In the golden twilight of the English Renaissance, when madrigals flourished in the courts and cathedrals of England and Ireland, few composers demonstrated such exquisite taste in wedding poetry to music as Thomas Bateson. Born around 1575 in the rolling countryside of Cheshire, this Anglo-Irish composer would become one of the most significant figures of the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean musical landscape, le…
“Wishing unto your Honour a continual harmony, composed of a comfortable delight of body, goods, and good name, with a daily increase of honour.”
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
In the golden twilight of the English Renaissance, when the echoes of Shakespeare's verse still rang through London's theaters and the madrigal reached its most exquisite flowering, Thomas Weelkes emerged as one of the most distinctive and emotionally powerful composers of his generation. Born around 1576 and dying in 1623, Weelkes lived through one of the most extraordinary periods in English cultural history, creat…
“These six dishes full of divers madrigals, the first fruits of my barren ground, unripe in regard of time, unsavoury in respect of others. Therefore taste, and again I pray you: if they like your appetite, spare not my orchard; if they offend your stomach, lay them by to ripen, and you shall prove of my latter vintage.”
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers
Emotional landscape: Longing, Irony, Sensuality
