Morley
Canzonets for Two to Six Voices
(1593-7)
THE B B C SINGERS
(Section A)
Conductor, LESLIE WOODGATE
Canzonets to Three Voices (1593)
I. See , mine own sweet jewel
2. Cruel, you pull away too soon your lips
3. Deep lamenting
4. Good morrow, fair ladies of the May
5. Lady, those eyes
6. Whither away so fast ? 7. Blow, shepherds, blow
Although there is enough extant of Morley's music to make it clear that he was among the greatest of the Tudor composers of madrigals, canzonets, ayres, and motets, we know but little about his career. Of his studies with William Byrd , it is recorded, however, that ' the said Morley became not only excellent in musick, as well in the theoretical as practical part, but also well seen in the Mathematicks, in which Byrde was excellent
He graduated as Bachelor of Music of Oxford in 1588, and was 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 six 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 modest amount. His contemporaries must have held him in affection as well as esteem, and his good friend Weelkes composed a song in remembrance of him which begins, ' Death hath deprived me of my dearest friend '. Another tribute of the time refers to him as ' He who did shine as the Sun'.