Download Thomas Morley

Thomas Morley
HE WAS A COMPOSER
This is Thomas Morley
Thomas Morley church music
 Morley wrote music for the liturgy of the Church of
England, service settings, psalm settings and a number of
Latin motets, under the influence of Byrd and a possible
indication of his own religious sympathies at the time. Of
particular interest is the setting of the De profundis, Out
of the deep, in a second setting as a verse anthem, a
peculiarly English form derived from the consort song of
the period, involving the contrast of solo voices with the
choir, with instrumental accompaniment from the organ
or other groups of instruments.
Morley
 The Canzonets or Little Short Songs to Three Voyces,
published in 1593 were followed by a collection of four-part
Madrigals in 1594 and a series of other publications during
the decade, some of them adaptations and arrangements of
Italian madrigals. In 1601 Morley published the collaborative
Triumphs of Oriana, a tribute to Queen Elizabeth for which he
collected madrigals by 23 composers as an offering to the
aging Arcadian Queen of the Shepherds. Well known
madrigals by Morley include Aprill is in my mistris face, My
bonny lasse shee smyleth, Now is the month of maying, O
sleep, fond fancy, Sing wee and chaunt it, Sweet nymphe,
come to thy lover and Though Philomela lost hir love. Solo
songs by Morley include It was a lover and his lasse, a song
that appears in Shakespeare's pastoral comedy As You Like It.
Thomas
 Thomas Morley was born about 1557 and, sometime
between 1602 and 1608, died after a long illness.
During his early years he studied composition with
William Byrd and organ under Sebastian Westcote
Thomas Morley
 During this period Morley, like Byrd a Roman
Catholic, encountered trouble as a recusant. Charles
Paget, an agent, had intercepted letters which held
enough incriminating evidence for him to have had
Morley hanged. He repented so abjectly, however,
that Paget let him off.

Thomas
 Morley's sacred music is more deeply serious and
moving than the canzonets and madrigals. But these
sacred works show no greater contrapuntal skill, no
more elegant finish in the new English style than the
hundredodd secular pieces he had composed on
models straight from late Renaissance Italy
English
 In the latter collection he also included nine two-part
instrumental fantasias, which, though bearing
fanciful Italian titles, are marvelous examples of a
new and sprightly English counterpoint. In these
canzonets, as in the Madrigals to Four Voices and
Ballets to Five Voices, Morley obviously patterned
his works after Italian models, even paraphrasing a
few, but he surpassed these models in harmonic
variety and tonal sophistication