by SINCLAIR LOGAN (Baritone)
QINCLAIR LOGAN'S programme offers an interesting comparison between English song-composing of the present day and the sixteenth century. Except for his last song, the programme is modern, and all the composers, save George Butterworth , who was killed in tho Great War, are still on the active list, and some are still practicaHy at the outset of their careers. It may seem invidious to single out one composer for mention, but the fact that Butterworth is no longer here to speak for himself is ample excuse for a word in praise of his wistful setting of Housman's poem. Listeners will remember that he set the whole cycle of poems comprised under the name of ' A Shropshire Lad,' and furnished it with a little
; epilogue for orchestra which is often played as a separate piece. It is, indeed, probably the best-known of the fresh and vividly English music which he left, and bids fair to have an abiding place in our affections.
There is not a great deal known about our early English composer Thomas Morley , but of his studies with William Byrd it is recorded that ' the said Morley became not only excellent in musiek, as well in tho theoretical as practical part, but also well seen in the Mathematicks, in which Byrde was excellent.' He became a Bachelor of Music of Oxford in 1588, and wag probably organist of St. Paul's Cathedral soon afterwards. In 1592 he became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and in Rolls of Assessments of the last years of the sixteenth century his name appears on one occasion side by side with William Shakespeare 's, both citizens having their goods valued at the same amount.
Morley composed a number of songs for the Shakespeare plays, and is best remembered as a writer of vocal music, canzonets, madrigals, ballets, and other pieces for several voices. He must have been among the foremost musicians of his day, and soon after his death earned the eulogy, ' He who did shine as the Sun in the Firmament of our Art, and did first give light to our understanding with his Praecepts.'