Thomas Morley (1557 – early October 1602) was an English composer,

theorist A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be ...

, 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 ideas ...

. He was one of the foremost members of the

English Madrigal School The English Madrigal School was the brief but intense flowering of the musical madrigal in England, mostly from 1588 to 1627, along with the composers who produced them. The English madrigals were a cappella, predominantly light in style, and gener ...

. 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 theo ...

'' 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 personifi ...

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 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 Grad ...

. 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 al ...

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

Thomas East Thomas East, (also spelled Easte, Est, or Este) (''c.''1540 – January 1609), was an English printer who specialised in music. He has been described as a publisher, but that claim is debatable (the specialties of printer and bookseller/publish ...

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 See of Norwich, with ...

, 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 Recusancy (from la, recusare, translation=to refuse) was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation. The 1558 Recusancy Acts passed in the reign ...

, 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 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 down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

sometime before 1574 to be a chorister at St. Paul's Cathedral. 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 William Byrd (; 4 July 1623) was an English composer of late Renaissance music. Considered among the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he had a profound influence on composers both from his native England and those on the continent. He ...

, 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 Peter Philips (also ''Phillipps'', ''Phillips'', ''Pierre Philippe'', ''Pietro Philippi'', ''Petrus Philippus''; ''c.''1560–1628) was an eminent English composer, organist, and Catholic priest exiled to Flanders. He was one of the greatest ke ...

. 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 Nicholas Yonge (also spelled ''Young'', ''Younge''; c. 1560 in Lewes, Sussex – buried 23 October 1619 in St Michael, Cornhill, London) was an English singer and publisher. He is most famous for publishing the '' Musica transalpina'' (1588 ...

published his ''

Musica transalpina ''Musica Transalpina'' is a collection of madrigals published in England in 1588. The madrigals had crossed the Alps (hence the name) in the sense that the madrigal form was borrowed from the Italians, and the pieces were mainly by Italians (altho ...

'', the collection of Italian

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

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 has b ...

'' 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 Thomas Weelkes (baptised 25 October 1576 – 30 November 1623) was an English composer and organist. He became organist of Winchester College in 1598, moving to Chichester Cathedral. His works are chiefly vocal, and include madrigals, anth ...

and

John Wilbye John Wilbye (baptized 7 March 1574September 1638) was an English madrigal composer. Early life and education The son of a tanner, he was born at Brome, Suffolk, England. (Brome is near Diss.) Career Wilbye received the patronage of the Cornwa ...

, 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 The ''Fitzwilliam Virginal Book'' is a primary source of keyboard music from the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods in England, i.e., the late Renaissance and very early Baroque. It takes its name from Viscount Fitzwilliam who beque ...

''), and music for the

broken consort In English early Baroque music, a broken consort is an ensemble featuring instruments from more than one family, for example a group featuring both string and wind instruments. A consort consisting entirely of instruments of the same family, on th ...

, 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 The cittern or cithren ( Fr. ''cistre'', It. ''cetra'', Ger. ''Cister,'' Sp. ''cistro, cedra, cítola'') is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is d ...

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 betwe ...

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 St Botolph's, Billingsgate was a Church of England parish church in London. Of medieval origin, it was located in the Billingsgate ward of the City of London and destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666. History The church, which dated back ...

, 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 the ...

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 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.Phillip Ledger ...

* 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,

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 My bonny lass she smileth is a famous English ballett, written by Thomas Morley and published in 1595 in his ''First Book of Balletts to Five Voices''. A ballett was the English form of the Italian balletto, a light, homophonic, strophic song for ...

* 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 ''The Oxford Book of English Madrigals'' was edited by Philip Ledger, and published in 1978 by the Oxford University Press. It contains words and full music for some 60 of the madrigal (music), madrigals and songs of the English Madrigal School. ...

* '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