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English Cavalier Songs, 1620–1660

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1959

Ian Spink
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Extract

I cannot pretend that the adjective ‘cavalier’ in my title has much significance beyond colouring what would otherwise have been an even more drab title. Nevertheless, I believe that ‘cavalier’ is perhaps a fair description of the most important song-writers of the period; Nicholas Lanier, the Lawes brothers and John Wilson (if not of the probably pro-Cromwellian Colemans); and their performing and listening public, including the occasional roundheads. As in other spheres, the musical origins of the developments later in the century can be traced to the early part of the reign of King James I. Many surviving manuscripts as well as printed collections leave little doubt that the Italian madrigal—not monody—was well known in England from 1588 onwards. The only monodies printed here were those in Robert Dowland's Musical Banquet (1610) which included two by Caccini, one by Megli, and one anonymous piece. Notari's book of 1613 was also printed in England, though probably composed in Italy for the most part. Neither of these books can have exerted much influence, although Caccini's ‘Amaryllis’, which Dowland printed, became popular.

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Articles
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Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 86 , 1959 , pp. 61 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1959

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References

1 c. 1602–1606; See Bertolotti, A., Musιci alla Corte dei Gonzaga in Mantova, 1890, p. 80f.Google Scholar

2 Sainsbury, W. N., Original Unpublished Papers illustrative of the Life of Sir Peter Paul Rubens, 1859, p. 322, note 50.Google Scholar

3 Bodleian, MS Wood D. 19 (4), f. 361.Google Scholar

4 Cf. Funeral Teares for the Death of the Rιght Honourable the Earle of Devonshire, 1606; and Songs of Mourning bewailing the untimely death of Prince Henry, 1613.Google Scholar

5 Richardson, B., ‘New Light on Dowland's Continental Movements’, Monthly Musical Record, XC (1960), 3ff.Google Scholar

6 British Museum, Egerton 2971; and especially St. Michael's College, Tenbury, MS 1018.Google Scholar

7 Steele, M. S., Plays and Masques at Court, 1926, pp. 178–186.Google Scholar

8 British Museum, Add. MS 17786–91; and Christ Church Oxford, Music MS 984–8. Cf. Peter Warlock, Elizabethan Songs for one voice and four stringed ιnstruments, 3 vols., 1926, III, nos. 9, 14, 20.Google Scholar

9 Thomas Campion, Masque at the Marriage of the Earl of Somerset, 1614. It occurs in three MSS to the words ‘Weep no more my wearied eyes’ (Trinity College, Dublin, MS F. 13. f. 58r.; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Marley additions 15, ‘Bull’ MS, f. 99r; and New York Public Library, Drexel MS 4257, no 168, where it is attributed to Henry Lawes).Google Scholar

10 British Museum, Loan MS 35, Add. MSS 10337, 10338, 11608, 14399, 29396, 28481, 31432, Egerton 2013. Bodleian Library, MSS Mus. b.1, Mus. Sch. f. 575, Don. c. 57. New York Public Library, Drexel MSS 4041, 4175, 4257. National Library of Scotland, MSS 5.2.14, 5.2.17. Christ Church, Oxford, MSS 87, 439. Lambeth Palace, London, MS 1041. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Marley additions 15. Trinity College. Dublin, MS F.5.13. University of Glasgow, MS R.d.58–61. University of Edinburgh, MS Dc.1.69. St. Michael's College, Tenbury, MS 1018–9. These are the most important.Google Scholar

11 Particularly British Museum, Egerton 2013 and Bodleian MS Don. c. 57.Google Scholar

12 The best known of the others included (in alphabetical order) Beaumont and Fletcher, Cartwrıght, Cowley, Davenant, Donne, Jonson, Lovelace, Shakespeare, Shirley, Suckling and Waller. Concerning other poets, see C. Day and E. Murrie, English Song Books, 1651–1702, 1940, p. 4o9ff.Google Scholar

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14 Cf. M. Lefkowιtz, ‘New Facts concerning William Lawes and the Caroline Masque’, Music & Letters, XL (1959), 324ff.; Comus, ed. H. J. Foss, 1938; Cupid and Death, ed. E. J. Dent, 1951.Google Scholar

15 Dent, E. J., Foundations of English Opera, 1928, p. 3off.Google Scholar

16 This song is in New York Public Library, Drexel MS 4257, no. 109; cf. Beaumont and Fletcher, The Captaιn, III, iv.Google Scholar

17 Respectively New York Public Library, Drexel MS 4257 and 4041.Google Scholar

18 British Museum, Add. MS 10338, ff. 43v-51r.Google Scholar

19 In New York Public Library, Drexel MS 4041.Google Scholar

20 These titles are mine. Their first lines are respectively, ‘Rise princely shepherd’, ‘When Israel's sweet singer slept’, ‘Amongst my children dares the fiend appear’, ‘In guilty night’, all in British Museum, Add. MS 11608. Lanier's setting of the latter is in Add. MS 22100.Google Scholar

21 Wood, A., Athenae Oxomensιs, ed. P. Bliss, 1813–20, Vol. I, pp. xxv-xxvii and xxxi; J. P. Cutts, ‘Seventeenth Century Songs …’, Musιca Dιscιplιna, XIII (1959), 180.Google Scholar

22 McD. Emslie, ‘Nicholas Lanier's Innovations in English Song’, Music & Letters, XLI (1960), 13ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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25 Englιsh Grammar, 1633, p. 54.Google Scholar

26 One of the best descriptions of the style of these songs is in M. Lefkowitz, W. Lawes, 1960, p. 135fr.Google Scholar

27 Principles of Musιc, 1636, p. 96f.Google Scholar

28 British Museum, Loan MS 35, f. 152 r.-v.Google Scholar

29 Lawes, H., Ayres and Dialogues, 1653, commendatory verses.Google Scholar