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REIGN OF JAMES I. |
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Between 1603 and 1609, Dowland printed Ms "Lacrimse, or Seven Tcares figured in seven passionate Pavans, with divers other Pavans, Galliards, and Almands." This work, to "which there are so many allusions by contemporary Dramatists, was in five parts, for the Lute, Viols, or Violins. In 1609, Rossiter printed his " Lessons for Consort" for the same six instruments as Morley. In 1611, Morley's work was reprinted,4 and about the same time Orlando Gibbons published his Fantasies of three parts for Viols? |
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* Twelve volumes of Dr. Barney's MS. extracts for hi* History of Music were formerly in my possession, and are now in the British Museum. In one of them (Add. MSS. 11,587) are his extracts from Morley's Consort Lessons. To "O mistress mine "(which I have printed at p. 209) he appends the following note:—"If any melody or movement, hesides the Hornpipe (a tune played by the Cornish pipe, or pipe of Cornwatt), be truly native, it seems to he this; which has the genuine drawl of our country clowns and ballad singers in sorrowful ditties, as the hornpipe has the coarse and vulgar jollity of their mirth and merriment." This criticism is a curiosity, and not less curious ks the judgment he passes on the Consort Lessons, after scoring two out of the six parts (the Treble Viol and Flute), and adding his own base. Morley dedicates them to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and Dr. Burney says, " Master Morley, supposing that the harmony which was to be heard through the clattering of knives, forts, spoons, and plates, with the jingling of glasses, and clamorous conversation of a city feast, need not be very accurate and refined, was not very nice in setting parts to these tunes, if we may judge of the resl by what passes between the viol and flute," &c. The whole of this passage is transferred to his History of Music (iii. 102, Note D, 1789), except the qualification, "if we may judge," Jte. It was not advisable to tell the reader how he had formed his opinion of a woik that had formerly passed through two editions. Among Dr. Burney's other criticisms of English Music (for his History is essentially a critical one, and he has been commonly quoted as an authority) are the following, which are also directly connected with the subject of this book :— In vol. ii., p. -553, he says, "It is related by Glo. Battista Donado that the Turks have a limited number of tunes, to which the poets of their country have continued to write for ages; and the vocal mask: of our own country seems long to have been equally circumscribed; for, till the last century, it seems as if the number of our secular and popular melodies did not greatly exceed that of the Turks." In a note it is stated that the tunes of the Turks were in all twenty-four; which were to depict melancholy, joy, or fury; to he mellifluous or amorous. It may not, I hope/ fee too presumptuous to say that Dr. Burney knew very little of the subject. In vol. lii., 143, after criticising a work printed in 1614, and saying, "The Violin was now hardly known by the English, in shape or name " (although Ben Jonson describes the instrument, at that very time, _ as commonly sold with roast pigs in Bartholomew Fair, and violins had certainly been used on the English stage from its infancy. See, for instance, the tragedy of Gorboduc, or Ferrex and Porrex, acted by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple before Queen Elizabeth, in 1561); he adds, "And the low state of our regal music in the time of Henry VIII., 1530, may be gathered from the accounts given in Hall and Hollinshed's Chronicles, of a Masque at Cardinal Wolsey's palace, Whitehall, where the King was entertained with *a concert of drums and fifes.*" He then says, " But this was |
soft music compared with that of his heroic daughter Elizabeth, who, according to Hentzner, used to be regaled during dinner "with twelve trumpets, and two kettledrums; which, together with fifes, cornets, and side-drums, made the hall ring for half an hour together." I find nothing of the kind in Hall's Chronicle (there is a short notice of a similar Masque at Cardinal Wolsey's, in the tenth year of Henry VIII., fol. 65, b. 1548, but no drums and fifes); and Hollinshed, who takes the account from Cavendish's Life of Wotsey, is speaking not of a "concert" at the Cardinal's, but of the manner of receiving the King and some of his nobles, who came by water to a Masque; firstly by firing off "divers chambers" (short guns that make a loud report) at his landing, and then conducting him up into the chamber "with such a noise of drums and fleutes, as seldom had been heard the like." Cavendish says, " with such a number of drums and fifes as I have seldom seen together at one time in any masque" (Singer's edit., 8vo., 1825); and, describing the masques generally, says, "Then was there all kind of music and harmony set forth, with excellent voices both of men and children." Sagudiuo, the Venetian Ambassador, who describes a banquet given by Henry VIII., in honor of the Flemish envoys, on the 7th July, 1517, says, "during the dinner there were boys on a stage in the centre of the hall, some of whom sang, and others played'the flute, rebeck, and virginals, making the sweetest melody." As to Queen Elizabeth, I quote Hentzner's words from the copy used by Dr. Bumey: " During the time this guard, which consists of the tallest and stoutest men that can be found in all England, were bringing dinner, twelve trumpets and two kettle-drums made the hall ring for half an hour together." (This was the loud music to give notice to prepare for dinner, like the gong, or dinner-bell of the present day, but the fifes, comets, and side-drums, are of Dr. Burney's invention.) "At the end of all this ceremonial a number of unmarried ladies appeared, who with particular solemnity lifted the meat off the table, and conveyed it into the Queen's inner and more private chamber, where, after she had chosen for herself, the rest goes to the ladies of the Court. The Queen dines and sups alone, with very few attendants," &c. Hentzner also says, "Without the city" (of London) "are some theatres where English actors represent almost every day tragedies and comedies to very numerous audiences: these are concluded with excellent music, variety of dances, and the excessive applause of those that axe present." The original words are " quas variis etiam saltationibus, suavissira& adhibits musica, magno cum popullapplansufiniresolent." Again, In summing up the character of the English in a few lines, he says, "They excel in dancing and music, for they are active and lively, though of a thicker make than the French." Dr. Burney, throughout his History, writes in a similarly disparaging strain about English music and English musicians, for which I am unable to account. .
b For the republication of these* and many other works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the world is in- |
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