noël’ in all parts before continuing with a vernacular nativity text. They are all in duple meter and rely strongly on imitative counterpoint.
As the French printing is not especially clear on our copies you might like to glance at the words at least in advance of the meeting. An English translation (from choralchameleon) is below, for information, but we will sing it in French.
Noel, Noel, Get up from your bed, dressed like a new sun. Sunder the high places and come down, Angel of the Great Council. Child, but Emmanuel, Son of the Most High, who brings your Grand Principality upon your strong shoulder. Noel, Noel.
Mundy Lightly she whipped or YouTube link SSATB
This is from the Triumphs of Oriana, Thomas Morley’s anthology in honour of Queen Elizabeth (or, maybe, Anne of Denmark). John Mundy (son of William), organist at St George’s Windsor, was one of the earliest madrigalists. The deftly imitative Lightly she whipped is an example of a literary madrigal, a mode that arose from an instinctive rebellion against the constrictions of formal verse. The freedom of the piece is driven by the demands of the music and suggested to poets of the late sixteenth century an escape from the rigours of the sonnet form. It is written in two flats, starting in G minor with several visits to the relative major, but as the piece progresses it becomes harder to categorise a key – so watch out carefully for accidentals! There are good recordings by I Fagiolini and others.
Kirbye See what a maze of error or YouTube link Also in the Oxford Book of English Madrigals SSATB
George Kirbye was house musician to Sir Robert Jermyn at Rushbrooke Hall near Bury St Edmunds, and was probably a musical contact of John Wilbye, based at nearby Hengrave Hall. Kirbye’s madrigals tend to be serious compositions, and are characterised by minor modes and a careful attention to text. See what a maze of error is stylistically influenced by Marenzio, with false relations (eg S/A in bar 3), word-painting (‘my love hath traced’) and melismatic suspensions throughout.
Weelkes Thule, the period of cosmography or YouTube link Also in the Oxford Book of English Madrigals SSATTB
My favourite madrigal, a veritable geographical tour of the world’s volcanic wonders (perhaps a bit timely, considering the recent devastation in my mother’s homeland). You’ll all remember from last time that Thule is a region believed by ancient geographers to represent the northernmost inhabited land – the ‘period of cosmography’ (end of the map) - and Hecla is an Icelandic volcano, the ‘sulphurious fire’ of which rages away in insistent tutti quavers. Etna is another volcano, situated on ‘trinacrean’ (three-pointed) Sicily. These may be wondrous things, but they are not as wondrous as the poet’s love. Enjoy the glorious word-painting and the wonderful music!
Pearsall Lay a garland SSAATTBB
This marvellous piece has been on my ‘to-do’ list for a while, and I think we are about ready for it! The text is from the play ‘The Maid’s Tragedy’, by Beaumont and Fletcher, altered from the first to the third person by Pearsall in his mournful setting of 1840.
Pearsall was a founding member of the Bristol Madrigal Society in 1837, a natural outlet for his madrigals and partsongs. Lay a garland, with its fine harmonic and melodic craftsmanship, exquisite suspensions and rich and expressive sonorities, well exemplifies the composer’s enduring interest in early music and the Renaissance style: look out, for example, for the careful handling of dissonance on each entry of ‘Maidens, willow branches wear’.
If you don’t know it, the Voces8 recording comes pretty close to perfection although this one simultaneously follows the score.
Weelkes Sing we at pleasure or YouTube Also in the Oxford Book of English Madrigals SSATB
Thomas Weelkes was a colourful personality, known for drunkenness and blasphemy; as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography puts it, ‘he was not the only disorderly member of the [Chichester] cathedral establishment, though in due course he would become its most celebrated’. He must have been a marvellous musician for the cathedral authorities to have tolerated it – as is evidenced, perhaps, in his wonderful compositional output, of both sacred and secular music. Sing we at pleasure dates from 1598 and is a ballet in binary form. There is a lively triple-time rhythm. Note the octave leaps on ‘pleasure’ compared to otherwise largely step-wise movement. There is quite a bit of syncopation as a result of imitation and dotted rhythms throughout, and the fa-la refrains put the two sopranos in canon a bar apart.
Please note that music files that are linked to are not necessarily the same edition we will be using on the night and therefore there may be some slight differences.
Caurroy Noel or YouTube link SATB
Caurroy was a French Renaissance composer, who wrote in the style of musique mesurée, a method of composition whereby long syllables were set to long notes and short syllables to short ones, as a means to creating a (for then) contemporary understanding of Greek text declamation. The practice was also popular in Italy and led to the first recitatives and eventually to opera itself. Caurroy’s posthumously-published ‘Melanges de Musique’ of 1610 contains several Noëls, Christmas songs that begin with repetitions of the word ‘Noël’ in all parts before continuing with a vernacular nativity text. They are all in duple meter and rely strongly on imitative counterpoint.
As the French printing is not especially clear on our copies you might like to glance at the words at least in advance of the meeting. An English translation (from choralchameleon) is below, for information, but we will sing it in French.
Noel, Noel, Get up from your bed, dressed like a new sun. Sunder the high places and come down, Angel of the Great Council. Child, but Emmanuel, Son of the Most High, who brings your Grand Principality upon your strong shoulder. Noel, Noel.
Mundy Lightly she whipped or YouTube link SSATB
This is from the Triumphs of Oriana, Thomas Morley’s anthology in honour of Queen Elizabeth (or, maybe, Anne of Denmark). John Mundy (son of William), organist at St George’s Windsor, was one of the earliest madrigalists. The deftly imitative Lightly she whipped is an example of a literary madrigal, a mode that arose from an instinctive rebellion against the constrictions of formal verse. The freedom of the piece is driven by the demands of the music and suggested to poets of the late sixteenth century an escape from the rigours of the sonnet form. It is written in two flats, starting in G minor with several visits to the relative major, but as the piece progresses it becomes harder to categorise a key – so watch out carefully for accidentals! There are good recordings by I Fagiolini and others.
Kirbye See what a maze of error or YouTube link Also in the Oxford Book of English Madrigals SSATB
George Kirbye was house musician to Sir Robert Jermyn at Rushbrooke Hall near Bury St Edmunds, and was probably a musical contact of John Wilbye, based at nearby Hengrave Hall. Kirbye’s madrigals tend to be serious compositions, and are characterised by minor modes and a careful attention to text. See what a maze of error is stylistically influenced by Marenzio, with false relations (eg S/A in bar 3), word-painting (‘my love hath traced’) and melismatic suspensions throughout.
Weelkes Thule, the period of cosmography or YouTube link Also in the Oxford Book of English Madrigals SSATTB
My favourite madrigal, a veritable geographical tour of the world’s volcanic wonders (perhaps a bit timely, considering the recent devastation in my mother’s homeland). You’ll all remember from last time that Thule is a region believed by ancient geographers to represent the northernmost inhabited land – the ‘period of cosmography’ (end of the map) - and Hecla is an Icelandic volcano, the ‘sulphurious fire’ of which rages away in insistent tutti quavers. Etna is another volcano, situated on ‘trinacrean’ (three-pointed) Sicily. These may be wondrous things, but they are not as wondrous as the poet’s love. Enjoy the glorious word-painting and the wonderful music!
Pearsall Lay a garland SSAATTBB
This marvellous piece has been on my ‘to-do’ list for a while, and I think we are about ready for it! The text is from the play ‘The Maid’s Tragedy’, by Beaumont and Fletcher, altered from the first to the third person by Pearsall in his mournful setting of 1840.
Pearsall was a founding member of the Bristol Madrigal Society in 1837, a natural outlet for his madrigals and partsongs. Lay a garland, with its fine harmonic and melodic craftsmanship, exquisite suspensions and rich and expressive sonorities, well exemplifies the composer’s enduring interest in early music and the Renaissance style: look out, for example, for the careful handling of dissonance on each entry of ‘Maidens, willow branches wear’.
If you don’t know it, the Voces8 recording comes pretty close to perfection although this one simultaneously follows the score.
Weelkes Sing we at pleasure or YouTube Also in the Oxford Book of English Madrigals SSATB
Thomas Weelkes was a colourful personality, known for drunkenness and blasphemy; as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography puts it, ‘he was not the only disorderly member of the [Chichester] cathedral establishment, though in due course he would become its most celebrated’. He must have been a marvellous musician for the cathedral authorities to have tolerated it – as is evidenced, perhaps, in his wonderful compositional output, of both sacred and secular music. Sing we at pleasure dates from 1598 and is a ballet in binary form. There is a lively triple-time rhythm. Note the octave leaps on ‘pleasure’ compared to otherwise largely step-wise movement. There is quite a bit of syncopation as a result of imitation and dotted rhythms throughout, and the fa-la refrains put the two sopranos in canon a bar apart.
Please note that music files that are linked to are not necessarily the same edition we will be using on the night and therefore there may be some slight differences.
Caurroy Noel or YouTube link SATB
Caurroy was a French Renaissance composer, who wrote in the style of musique mesurée, a method of composition whereby long syllables were set to long notes and short syllables to short ones, as a means to creating a (for then) contemporary understanding of Greek text declamation. The practice was also popular in Italy and led to the first recitatives and eventually to opera itself. Caurroy’s posthumously-published ‘Melanges de Musique’ of 1610 contains several Noëls, Christmas songs that begin with repetitions of the word ‘Noël’ in all parts before continuing with a vernacular nativity text. They are all in duple meter and rely strongly on imitative counterpoint.
As the French printing is not especially clear on our copies you might like to glance at the words at least in advance of the meeting. An English translation (from choralchameleon) is below, for information, but we will sing it in French.
Noel, Noel, Get up from your bed, dressed like a new sun. Sunder the high places and come down, Angel of the Great Council. Child, but Emmanuel, Son of the Most High, who brings your Grand Principality upon your strong shoulder. Noel, Noel.
Mundy Lightly she whipped or YouTube link SSATB
This is from the Triumphs of Oriana, Thomas Morley’s anthology in honour of Queen Elizabeth (or, maybe, Anne of Denmark). John Mundy (son of William), organist at St George’s Windsor, was one of the earliest madrigalists. The deftly imitative Lightly she whipped is an example of a literary madrigal, a mode that arose from an instinctive rebellion against the constrictions of formal verse. The freedom of the piece is driven by the demands of the music and suggested to poets of the late sixteenth century an escape from the rigours of the sonnet form. It is written in two flats, starting in G minor with several visits to the relative major, but as the piece progresses it becomes harder to categorise a key – so watch out carefully for accidentals! There are good recordings by I Fagiolini and others.
Kirbye See what a maze of error or YouTube link Also in the Oxford Book of English Madrigals SSATB
George Kirbye was house musician to Sir Robert Jermyn at Rushbrooke Hall near Bury St Edmunds, and was probably a musical contact of John Wilbye, based at nearby Hengrave Hall. Kirbye’s madrigals tend to be serious compositions, and are characterised by minor modes and a careful attention to text. See what a maze of error is stylistically influenced by Marenzio, with false relations (eg S/A in bar 3), word-painting (‘my love hath traced’) and melismatic suspensions throughout.
Weelkes Thule, the period of cosmography or YouTube link Also in the Oxford Book of English Madrigals SSATTB
My favourite madrigal, a veritable geographical tour of the world’s volcanic wonders (perhaps a bit timely, considering the recent devastation in my mother’s homeland). You’ll all remember from last time that Thule is a region believed by ancient geographers to represent the northernmost inhabited land – the ‘period of cosmography’ (end of the map) - and Hecla is an Icelandic volcano, the ‘sulphurious fire’ of which rages away in insistent tutti quavers. Etna is another volcano, situated on ‘trinacrean’ (three-pointed) Sicily. These may be wondrous things, but they are not as wondrous as the poet’s love. Enjoy the glorious word-painting and the wonderful music!
Pearsall Lay a garland SSAATTBB
This marvellous piece has been on my ‘to-do’ list for a while, and I think we are about ready for it! The text is from the play ‘The Maid’s Tragedy’, by Beaumont and Fletcher, altered from the first to the third person by Pearsall in his mournful setting of 1840.
Pearsall was a founding member of the Bristol Madrigal Society in 1837, a natural outlet for his madrigals and partsongs. Lay a garland, with its fine harmonic and melodic craftsmanship, exquisite suspensions and rich and expressive sonorities, well exemplifies the composer’s enduring interest in early music and the Renaissance style: look out, for example, for the careful handling of dissonance on each entry of ‘Maidens, willow branches wear’.
If you don’t know it, the Voces8 recording comes pretty close to perfection although this one simultaneously follows the score.
Weelkes Sing we at pleasure or YouTube Also in the Oxford Book of English Madrigals SSATB
Thomas Weelkes was a colourful personality, known for drunkenness and blasphemy; as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography puts it, ‘he was not the only disorderly member of the [Chichester] cathedral establishment, though in due course he would become its most celebrated’. He must have been a marvellous musician for the cathedral authorities to have tolerated it – as is evidenced, perhaps, in his wonderful compositional output, of both sacred and secular music. Sing we at pleasure dates from 1598 and is a ballet in binary form. There is a lively triple-time rhythm. Note the octave leaps on ‘pleasure’ compared to otherwise largely step-wise movement. There is quite a bit of syncopation as a result of imitation and dotted rhythms throughout, and the fa-la refrains put the two sopranos in canon a bar apart.
