“It were needless to commend the worth of music to a noble and understanding disposition: for in the natures of arts and generous spirits there is a sympathy.”

Asserts a natural affinity between music and noble minds · Dedication to Edward Lord Denny, Ayres or Phantasticke Spirites, 1608

• Music
• Nobility
• Sympathy

“My years yet unripened, and this work not a little hastened, cannot promise any choice notes of music.”

Acknowledges youth and haste while seeking patronage · Dedication to Edward Darcy, Balletts and Madrigals, 1598

• Humility
• Music
• Youth

“Many of us musicians think it as much praise to be somewhat more than musicians, as it is for gold to be somewhat more than gold.”

Defends musicians who aspire beyond their craft alone · Dedication to Henry Lord Windsor, Madrigals of 5 and 6 Parts, 1600

• Ambition
• Excellence
• Music

“I see not, if souls do not partly consist of music, how it should come to pass that so noble a spirit as yours, so perfectly tuned to so perpetual a tenor of excellencies as it is, should descend to the notice of a quality lying single in so low a personage as myself.”

Links the soul itself to musical harmony in a dedicatory conceit · Dedication to Henry Lord Windsor, Madrigals of 5 and 6 Parts, 1600

• Music
• Nobility
• Soul

“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.”

Modest self-appraisal of early work as unripe fruit awaiting fuller harvest · Dedication to George Phillpot, Madrigals to 3, 4, 5 and 6 Voices, 1597

• Humility
• Music
• Writing