The Good Pennyworths - Love Lust Longing Loss-An Elizabethan Romp - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

About Our Music Today, the music world labels the songs we perform InchEarly Music,Inch but for people living during the reign of Elizabeth I in England, this was popular music. These songs were performed in private homes, banquet halls, theatres, pubs and on street corners. If a composer were lucky enough, his songs might even be performed at court. The mainstay of our repertoire is lute songs. Lute songs were published in books of 'ayres' with a melody line, lyrics and notated lute accompaniment, some with four-part vocal arrangements. In a lute song, the melody line is always the most important. A madrigal, by comparison, is always written for multiple voice parts and is always sung a cappella (without instrumental accompaniment). It is fully polyphonic and cannot be sung as a solo. With few exceptions, the English composers of the time specialized in one form or the other. Our repertoire also includes popular ballads of the era. These songs were not published in printed books, but have only been discovered in handwritten manuscript form, sometimes with a lute part notated. It is impossible to know for sure who originated the popular ballads of the day, since they were passed orally from musician to musician. A minstrel in 1600 would copy any new song he heard into his Inchfake book.Inch He might add his own bass line or harmony, or write a new lyric to put his own stamp on it. This led to a great number of regional variations, such as the Appalachian versions you'll hear today, brought by English and Scottish immigrants to the New World. Theatre songs, i.e. songs written for theatrical productions, are also only found in handwritten manuscripts. Robert Johnson, who composed for Shakespeare's company, probably collaborated with Shakespeare on some and adapted existing songs for others. (His songs were later appropriated by other playwrights.) Most true Inchtheatre