The English Madrigalists

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The English Madrigalists

is the renowned edition founded by Edmund Fellowes and revised primarily by Thurston Dart. Other scholars who have been involved in the revision and updating include Philip Brett, Davitt Moroney, John Morehen, David Scott and Sarah Dunkley. In recent years several new volumes have been added to the series.

Further information

Most Recent Volume: EM42 Musica Transalpina. Edited David Greer - July 2011
Next Volume: None currently in preparation

Volume 1: Morley: Canzonets to Two and Three Voices (1595/1593)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 2: Morley: Madrigals to Four Voices (1594)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 3: Morley: Canzonets to Five and Six Voices (1597)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Sally Dunkley

Volume 4: Morley: First Book of Balletts to Five Voices (1595/1600)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 5: Gibbons: Madrigals and Motets for Five Parts (1612)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Gibbons seems to have been outside the process 'by which', wrote Joseph Kerman in The Elizabethan Madrigal, 'England first became sophisticated in the ways of Continental music.' These 20 pieces certainly, if differently, follow the pure line of William Byrd and are still of the old ‘English’ school. They include The Silver Swan and Dainty Fine Bird.

Volume 6: Wilbye: First Set of Madrigals (1598)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 7: Wilbye: Second Set of Madrigals (1609)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 8: Farmer: Madrigals for Four Voices (1599)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Davitt Moroney

Note: Supplied as a comb-bound photocopy.
Well-known in his day as one of the most important contributors to East's Whole Book of Psalms (1592), Farmer was in the service of the Earl of Oxford who, more than any other nobleman, established the professional Elizabethan theatre. In the year that Burbidge opened the Globe Theatre, these 18 madrigals (the most famous is probably Fair Phyllis) gave the composer an attractive place in the history of English music.

Volume 9: Weelkes: Madrigals to Three, Four, Five and Six Voyces (1597)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 10: Weelkes: Balletts and Madrigals to Five Voices (1598/1608)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 11: Weelkes: Madrigals to Five and Six Parts (1600)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 13: Weelkes: Airs or Fantastic Spirits to Three Voices (1608)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 17: Lichfild: First Set of Madrigals of Five Parts (1613)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart and David Scott

Volume 18: Tomkins: Songs of Three, Four, Five and Six Parts (1622)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

So to the last in date of the English Madrigal School. Though better known as a composer of church and keyboard music, Tomkins wrote secular vocal music that offers a compendium of all the various styles: canzonets, balletts, madrigals and 'sacred songs'. Each was dedicated to one of his relatives, a friend or a colleague. The names of these 28 dedicatees form a fascinating list at the end of the book.

Volume 19: Ward: First Set of Madrigals (1613)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 20: Farnaby: Canzonets to Foure Voyces (1598)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Remembered chiefly for his virginal music, this always fresh and charming composer – who was probably an instrument maker by trade – may well have penned these pieces simply for the enjoyment of his London friends living in the wards of Bishopsgate and Cripplegate. His experience as a keyboard player may have led him to some chromatic vocal writing, particularly in the admirable Construe my meaning, rivalling strangenesses in the work of his Italian contemporary, Gesualdo.

Volume 21: Bateson: First Set of Madrigals (1604)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 22: Bateson: Second Set of Madrigals (1618)
Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 23: Bennet: Madrigals for Four Voices (1599)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Davitt Moroney

Like many other madrigalists, Bennet often chose his texts either from translations of the first Italian pieces to be brought to England in Yonge's Musica Transalpina, or from those already used by Morley. Two direct comparisons may be made between Morley and Bennet in O sleep, fond fancy (to identical words) and the effect of the former's Come, lovers, follow me on the latter's Come, shepherd, follow me.

Volume 24: Kirbye: First Set of English Madrigals (1597)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart and Philip Brett

Volume 25: Pilkington: First Set of Madrigals (1613)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 26: Pilkington: Second Set of Madrigals (1624)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 27: Carlton: Madrigals to Five Voices (1601)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

A minor canon of Norwich Cathedral, Carlton belonged also to the older generation of madrigal composers, particularly fond of the 'Byrd' or English cadence of flat versus sharp leading-notes. Although he claims to have laboured 'somewhat to imitate the Italian style', he admitted in his preface, 'I cannot forget that I am an English man.'

Volume 28: Youll: Canzonets to Three Voices (1608)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 29: East: Madrigals to Three, Four and Five Parts (1604)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Volume 30: East: Second Set of Madrigals (1606)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart and Philip Brett

Volume 31A: East: Third Set of Books (1610)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart, Philip Brett and Alexis Vlasto

Volume 31B: East: Fourth Set of Books (1618)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart and Philip Brett

Volume 32: collected Thomas Morley (1601). The Triumphs of Oriana

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Note: Supplied as a comb-bound photocopy.
Containing 25 madrigals by leading composers of the period, this famous collection was intended to honour England's Oriana, Elizabeth I.

Volume 33: Alison: An Hour’s Recreation in Musicke (1606)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

This interesting collection looks back to the 'Winter' of Byrd and Mundy in the conservative settings of such verse as My prime of youth (see EM35B); but it is also a contemporary record, with two madrigals celebrating the failure of Guy Fawkes’ Gunpowder Plot against James I.

Volume 34: Vautor: Songs of Divers Airs and Natures (1619)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Chiefly remembered in performance nowadays for his beautiful Sweet Suffolk Owl, Vautor represented the conventional, anonymous polyphony of the successors to Gibbons and Weelkes – but there are still trouvailles in these 22 pieces.

Volume 35A: Jones: First Set of Madrigals (1607)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart

Jones was a famous lutenist and one of the musicians responsible for training the 'children of St Paul's', who acted and sang in Elizabethan and Jacobean court plays. His 27 madrigals are mostly to texts about birds – birds merry, sweet, shrill, crowing or melancholic.

Volume 35B: Mundy: Songs and Psalms (1594)

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart and Philip Brett

Organist of St George’s, Windsor, and successor to the famous Marbecke, Mundy was amongst the earliest of the English madrigalists. There are 12 madrigals in this collection, ranging from Of all the birds, a tribute to William Byrd, to In deep distress and the tragic setting of words written by Chideock Tichborne on the eve of his execution in the Tower of London, My prime of youth. The volume also contains 25 psalms in three, four, and five parts.

Volume 36: Madrigals by Michael Cavendish, Thomas Greaves, William Holborne and Richard Edwards

Edited Edmund Fellowes. Revised Thurston Dart and Philip Brett

Volume 37: Nicolson: Collected Madrigals (c. 1600)

Edited John Morehen

Volume 38: Ward: Madrigals and Elegies from Manuscript Sources

Edited Ian Payne

Volume 39: Kirbye: Madrigals from Manuscript Sources

Edited Ian Payne

Volume 40: Amner: Sacred Hymnes of Three, Four, Five and Six Parts (1615)

Edited John Morehen

Although the verbal text, vocal scoring and general musical style of a handful of the Sacred Hymnes suggest liturgical intention, the overwhelming majority of the 26 pieces in this volume are wholly representative of the wide range of secular styles which typify most Elizabethan and Jacobean madrigalian collections.

Volume 41: Croce: Musica Sacra (1608)

Edited by John Morehen

Croce’s madrigal style may be compared to that of Thomas Morley, and the Musica Sacra settings of the seven penitential psalms, set for six voices and published by Thomas East, were hugely popular in England. They were spoken of admiringly not only by Morley himself, but also by John Dowland and Henry Peacham.

Volume 42: Yonge: Musica Transalpina (1588)

Edited by David Greer

This is the first ever complete published edition of a major madrigal collection that is essential to our understanding of the fruitful interaction of Renaissance Italian and English music.

In four, five and six voices, the 57 pieces of Musica Transalpina include 51 madrigals by Marenzio, Palestrina and others, the two parts of Byrd's 'La virginella', and four French chansons. Uniquely, the anthology also features singing translations of the original poems from the Italian into the vernacular, for which it was widely admired and circulated. As a printed source from which composers could learn the madrigal style and aesthetic, it was hugely influential in inspiring the 'golden age' of Tudor and Jacobean vocal music.

An important addition to The English Madrigalists series, Musica Transalpina of 1588 is not only of great scholarly interest but is also an outstanding addition to the repertoire that will delight contemporary singers no less than it enthralled those Elizabethans who first responded with such enthusiasm to its fine music and accessible 'Englished' texts.

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