Thomas Morley (1557 – early October 1602) was an English composer, theorist, singer and organist of the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

. He was one of the foremost members of the English Madrigal School. Referring to the strong Italian influence on the English madrigal, ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and t ...

'' states that Morley was "chiefly responsible for grafting the Italian shoot on to the native stock and initiating the curiously brief but brilliant flowering of the madrigal that constitutes one of the most colourful episodes in the history of English music." Living in London at the same time as

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

, Morley was the most famous composer of secular music in

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personific ...

England. He and

Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generati ...

are the composers of the only surviving contemporary settings of verse by Shakespeare. Morley was active in church music as a singer, composer and organist at

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglicanism, Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London ...

. He was also involved in music publishing. From 1598 up to his death he held a

printing patent The printing patent or printing privilege was a precursor of modern copyright. It was an exclusive right to print a work or a class of works. The earliest recorded printing privilege dates from 1469, giving John of Speyer a five-year monopoly on ...

(a type of monopoly). He used the monopoly in partnership with professional music printers such as Thomas East.

Life

Morley was born in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the Episcopal see, See of ...

, 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. He may have been a Roman Catholic, but he was able to avoid prosecution as a recusant, and there is evidence that he may have been an informer on the activities of Roman Catholics. It is believed that Morley moved from Norwich to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

sometime before 1574 to be a chorister at

St. Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Gra ...

. Around this time,Foster, Michael W.. "Morley, Thomas (b. 1556/7, d. in or after 1602)." Michael W. Foster in

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

, online ed., edited by

Lawrence Goldman Lawrence Goldman (born 17 June 1957) is an English historian and the former director of the Institute of Historical Research. A former editor of the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', he has a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He ...

. Oxford: OUP. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/19292 (accessed 18 November 2014) Subscription or UK public library membership required. he studied with William Byrd, whom he named as his mentor in his 1597 publication ''A Plain and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke''. Byrd also taught Morley's contemporary, Peter Philips. In 1588 he received his bachelor's degree from the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, and shortly thereafter was employed as organist at St. Paul's in London. His young son died the following year in 1589. He and his wife Susan had three more children between 1596 and 1600. In 1588 Nicholas Yonge published his '' Musica transalpina'', the collection of Italian

madrigal A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The polyphonic madrigal is unaccompanied, and the number ...

s fitted with English texts, which touched off the explosive and colourful vogue for madrigal composition in England. Morley found his compositional direction at this time, and shortly afterwards began publishing his own collections of madrigals (11 in all). Morley lived for a time in the same parish as Shakespeare, and a connection between the two has been long speculated, but never proven. His famous setting of "It was a lover and his lass" from ''

As You Like It ''As You Like It'' is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 h ...

'' has never been established as having been used in a performance of Shakespeare's play during the playwright's lifetime. However, given that the song was published in 1600, there is evidently a possibility that it was used in stage performances. Morley-Christes crosse

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" (which is actually a ballett); 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. 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 broken consort, a uniquely English ensemble of two

viol The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...

s, flute,

lute 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 ref ...

, cittern and bandora, notably as published by

William Barley William Barley (1565?–1614) was an English bookseller and publisher. He completed an apprenticeship as a draper in 1587, but was soon working in the London book trade. As a freeman of the Drapers' Company, he was embroiled in a dispute betw ...

in 1599 in ''The First Booke of Consort Lessons, made by diuers exquisite Authors, for six Instruments to play together, the Treble Lute, the Bandora, the Cittern, the Base-Violl, the Flute & Treble-Violl''. Morley's ''Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke'' (published 1597) remained popular for almost two hundred years after its author's death, and is still an important reference for information about sixteenth century composition and performance. Thomas Morley was buried in the graveyard of the church of St Botolph Billingsgate, which was destroyed in the

Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past th ...

of 1666, and not rebuilt. Thus his grave is lost.

Compositions

Thomas Morley's compositions include (in alphabetical order): * April is in my mistress' face * Arise, get up my deere * Cease mine eyes * Come, lovers, follow me * Come, Sorrow, come * Crewell you pull away to soone * Christes crosse * Do you not know? * Fair in a morn * Fantasia for keyboard, Fitzwilliam Virginal Book CXXIV * Fantasie: Il Doloroso * Fantasie: Il Grillo * Fantasie: Il Lamento * Fantasie: La Caccia * Fantasie: La Rondinella * Fantasie: La Sampogna * Fantasie: La Sirena * Fantasie: La Tortorella * Fire Fire My Heart * Flora wilt thou torment mee * Fyre and Lightning * Goe yee my canzonets * Good Morrow, Fair Ladies of the May * Harke Alleluia! * Hould out my hart * I goe before my darling * I saw my Lady weeping * I should for griefe and anguish * In nets of golden wyers * It was a lover and his lass * Joy, joy doth so arise * Joyne hands * La Caccia "The Chase" * La Girandola * Ladie, those eies * Lady if I through griefe * Leave now mine eyes * Lo hear another love * Love learns by laughing * Miraculous loves wounding * Mistress mine * My bonny lass she smileth * Nolo mortem peccatoris * Now is the month of maying * O Mistresse mine * O thou that art so cruell * A painted tale * Say deere, will you not have me? * See, see, my own sweet jewel * Shepard's Rejoice * Sing we and chant it * Sleep, slumb'ring eyes * Sweet nymph * Thirsis and Milla * Those dainty daffadillies * Though Philomela lost her love Oxford Book of English Madrigals * 'Tis the time of Yuletide Glee * Good morrow, Fayre Ladies of the May * What is it that this dark night * What ayles my darling? * When loe by break of morning * Where art thou wanton? * Will you buy a fine dog? * With my love my life was nestled

Sacred music

* The Burial Service * De profundis clamavi * Domine, dominus noster * Domine, non est exultarem cor meum * Eheu sustulerunt domine * The First Service * How long wilt thou forget me? * O amica mea

References

External links

* * * * * More information, including full text, of Morley'
Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke
at the University of North Texas Music Library's Virtual Rare Book Room * HTML transcription, with numbered page divisions, of ''Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke'': pp

an

an

(at the Jacobs (Indiana University) School of Music Center for the History of Music Theory and Literature) {{DEFAULTSORT:Morley, Thomas Composers from Norwich Musicians from Norwich English classical composers English madrigal composers Renaissance composers English music theorists English organists British male organists Cathedral organists 16th-century English composers 1550s births 1602 deaths English male classical composers English Roman Catholics Male classical organists

Life

Compositions

Sacred music

See also

References

Further reading

External links