scholarly journals William Byrd and the limits of formal music analysis

Muzikologija ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 149-158
Author(s):  
Zarko Cvejic
Keyword(s):  
Sacred Music ◽  
Music Analysis ◽  
Elizabeth I ◽  
English Renaissance ◽  
Subsequent Research ◽  
Queen Elizabeth I ◽  
Jesuit Missionaries ◽  
Analytical Approaches ◽  
William Byrd

Writing in 1962, Joseph Kerman was the first to speculate about potentially subversive political meanings in the Cantiones sacrae of the English Renaissance composer William Byrd, his two collections of motets published in 1589 and 1591, ?voicing prayers, exhortations, and protests on behalf of the English Catholic community?. Subsequent research has corroborated Kerman?s speculations, showing that many of the texts Byrd set indeed feature the same politically charged metaphors that English Jesuit missionaries used to describe the predicament of Catholics living under the Protestant regime of Queen Elizabeth I, as well as that Byrd maintained close ties with many of these missionaries. In our own time, however, those who have analysed these motets, including Kerman, have paid little attention to this, preferring formal(ist) analytical approaches to this body of music. Focusing on Ne irascaris Domine, one of Byrd?s most famous ?political? motets, and the only two major analytical responses to it, this article attempts to demonstrate the limitations of formalist music analysis when applied to Renaissance sacred music.

Music and Late Elizabethan Politics: The Identities of Oriana and Diana

2005 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 507-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
JEREMY L. SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Sir Philip Sidney ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Elizabeth I ◽  
Original Intent ◽  
Queen Elizabeth I ◽  
Current Assessment ◽  
William Byrd

Abstract This essay challenges the current assessment that Thomas Morley's collection, The Triumphes of Oriana, was an uncomplicated musical tribute to Queen Elizabeth I, who was represented allegorically by Oriana, heroine of the romance Amadis de Gaule. It takes into account both the political context surrounding the Essex Revolt, the Elizabethan succession question, and the Catholic issue and the ideas reflected in the poetry that was set to music, as well as some of the music itself. It can be shown that both Morley and his mentor William Byrd were strongly linked to the Sidney/Essex complex of ideals that had a special appeal to Catholics who hoped for a more tolerant regime and who looked to Essex and a Jamesian succession as possible vehicles of salvation. Demonstrating the unsuitability of the Oriana characterization for Elizabeth, I propose a different allegorical identity not only for “Oriana” (James's wife Anna) but also for the character “Diana” (Essex's sister Penelope Rich), who appears in key works by Byrd and in all the Oriana madrigals as well. Certain songs by Byrd promoted the ideas of Sidney and his circle as well as Essex's image as the “heir to Sir Philip Sidney.” Morley's project for the Triumphes began originally, evidence shows, as a musical offering pleasing to the Essex camp and supportive of James's succession. A marked shift in political circumstances between 1600 and 1601 made it incumbent upon Morley and his collaborators to pay tribute to Elizabeth instead, but not all traces of the original intent were effaced. The ambivalence in the meaning of the Oriana and Diana allegories continued into the post-Elizabethan era.

Seeking the historical listener

Early Music ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Plank
Keyword(s):  
William Shakespeare ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Performance Practice ◽  
Affective Response ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Elizabeth I ◽  
Male Gaze ◽  
Queen Elizabeth I ◽  
Focus Questions ◽  
Robert Herrick

Abstract This article considers questions relating to the performance practice of listening to music in early modern contexts. The evidence of paintings by Pieter Lastman, Gerard ter Borch and Hendrik Sorgh, poetry by Robert Herrick, William Shakespeare and Edmund Waller, and accounts of performances by Francesco da Milano, Nicola Matteis and Queen Elizabeth I all help to bring into focus questions of attentiveness, affective response and analogical understanding. The source material also interestingly raises the possibility of occasionally understanding the act of listening within a frame of erotic relationship modelled on Laura Mulvey’s well-known concept of the ‘male gaze’.

New Year's Gifts to Queen Elizabeth I, 1584

Costume ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. L. Nevinson
Keyword(s):  
Elizabeth I ◽  
Queen Elizabeth I

Queen Elizabeth I and the Persistence of Patriarchy

1980 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Heisch
Keyword(s):  
Elizabeth I ◽  
Queen Elizabeth I

The Impact of the Reformation

2019 ◽  
pp. 40-61
Author(s):  
Martin Pugh
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Elizabeth I ◽  
Long Term Effect ◽  
Queen Elizabeth I ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
European Diplomacy ◽  
Francis I

This chapter focuses on the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. Following Henry VIII's break with Rome in 1531, the English Reformation led Britain into a protracted struggle with the two great Catholic powers, Spain and France, for the next 300 years. The long-term effect was to define Britain as the leading Protestant power; but more immediately, it posed a far greater threat to England than Islam, and effectively destroyed the rationale for crusading activities. In this situation, the Islamic empires actually became a valuable balancing factor in European diplomacy. Henry's readiness to deal with the Muslim powers was far from eccentric during the sixteenth century. Both King Francis I of France and Queen Elizabeth I of England took the policy of collaboration much further.

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