In the twilight years of Elizabeth I's reign, when England stood poised between the medieval world and the dawning age of Shakespeare, a composer emerged whose voice would capture the profound melancholy and spiritual yearning of a nation in transition. John Ward, born around 1571 and departing this world in 1638, represents one of the most compelling yet enigmatic figures in the pantheon of English Renaissance music…
“What I may produce hereafter is wholly Yours, as who hath more right to the Fruit than he that owneth the Stock?”
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
In the twilight years of Elizabeth I's reign and throughout the tumultuous early decades of the seventeenth century, when England stood at the crossroads between medieval traditions and modern innovations, one composer quietly crafted some of the most exquisite musical settings of poetry ever written. Martin Peerson, born around 1571 and dying in 1651, lived through one of the most extraordinary periods in English cu…
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
