Posted on 05/25/2012 2:54:04 PM PDT by AnAmericanMother
Hark all ye lovely saints above
Just a little musical relaxation for a Friday afternoon.
I heard this for the first time a couple of days ago and was enchanted. After the repeat of the first verse, Mr. Weelkes slides through a dissonance into a minor key, then dashes back to major and back to the dominant.
Not only is it a musical tour-de-force, it's gorgeous. Enjoy!
Mr. Weelkes wrote a lot of really good church music too, but this is his secular side.
Great change of pace...thanks!
Thank you!
(Put me on your ping list. :-)
I first encountered madrigals when, upon arriving in Colonial Williamsburg for a weekend during the Christmas Season we experienced a concert in the Colonial Capitol Building. I was enthralled! I hummed and whistled some of the melodies for the next few days.
I’ve purchased several albums of Elizabethan music, in Colonial Williamsburg and elsewhere, with lute and harpsichord and recorder, and the rare madrigal included, just by happenstance, but never have found much in the way of pure madrigals.
I noticed there are several pretty good leads in the sidebar on the page where that madrigal is found. I’ll follow up on some of those. Thanks a million!
But I'll make a note . . . .
Mr. Weelkes, by the way, was something of a character. He had a bit of a drinking problem and he was a very rowdy drunk. Got in trouble with the chapter (no kidding) for passing water on the Dean of Chichester from the organ loft during Evensong . . . eventually they detailed somebody to make sure he showed up for services clean and sober (and, presumably, dehydrated).
But they never, ever fired him because his music was just too wonderful. Unfortunately he died young, probably of the D.T.s, but he still produced an amazing body of music.
Alleluia - I heard a voice (Rev.14:2)
As a minister in the audience shouted when Susannah Cibber sang "He was despised" in the premiere of the Messiah, "For that, thy sins are forgiven thee!"
The Baltimore Consort does a lot of madrigals, but I don't care for their sound, which is loose, heavy on the vibrato and thicker, if that makes any sense.
You could listen to the snippets on amazon to see which style you prefer. I'm thoroughly in the traditional English camp, and that's not to everybody's liking.
Actually, our choirmaster tells us that the Elizabethans probably sounded like old-fashioned Appalachian mountain singers - very nasal and forward, with no vibrato at all. Don't think anybody could stand that these days (but when we sing the really early stuff, like Josquin and Ockeghem, we can get away with it.)
That was charming. Takes me back to my college years, singing “Pastime With Goode Companie” and other Tudor favorites. I can still pick an A out of the air if I start “Fine Knackes for Ladies.”
Heehee! Musicians sometimes seem to be troublesome lot (no personal experience or anything like that) ;-)
How do you come to know so much about this gent?
I know about Mr. Weelkes and his checkered career because he composed a lot of church music. I usually look up the dates &c. of any composer we sing, and when I looked him up, I found all this stuff. He apparently was pretty notorious. Which is kind of sad that he had to suffer so (of course those around him had to also. Very sad all around).
If you put "Thomas Weelkes" into YouTube you'll get all sorts of neat stuff. The big names in early music like the Kings Singers or Cambridge are safest, but there are lots of local groups singing both sacred and secular.
Fun stuff! Once you get the hang of it, it’s not hard. After all, this sort of music was written for middle class Elizabethans to sing around the table after dinner. Back in the day before phonographs and CDs and iTunes and Pandora. . . .
And before mass-produced novels and gas lighting and central heat, too.
I think Rutter is the best!
. . . and television. Don’t forget television (wish I could!)
I watched “Bridezillas” one morning at my parents’ apartment. There are some crazy people out there!
I don't like all of his own compositions, but some of them are very good. We sing his "Candlelight Carol" just about every Christmas. "The Lord is My Shepherd" from his Requiem is also fine (I like oboes - "Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredikt" by Mahler is also a favorite of mine, not only because of the oboes but because Fischer-Dieskau (may he rest in peace) sings it spectacularly.)
Hopefully everything will be nice, quiet, modest and fun. Daughter is saving the cost of a wedding dress by wearing her grandmother's dress and veil (which I also wore). Double weight silk satin, round neckline, chapel train, and real Brussels lace veil. Going to have to have it cleaned to try to get some of the aging stains off the satin.
Two weddings at once? Sounds stressful!
I saved the cost of an expensive wedding dress by having one made by a dressmaker who ran a Mexican takeout shop out of her studio. It came to about $350, for materials and labor, and I got exactly what I wanted.
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