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…
“These are the primitiae of my Muse, planted in your pleasure, and cherished by the gentle calm of your Favour.”
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
John Bennet, born probably around 1575 and last securely active in 1614, occupies a distinctive if elusive place in the cultural history of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. He is frequently described as a poet because his finest music is inseparable from the language it sets, but the surviving evidence identifies him principally as a composer: a writer of madrigals and psalm settings whose art depended upon an excep…
Neighbourhood:
Lute-Song Composers, Poet-Musicians, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
