Influence of Italian Musical Innovations on English Vocal Music in the Early Seventeenth Century

For our knowledge of English secular music before 1588, we have to rely entirely on manuscripts. Apart from a few isolated publications such as Whythorne’s Songs for Three, Four and Five Voices (1571), there was very little printed music. In 1588 however, there began a much more productive period of English music printing – in that year Byrd’s Psalmes, Sonets and Songs and Nicholas Yonge’s Musica Transalpina were published, and from then onwards there was a steady stream of publications, which lasted until the 1630s. It was within the context of this flurry of publishing activity that the tradition of the English polyphonic song reached its culmination in the collection of Byrd and Gibbons, and that two new species of composition enjoyed a brief but glorious heyday – the madrigal and the lute song.

The madrigal was an import from Italy and by the time it took root in England it already had behind it a long history in its land of origin. However, there were marked differences between the Italian madrigal and its English counterpart. The Italian madrigal grew out of a string literary impulse, and always maintained a close association with the poetry of major authors such as Petrarch, Sannazaro, Tasso and others. It was nurtured by composers and patrons who were sensitive to its literary content, and famous poems were set to music over and over again as composers endeavoured to make their music more evocative of the text. This respect for the poetry led to the composition of cycles of madrigals. In England, however, the madrigal was not motivated by the same literary impulse – it was a more musical phenomenon, and English composers tended to take the technique and style of the fully developed Italian madrigal at face value. Thus there are comparatively fewer settings of major English poets like Sidney, Spenser and others; there are also far fewer repeated settings and composers showed little interest in cycles of madrigals. Most English madrigal verse is of slight literary value, often translating or imitating Italian poesia per musica. The first two anthologies of Italian madrigals printed in England were Yonge’s Musica Transalpina (1588) and Thomas Watson’s Italian Madrigals 'Englished' (1590). The Italian composers most represented in these anthologies are Luca Marenzio, Alfonso Ferrabosco I and Claudio Monteverdi. Yonge’s collection contains fifty-seven pieces for four, five and six voices, including fourteen by Ferrabosco, ten by Marenzio and five by Palestrina; the second anthology contains twenty-eight pieces, of which no fewer than twenty-three are by Marenzio. These two anthologies presented to the Elizabethan public an image of the Italian madrigal that was serious and elevated, and English composers went to them not only for texts but sometimes for musical ideas as well.

Thomas Morley was the first English composer to issue his own madrigalian works in print, and until 1597 he was the only one to do so. He was prolific, and judging by the reprints, his work was popular and influential, and he espoused the Italian cause with enthusiasm. But the sort of madrigal that Morley preferred was not the serious one represented by Yonge and Watson but the ‘light’ madrigal which had always existed alongside it, as well as two related species – the canzonet and the ballet. His main collections were Canzonets, Or Little Short Songs to Three Voices (1593), Madrigals to Foure Voyces (1594), The First Book of Canzonets to Two Voyces (1595), The First Book of Ballets to Five Voyces (1595) and Canzonets or Little Short Aers to Five and Six Voices (1597). He also produced two more anthologies of Italian pieces (with ‘Englished’ texts) in 1597 and 1598, and compiled the famous collection The Triumphes of Oriana (1601). Despite the title, the contents of the 1593 set have very little in common with the canzonet, apart from their light-hearted character. They are mostly madrigals with regard to text, musical style and dimension. The texture is mainly contrapuntal, and homophonic declamation, as in the opening of ‘See, see mine own sweet jewel’, is exceptional. Most pieces consist of a series of contrapuntal ideas, each elaborated to a greater or lesser degree, and seasoned with conventional details of word-painting. Morley’s use of a three-voice texture is notable, since by this time five or six voices were the norm in Italy. The Madrigalls to Foure Voyces are in a similar style to the so-called canzonets of 1593, but with four voices Morley is better able to sustain this kind of polyphonic writing. His taste for such few-voiced textures influenced other madrigalists, and is one of the reasons for the generally lighter quality of the English madrigal. His textures put a limit on harmonic enterprise, but these light madrigals depend for their effect on rhythmic vitality, dazzling vocal interplay and variations of pace. These qualities are admirable illustrated in ‘Arise, get up, my dear’ from the 1593 collection, a narrative madrigal about a country wedding – the solemn opening with the leap on ‘Arise’; the syncopation and quavers at ‘Hark you merry maidens squealing’; more rhythmic displacement on ‘run apace’; sense of stagnation with the minims for the bride’s tears on ‘Alas my dear, why weep she?’, soon to be banished, however, by the lively dotted rhythm of the final dance. Such narrative madrigals with all their vivid evocations of everyday life, are among Morley’s finest works.

The Italian canzonet was strophic, but Morley set only a single stanza – another sign of the mainly musical approach. The usual form was AABCC with short, balanced phrases punctuated by clear-cut cadences; the texture, a mixture of homophony and light imitation. Morley’s Canzonets to Two Voyces (1595) was published in an English and an Italian edition, although no copy of the latter edition survives. Nearly all the texts are based on Italian poems, the chief source being Felice Anerio’s set of 1586, and in varying degrees the music is modelled on Anerio as well. For example, ‘Go ye my canzonets’ is somewhat based on ‘Gitene canzonette’, but the differences between the two works, however, are typical of Morley’s treatment to them. While in ‘Gitene canzonette’ the first phrase cadences in the tonic, Morley’s moves to the dominant; in the middle section Morley’s setting is longer and more contrapuntal, and in the final section the introduction of an E flat shows his interest in tonal variety.

Like the Canzonets of 1595, the First Booke of Ballets was issued in separate English and Italian editions, and in this case the Italian edition has survived. Again, in spite of the title, only fifteen of the twenty-one pieces contained in the book are ballets. The ballet was another species that Morley imported from Italy, and here his principal model was the famous collection by Giovanni Gastoldi issued in 1591. The essential features of Gastoldi’s balletti are that they are strophic, and the music consists of two repeated sections, each ending with a refrain. The verses (A and B) are dance-like and homophonic and the refrains are only slightly elaborated, if at all. Eight of Morley’s ballets have texts ‘Englished’ from Gastoldi, and all of these are modelled more or less on Gastoldi’s music as well. This is evident in the rhythms of the verse sections – for example, Morley’s ‘You that wont to my pipe’s sound’ remains faithful to Gastoldi’s ‘Vaghe ninfe’ throughout. It is in the treatment of the refrains that Morley differs markedly. Whereas Gastoldi’s are short – often four bars, sometimes fewer – Morley’s extend to as many as sixteen bars, and he makes them the opportunity for brilliant and exciting displays of counterpoint. The seven ballets not based on Gastoldi are settings of canzonet texts which still retain the two-part structure and refrain of the ballet, but the verses are much more contrapuntal, so that there is less contrast between verses and refrain.

Morley’s preference for the light types of madrigal is reflected in his two Italian anthologies, the Canzonets and Madrigals issued in 1597 and 1598. A similar swing in taste towards the lighter variety can be seen in Yonge’s choice of pieces for his second collection of Musica Transalpina in 1597. Around that year, changes in the hitherto restrictive conditions of English music-printing enabled a number of other composers to issue madrigal collections. The Canzonets to Fowre Voyces (1598) of Giles Farnaby and the four-part madrigals of John Bennet and John Farmer (both in 1599) show the influence of ‘Italianate’[1] Morley while at the same time exhibiting the tendency – also seen in Morley – to revert occasionally to a native style. Farnaby’s ‘Aye me, poor heart’ is in the manner of a consort song; Farmer’s ‘O stay, sweet love’ recalls the partsongs of the lutenists. Along with such minor figures, two major composers appeared at this time – Thomas Weelkes and John Wilbye.

Next to Morley, Thomas Weelkes was the most prolific of the English madrigalists and published four collections – Madrigals to 3, 4, 5 & 6 Voyces (1597), Balletts and Madrigals to Five Voyces (1598), Madrigals of 5 and 6 Parts (1600) and Ayeres or Phantasticke Spirites for Three Voyces (1608). Although only in his early twenties in 1597, the first set reveals him as a composer of great vitality. Weelkes’s imaginative response to the words gives each item a strong sense of individuality. Such commitment to the words is comparable to the approach of the Italian madrigalists, but in Weelkes it is combined with a typically English interest in form. His 1598 set follows the example of Morley’s Balletts of 1595 in containing a mixture of ballets and other pieces, and Weelkes continues Morley’s practice of making the ballet longer and more complicated. The 1600 set develops all the features found in Weelkes’s previous works – his habit of writing sections in contrasting tempi, in this case in duple and triple metre; passages in triple time, prompted by words such as ‘dance’ and ‘rejoice’ – are especially characteristic of the 1600 set and sometimes show the influence of instrumental music. His Ayeres or Phantasticke Spirites are mainly of a light nature, sometimes humorous or satirical, incorporating elements of the madrigal, canzonet and the ballet.

John Wilbye published two sets of madrigals – The First Set of English Madrigals to 3.4.5. and 6. Voices (1598) and The Second Set of Madrigales to 3.4.5. and 6. Parts (1609). He is pre-eminent among the English madrigalists for his sensitivity to the poetry and the elegance of his technique. Compared to Weelkes he is restrained, avoiding abrupt gestures and violent contrasts, and yet his music reveals a thoughtful insight into the text. Like all his fellow madrigalists, Wilbye sometimes drops the Italian guise and reverts to an indigenous style. Two characteristic features of his music are his major/minor contrasts and his use of sequence. An example of the former feature is ‘Adieu, sweet Amarilis’ (1598) which moves into the major mode at the end. Wilbye’s most characteristic type of sequence involves a series of pedal notes as in ‘Ye that do live in pleasures plenty’.

Dowland and Campion – the Lute Song

Although we know from literary and documentary references that singing to the lute or similar instrument was common enough throughout the sixteenth century, few sources survive that can be dated earlier than 1597 when John Dowland issued his First Booke of Songs or Ayres and thus inaugurated a series of such songbooks that lasted until John Attey’s First Booke of Ayres in 1622. The vigorous cultivation of the lute song was owing to a variety of factors. In the broadest sense it can be seen as part of a general movement away from the equal-voiced polyphony to a treble/bass dominated texture, a movement which characterized the late sixteenth century and which is seen most clearly in the creation of the Italian monody. Although one of the leading songwriters, Thomas Campion, was also a poet, there is no evidence that the lute song in general was much more ‘literary’ in inspiration than the madrigal. While poets probably preferred the lute song because it did less violence to the verse, they do not seem to have taken much interest in the works of Dowland and his fellow songwriters. Certainly there was nothing comparable with the close collaboration practised in French and Italian circles. Like the madrigal, the lute song seems to have been cultivated mainly for its musical qualities, and literary ideals were a minor issue. However, lute song verse is much more varied than that of the madrigal. Although many songs deal with the conventions of courtly love, there are many others which treat love in a more naturalistic way. There are humorous and satirical songs along with elegies and songs on moral and sacred themes.

The main reason for the vogue of the lute song was the genius and prestige of John Dowland. It was he who initiated the lute song movement, with a songbook which proved to be the most popular of all Elizabethan music prints, and then sustained it with three more fine collections. By the time Dowland published his First Booke he had travelled to France, Germany and Italy and as early as 1588 John Case in his Apologia Musices had listed him among the leading musicians of the day. He published four songbooks in all – First Booke of Songes or Ayres (1597, with further editions in 1600, 1603, 1606 and 1613), Second Booke of Songs or Ayres (1600), Third and Last Booke of Songs or Aires (1603) and A Pilgrim’s Solace (1612).

Many of Dowland’s airs are of simple construction, with balanced phrases – each corresponding to a line of verse – separated by clear-cut cadences. The most usual scheme is for the music to consist of two sections of unequal length, the second of which is repeated. Often there is some degree of elaboration in the second section, involving imitation, word repetition or extension of a phrase. Repetition of the second section and elaboration within it serve to underline the statement or the epigrammatic turn of thought that is often embodied in the final couplet of the stanza. But this is no more than a basic scheme, and a comparison of a few airs will give some idea of the great variety of treatment that Dowland brings to it. Although his music is mainly homophonic, it is animated by a great deal of detail in the accompanying parts. A few of his airs have the form and character of dances, and some of them survive elsewhere as instrumental pieces.

The consort song for voice and viols also played a part in the formation of Dowland’s style. This is apparent in songs that have a more contrapuntal texture and a more expansive treatment of the text, and where there is usually an instrumental prelude and interludes between the vocal phrases. His first song in this cycle is ‘I saw my lady weep’ at the beginning of the Second Booke, where the suspensions and the striking harmonic progressions generate a mood of great emotional intensity. An altogether different influence, and one that was to be of the greatest importance in the development of the English song in the seventeenth century, was the Italian monody. Since the purpose of the monody was to project the text, the subtleties of counterpoint were out of place, and in Italy the accompaniment consisted simply of a figured bass. Moreover, an elaborate accompaniment would impede the rubato (Caccini’s sprezzatura) essential to the performance of the monody. Dowland must have had opportunities to hear the ‘new music’ during his travels in Italy in the 1590s. Occasional declamatory passages occur in his early songs such as ‘Come, heavy sleep’ (1597). Such early works are, however, undoubtedly monody inspired with their continuo-like accompaniments and striking changes of harmony involving triads major third apart. A remarkable fusion of declamatory and consort song styles occurs in ‘In darkness let me dwell’ which has an emotional intensity almost unequalled at that time – the climax is an impassioned outburst on ‘O let me living die’ and at the very end Dowland returns to the opening phrase before breaking off inconclusively – an original and telling stroke.

Thomas Campion was both poet and composer, and these two roles are combined in his output – twenty-one songs in Philip Rosseter’s Booke of Ayres (1601), Two Bookes of Ayres (1613) and The Third and Fourth Book of Ayres (1618). He also devised several masques and wrote some of the music for them. His ‘light air’ is short, tuneful and uncluttered by counterpoint. His dislike for counterpoint recalls the traditional humanist belief in the special virtues of monody. Of course, as a poet, he would have preferred monody as doing less violence to the poetry. Repetition is the basis of his technique – repetition of rhythmic patterns (‘Shall I come sweet love to thee’), sequential repetition (‘Never weather-beaten sail’) and repetition of sections. In this last respect it is noteworthy that, far more than any other lute song composer, he repeats sections of music to different words. Although he ridicules excessive madrigalian word-painting, in some of his airs Campion manages to depict textual detail without disrupting the spontaneity of the melody. In ‘Follow thy fair sun’ ideas of light and darkness correspond with upward and downward movement. Again, in some of his airs, Campion has been at pains that suitable words and ideas occur at the corresponding places in later stanzas. Like Sidney and others, Campion experimented in writing English verse according to the rules of classical quantitative scansion, and he wrote a treatise on the subject – Observations in the Art of English Poesie (1602).

Light airs of the type favoured by Campion are scattered through the songbooks of other lutenists. The songs of his friend Rosseter make use of standard devices such as sequences, snatches of imitation between melody and bass, and the ‘chanson’ rhythm (crotchet followed by two quavers), but with a grace and delicacy which makes them a particularly attractive contribution to the genre.

[1] David Greer, Vocal Music: up to 1660