Between 1590 and 1610 Elizabethan Enland witnessed a great flowering of secular music The solo song with lute accompaniment now took its place alongside music for keyboard instruments and choral works as a distinctive genre in its own right. As in the case of the madrigal, the solo song had appeared in numerous English printed editions towards the end of the 16th century seemingly without any obvious antecedents. It quickly became very popular and was cultivated assiduously until the turn of the century. Shakespeare's contemporaries referred to such songs as “ayres". However, this word was not only used to signify the solo song, but in more general terms to describe a simple piece of music devoid of contrapuntal elaboration. As in the case of contemporary music for instrumental ensembles or keyboard instruments, the solo song was not designed to be performed in front of an audience. Rather, it was a vehicle tor personal expression and thus enabled musicians to communicate with one another.
Thomas Morley was the founding father of the English madrigal. ln addition to his popular works in this genre, he published two volumes of solo song, This CD is devoted to the second volume, which was entitled The First Booke of Ayres or Little Short Songs. It was printed in London in 1600. The texts of the songs were written by contemporary English poets, and most of them are variations on the theme of love. They range from the simple and descriptive pastoral idyll to sophisticated and pensive accounts of a particular event. Some make use of standard poetic devices, whereas others are imaginative representations of personal feelings. Thus playful innocence rubs shoulders with profound emotion Describing the joy and the pain of love, an in With my love my life was nestled, or doubn about a lover's constancy; as in What if my mistress now, came just as easily to this kind of poetry as the images of nature which, in Fair in a morn, delineate the state of a lover's soul. As in the madrigal, texts sometimes revolve around a single striking idea. However, on occasion Morley also set poetry of a different kind. Whereas the solemn moral of Come, sorrow, come is the reiection of worldly vanity, a humorous song such as Will you buy a fine dog contains puns which are not easy to understand. Even if the poets concerned were not on the same literary level as Petrarch, Tasso and Guarini, their texts were eminently suitable when tt came to setting them to music.
As was usual in the case of Morley and his contemporaries, the music is largely independent of the text, and does not adhere slavishly to the metre and the mood. In fact, the connection between the poetry and the music is rather tenuous. and the melodic lines seldom make rise of word painting. In any case, since most of the songs were strophic, this in itself ruled out a close relationship between the text and the music, for, as one strophe followed the next, different words and ideas were applied to the original melody and accompaniment. On the whole the melodies are easy to sing and not unduly complicated. Moreover, certain rhythmic features and the frequent alternation of duple and triple metre help to enliven the presentation of the text. As a result important words are often emphasized in a novel manner, thereby making a significant contribution to a style of declamation which is wholly natural and true to life. This in turn is underpinned by the harmony which, in certain songs such as Come, sorrow, come, attains to an expression of genuine melancholy.
The lute accompaniment, which, as envisaged by the composer, is strengthened by a viola da gamha, plays an important role in the execution of these songs. It not only supplies the harmonic foundation for the vocal line, but often doubles the latter. In several of the songs the lute introduction foreshadows the singers opening melodic phrase. In terms of both structure and texture the accompaniment is treated in a variety of ways. It ranges from chordal writing to the use of independent contrapuntal lines, and this makes a crucial contribution to the songs' unique exprcssirity.