Thomas Morley (1557 or 1558 – October 1602) was an English composer, theorist, editor and organist of the Renaissance, and the foremost member of the English Madrigal School. He was the most famous composer of secular music in Elizabethan England, and the composer of the only surviving contemporary settings of verse by Shakespeare. Events Spain is effectively bankrupt. ... January 7 - French troops led by Francis, Duke of Guise take Calais, the last continental possession of the Kingdom of England July 13 - Battle of Gravelines: In France, Spanish forces led by Count Lamoral of Egmont defeat the French forces of Marshal Paul des Thermes at Gravelines. ... This page is about the year. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... Music theory is a field of study that investigates the nature or mechanics of music. ... Organ in Katharinenkirche, Frankfurt am Main, Germany The organ is a keyboard instrument played using one or more manuals and a pedalboard. ... Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 to 1600. ... The brief but intense flowering of the musical madrigal in England, mostly from 1588 to 1627, along with the composers who produced them, is known as the English Madrigal School. ... The Elizabethan Era is the period associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558 - 1603) and is often considered to be a golden age in English history. ... Shakespeare redirects here. ...

Life

Morley was born in Norwich, in East Anglia, the son of a brewer. Most likely he was a singer in the local cathedral from his boyhood, and he became master of choristers there in 1583. However, Morley evidently spent some time away from East Anglia, for he later referred to the great Elizabethan composer of sacred music, William Byrd, as his teacher; while the dates he studied with Byrd are not known, they were most likely in the early 1570s. In 1588 he received his bachelor's degree from Oxford, and shortly thereafter was employed as organist at St. Paul's in London. His young son died the following year. Norwich (IPA: //) is a city in East Anglia, in Eastern England. ... Norfolk and Suffolk, the core area of East Anglia. ... Norwich Cathedral: Spire and south transcept. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... 1583 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. ... For other uses, see William Byrd (disambiguation). ... Significant Events and Trends Transition from the Muromachi to the Azuchi-Momoyama period in Japan Categories: 1570s ... 1588 was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. ... This article is about the city of Oxford in England. ... St Pauls Cathedral is a cathedral on Ludgate Hill, in the City of London in London, and the seat of the Bishop of London. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ...

In 1588 Nicholas Yonge published his Musica transalpina, the collection of Italian madrigals fitted with English texts, which touched off the explosive and colorful vogue for madrigal composition in England. Morley evidently found his compositional direction at this time, and shortly afterwards began publishing his own collections of madrigals (11 in all). 1588 was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. ... Nicholas Yonge (c. ... A madrigal is a setting for two or more voices of a secular text, often in Italian. ...

Morley lived for a time in the same parish as Shakespeare, and a connection between the two has been long speculated, though never proven. His famous setting of "It was a lover and his lass" from As You Like It has never been established as having been used in a performance of Shakespeare's play, though the possibility that it was is obvious. Morley was highly placed by the mid-1590s and would have had easy access to the theatrical community; certainly there was then, as there is now, a close connection between prominent actors and musicians. Walter Deverell,The Mock Marriage of Orlando and Rosalind, 1853 William Shakespeares As You Like It is a pastoral comedy written in 1599 or early 1600. ...

While Morley attempted to imitate the spirit of Byrd in some of his early sacred works, it was in the form of the madrigal that he made his principal contribution to music history. His work in the genre has remained in the repertory to the present day, and shows a wider variety of emotional color, form and technique than anything by other composers of the period. Usually his madrigals are light, quick-moving and easily singable, like his well-known "Now is the Month of Maying"; he took the aspects of Italian style that suited his personality and anglicised them. Other composers of the English Madrigal School, for instance Thomas Weelkes and John Wilbye, were to write madrigals in a more serious or sombre vein. Now is the month of Maying is one of the most famous of the English madrigals, by Thomas Morley published in 1595. ... Thomas Weelkes (baptised 25 October 1576 – buried 1 December 1623) was an English composer and organist. ... John Wilbye, English 16th-century madrigal composer, was born probably at Bury St Edmunds, but the details of his life are obscure. ...

In addition to his madrigals, Morley wrote instrumental music, including keyboard music (some of which has been preserved in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book), and music for the uniquely English consort of two viols, flute, lute, cittern and bandora, notably as published in 1599 in The First Booke of Consort Lessons, made by diuers exquisite Authors, for six Instruments to play together, the Treble Lute, the Pandora, the Cittern, the Base-Violl, the Flute & Treble-Violl. The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book is a primary source of keyboard music from the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods in England, i. ... Various sizes of viol, from Michael Praetorius Syntagma musicum (1618) Early Italian tenor viola da gamba, detail from the painting , by Raphael Sanzio, c. ... â™  This article is about the family of musical instruments. ... A medieval era lute. ... A woodcut of a Cittern The cittern is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance, having evolved considerably since that time. ... The Bandora is the bass of the wire section in a Morley consort and as such can be regarded as a bass cittern. ... Year 1599 was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar). ...

Morley's Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (published 1597) remained popular for almost two hundred years after its author's death, and remains an important reference for information about sixteenth century composition and performance.

Compositions

Thomas Morley's compositions include (in alphabetical order):

• April is in my mistress' face
• Arise, get up my deere,
• Cease mine eyes
• Crewell you pull away to soone
• Doe you not know?
• Fantasie: Il Doloroso
• Fantasie: Il Grillo?
• Fantasie: Il Lamento?
• Fantasie: La Caccia?
• Fantasie: La Rondinella
• Fantasie: La Sampogna?
• Fantasie: La Sirena?
• Fantasie: La Torello
• Flora wilt thou torment mee
• Fyre and Lightning
• Goe yee my canzonets
• Good Morrow, Fair Ladies of the May
• Hould out my hart
• I goe before my darling
• I should for griefe and anguish
• In nets of golden wyers
• It was a lover and his lass
• Joy, joy doth so arise
• La Girandola
• Ladie, those eies
• Lady if I through griefe
• Leave now mine eyes
• Lo heere another love
• Love learns by laughing
• Miraculous loves wounding
• My bonny lass she smileth
• Now is the month of maying
• O thou that art so cruell
• Say deere, will you not have mee?
• See, see, myne own sweet jewel
• Sing we and chant it
• Sweet nymph
• VI. God morrow, Fayre Ladies, (down a fourth)
• What ayles my darling?
• When loe by break of morning
• Where art thou wanton?

April is in my mistress face written by Thomas Morley is one of the best-known and shortest of English madrigals; it was published in 1594, and appears to be based on an Italian text by Livio Celiano, set by Orazio Vecchi in 1587; (see ref. ... My bonny lass she smileth is a famous English madrigal, written by Thomas Morley and published in 1595. ... Now is the month of Maying is one of the most famous of the English madrigals, by Thomas Morley published in 1595. ...

See also

• The Triumphs of Oriana edited by Morley, published in 1601.

One of the books that Thomas Morley, a Renaissance composer, printed and put together was The Triumphs of Oriana. ...

Media

Image File history File links Morley_It_was_a_lover_and_his_lass_performed_by_D_W_Solomons. ...

External links

• Thomas Morley free scores in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Thomas Morley free scores in the Werner Icking Music Archive
• Thomas Morley free scores in the International Music Score Library Project
• More information, including full text, of Morley's Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke at the University of North Texas Music Library's Virtual Rare Book Room

This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The Werner Icking Music Archive, often abbreviated WIMA, is a web archive of public domain sheet music. ... The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) is a project for the creation of a virtual library of public domain music scores, based on the wiki principle. ...

References and further reading

• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
• Article "Thomas Morley" in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• The University of Reading Library featuring: Thomas Morley, A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke. London, 1597 [1]
• Philip Ledger (ed) The Oxford Book of English Madrigals OUP 1978