Madrigals & Keyboard Music of the English Renaissance - Ambrosian Singers

The madrigal was certainly Renaissance England’s most popular musical form. Madrigals could be performed without instruments and so required no instrumental skills, though these were by no means in short supply; they were composed with three to six parts, usually required one or more female voices, providing a social medium for all and, for women, a musical outlet, since they could not sing in church choirs. The six madrigals interspersed throughout our program are fairly representative of the works of the English madrigalists, with texts ranging from the cool melancholy of The Silver Swan to the light-headed and hearted Now is the month of maying with its nonsensical Italian Fa la la’s. Love is the primary subject, however, always the undercurrent of the poets’ thoughts such paradoxical duality of fire/water, love/hate of Oft did I marle, the “heavy’” love of Though Amarylis dance, or the carefree love of one of the most famous of madrigals, Morley’s Now is the month of maying. A more intimate realm of music making was centered in the home around such instruments as the viol, usually played in chests of four, the lute, the small spinet harpsichord called by the English “virginals,” and the positiv or chamber organ. Music for the three latter instruments was much in demand, and many collections of music for plucked instruments, lutes, citterns, etc. were published of which recorded examples are common.