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Robert Johnson (English Composer)
Robert Johnson (c. 1583 – 1633) was an English composer and lutenist of the late Tudor and early Jacobean eras. He is sometimes called "Robert Johnson II" to distinguish him from an earlier Scottish composer. Johnson worked with William Shakespeare providing music for some of his later plays. Early life Robert Johnson was the son of John Johnson, who was lutenist to Elizabeth I. In 1594 Robert's father died, and in 1596 he joined the household of George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon as an apprentice. Robert is assumed to have been around 13 at the time, as this was a typical age to begin an apprenticeship, but his date of birth is not known. Carey and his wife Elizabeth Spencer were patrons of the lutenist and composer John Dowland, who dedicated various compositions to them. The family had a London house ( Hunsdon House, Blackfriars) and a country home (Hunsdon House, Hunsdon, Hertfordshire), which partially survives. Johnson joined the Carey household at an intere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lutenist
A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can refer to an instrument from the family of European lutes. The term also refers generally to any string instrument having the strings running in a plane parallel to the sound table (in the Hornbostel–Sachs system). The strings are attached to pegs or posts at the end of the neck, which have some type of turning mechanism to enable the player to tighten the tension on the string or loosen the tension before playing (which respectively raise or lower the pitch of a string), so that each string is tuned to a specific pitch (or note). The lute is plucked or strummed with one hand while the other hand "frets" (presses down) the strings on the neck's fingerboard. By pressing the strings on different places of the fingerboard, the player can shor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Chamberlain's Men
The Lord Chamberlain's Men was a company of actors, or a "playing company" (as it then would likely have been described), for which Shakespeare wrote during most of his career. Richard Burbage played most of the lead roles, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Formed at the end of a period of flux in the theatrical world of London, it had become, by 1603, one of the two leading companies of the city and was subsequently patronized by James I. It was founded during the reign of Elizabeth I of England in 1594 under the patronage of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, then the Lord Chamberlain, who was in charge of court entertainments. After Carey's death on 23 July 1596, the company came under the patronage of his son, George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon, for whom it was briefly known as Lord Hunsdon's Men. When George Carey in turn became Lord Chamberlain on 17 March 1597, it reverted to its previous name. The company became the King's Men in 1603 when King James ascen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ariel's Song
"Ariel's song" is a verse passage in Scene ii of Act I of William Shakespeare's '' The Tempest''. It consists of two stanzas to be delivered by the spirit Ariel, in the hearing of Ferdinand. In performance it is sometimes sung and sometimes spoken. There is an extant musical setting of the second stanza by Shakespeare's contemporary Robert Johnson, which may have been used in the original production around 1611 It is the origin of the phrase full fathom five, after which there are many cultural references, and is an early written record of the phrase sea change. Through its use of rhyme, rhythm, assonance, and alliteration, the poem sounds like a spell. "Full fathom five" "Full fathom five" is the beginning of the second stanza of "Ariel's song", better known than the first stanza, and often presented alone. It implicitly addresses Ferdinand who, with his father, has just gone through a shipwreck in which the father supposedly drowned. Selected cultural references * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher (1579–1625) was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's. He collaborated on writing plays with Francis Beaumont, and also with Shakespeare on three plays. Though his reputation has declined since, Fletcher remains an important transitional figure between the Elizabethan popular tradition and the popular drama of the Restoration. Biography Early life Fletcher was born in December 1579 (baptised 20 December) in Rye, Sussex, and died of the plague in August 1625 (buried 29 August in St. Saviour's, Southwark). His father Richard Fletcher was an ambitious and successful cleric who was in turn Dean of Peterborough, Bishop of Bristol, Bishop of Worcester and Bishop of London (shortly before his death), as well as chaplain to Queen Elizabeth. As Dean of Pete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Beaumont
Francis Beaumont ( ; 1584 – 6 March 1616) was a dramatist in the English Renaissance theatre, most famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher. Beaumont's life Beaumont was the son of Sir Francis Beaumont of Grace Dieu, near Thringstone in Leicestershire, a justice of the common pleas. His mother was Anne, the daughter of Sir George Pierrepont (d. 1564), of Holme Pierrepont, and his wife Winnifred Twaits. Beaumont was born at the family seat and was educated at Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College, Oxford) at age thirteen. Following the death of his father in 1598, he left university without a degree and followed in his father's footsteps by entering the Inner Temple in London in 1600. Accounts suggest that Beaumont did not work long as a lawyer. He became a student of poet and playwright Ben Jonson; he was also acquainted with Michael Drayton and other poets and dramatists, and decided that was where his passion lay. His first work, ''Salmacis and Hermaphroditu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satirical plays ''Every Man in His Humour'' (1598), '' Volpone, or The Fox'' (c. 1606), '' The Alchemist'' (1610) and '' Bartholomew Fair'' (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. "He is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I." Jonson was a classically educated, well-read and cultured man of the English Renaissance with an appetite for controversy (personal and political, artistic and intellectual) whose cultural influence was of unparalleled breadth upon the playwrights and the poets of the Jacobean era (1603–1625) and of the Caroline era (1625–1642)."Ben Jonson", ''Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge'', volume 10, p. 388. His ancestor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles I Of England
Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until Execution of Charles I, his execution in 1649. He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603, he moved to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life. He became heir apparent to the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1612 upon the death of his elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. An unsuccessful and unpopular attempt to marry him to the Spanish Habsburg princess Maria Anna of Spain, Maria Anna culminated in an eight-month visit to Spain in 1623 that demonstrated the futility of the marriage negotiation. Two years later, he married the House of Bourbon, Bourbon princess Henrietta Maria of France. After his 1625 succession, Charles quarrelled with the Parliament of England, English Parliament, which sought to curb his royal prerogati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oberon, The Faery Prince
''Oberon, the Faery Prince'' was a masque written by Ben Jonson, with costumes, sets and stage effects designed by Inigo Jones, and music by Alfonso Ferrabosco and Robert Johnson. ''Oberon'' saw the introduction to English Renaissance theatre of scenic techniques that became standard for dramatic productions through the coming centuries. The text of the masque was first published in the initial folio collection of Jonson's works that appeared in 1616. The show ''Oberon'' was performed on 1 January 1611 at Whitehall Palace, in the Banqueting Hall. Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, the son and then-heir of James I, took the title role. (Prince Henry had wanted to stage the masque on horseback, but "his father vetoed the Idea.") The masque was the sixth in the series of extravagant shows that Jonson and Jones produced for the Stuart Court in the Christmas holiday season, a series that had begun with ''The Masque of Blackness'' in 1605 and had continued through the previous ye ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A masque involved music, dancing, singing and acting, within an elaborate stage design, in which the architectural framing and costumes might be designed by a renowned architect, to present a deferential allegory flattering to the patron. Professional actors and musicians were hired for the speaking and singing parts. Masquers who did not speak or sing were often courtiers: the English queen Anne of Denmark frequently danced with her ladies in masques between 1603 and 1611, and Henry VIII and Charles I of England performed in the masques at their courts. In the tradition of masque, Louis XIV of France danced in ballets at Versailles with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully. Development The masque tradition developed from the elaborate pageants and cou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Frederick, Prince Of Wales
Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (19 February 1594 – 6 November 1612), was the eldest son and heir apparent of James VI and I, King of England and Scotland; and his wife Anne of Denmark. His name derives from his grandfathers: Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley; and Frederick II of Denmark. Prince Henry was widely seen as a bright and promising heir to his father's thrones. However, at the age of 18, he predeceased his father when he died of typhoid fever. His younger brother Charles succeeded him as heir apparent to the English, Irish, and Scottish thrones. Early life Henry was born at Stirling Castle, Scotland, and became Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland automatically on his birth. His nurses included Mistress Primrose and Mistress Bruce. Henry's baptism on 30 August 1594 was celebrated with complex theatrical entertainments written by poet William Fowler and a ceremony in a new Chapel Royal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James I Of England
James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland as James I from the Union of the Crowns, union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death in 1625. The kingdoms of Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland and Kingdom of England, England were individual sovereign states, with their own parliaments, judiciaries, and laws, though both were ruled by James in personal union. James was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and a great-great-grandson of Henry VII of England, Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland, and thus a potential successor to all three thrones. He succeeded to the Scottish throne at the age of thirteen months, after his mother was compelled to abdicate in his favour. Four different regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in 1578, though he did not gain full control of his government until 1583. In 1603, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
