CJ Replay: Morley Canzonets

(From the Choral Journal article “The Canzonets of Thomas Morley,” by James McCray.)

 

       Thomas Morley (1558-1603) was the most important and prolific composer of canzonets in the English Madrigal School. The canzonet influenced all of his writing, and its characteristics carryover into his madrigals and ballets. His preoccupation with the canzonet affected other composers and aroused their interest in this form. Broadly speaking, Morley’s canzonets were longer and more complex than their Itaiian counterparts. Italian composers such as Vecchi, Croce, and Anerio did not use as much polyphony in their compositions, which accounts for theirconciseness. They did, however, provide extra stanzas for their canzonets (the English Madrigal School did not) which made their pieces longer in actual total musical performance. Morley’s first collection of canzonets, The Callzollets or Little Short Songs to’ Three Voyces, was published in 1593; but the title is not accurate because they are, in effect, light madrigals. There are twenty compositions in this set, and the composer appears to have grouped them in a particular arrangement, imitating the Italians. They move from the simplest to the most complicated and are arranged by key (mode). No accidental appears in the signature for the first twelve, and the last eight have only one flat. All of the pieces that are in the minor mode aregrouped in the middle; they are numbers ten through sixteen. In about half of the compositions the last section is repeated.