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Thomas Morley | |
|---|---|
 Title page of Morley'sPlaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (1597) | |
| Born | c. 1557 |
| Died | early October 1602 (aged 45) |
| Occupations | composer, organist and madrigalist |
Thomas Morley (1557 – early October 1602) was an English composer,theorist, singer and organist of lateRenaissance music. He was one of the foremost members of theEnglish Madrigal School. Referring to the strong Italian influence on the Englishmadrigal,The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 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."[1]
Living in London at the same time asShakespeare, Morley was the most famous composer of secular music inElizabethan England. He andRobert Johnson 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 atSt Paul's Cathedral. He was also involved in music publishing. From 1598 up to his death he held aprinting patent (a type of monopoly).[2] He used the monopoly in partnership with professional music printers such asThomas East.
Morley was born inNorwich, the son of a brewer. Most likely he was a singer inthe local cathedral from his boyhood,[1][3] and he became master ofchoristers there in 1583.[4] He may have been a Roman Catholic, but he was able to avoid prosecution as arecusant, and there is evidence that he may have been an informer on the activities of Roman Catholics.[2]
It is believed that Morley moved from Norwich toLondon sometime before 1574 to be a chorister atSt. Paul's Cathedral.[1] Around this time,[2] he studied withWilliam Byrd, whom he named as his mentor in his 1597 publicationA Plain and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke. Byrd also taught Morley's contemporary,Peter Philips.[1] In 1588 he received his bachelor's degree from theUniversity of Oxford, 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 1588Nicholas Yonge published hisMusica transalpina, the collection of Italianmadrigals 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" fromAs You Like It has never been established as having been used in a performance of Shakespeare's play during the playwright's lifetime.[citation needed] However, given that the song was published in 1600, there is evidently a possibility that it was used in stage performances.
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 colour, 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 instanceThomas Weelkes andJohn 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 theFitzwilliam Virginal Book), and music for thebroken consort, a uniquely English ensemble of twoviols, flute,lute,cittern andbandora, notably as published byWilliam Barley in 1599 inThe 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'sPlaine 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 ofSt Botolph Billingsgate, which was destroyed in theGreat Fire of London of 1666, and not rebuilt. Thus his grave is lost.
Thomas Morley's compositions include (in alphabetical order):
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