Conducted by Stanford Robinson

A Glee is not necessarily the merry piece which its name might suggest; there can be mournful Glees as well as cheerful ones. The name has an Anglo-Saxon origin which means simply music, and any piece in at least three parts for voices without accompaniment can be called a Glee. It differs chiefly from the Madrigal in this way, that it is usually built up of short phrases which are so far complete in themselves that each finishes with a Cadence before the next begins. In a Madrigal the effect is more continuous, one part beginning a new phrase before another reaches its close, the phrases overlapping. (First Performance)

The word Ballet is now almost exclusively associated with dancing, but is really the same in origin as Ballad, and the original Ballet was, to all intents and purposes, a form of Madrigal. It is thought that the early dances were accompanied by singing as well as playing, and that the association of the term with dancing arises in that way.

Madrigal, Palaemon and his Sylvia...Francis Pilkington (1624)

Literally, a Madrigal means no more than any secular piece for two or more voices, and in its simplest form is one of the oldest kinds of music as we know it now. In the Middle Ages the music was very closely knit with the poetry, and the literature of Madrigals is a subject which has involved many learned discussions. The composition and the singing of Madrigals flourished in England as early as the thirteenth century, reaching its flower in the Elizabethan age. The Madrigals of Byrd, Morley, Weelkes, Wilbye, Gibbons and many others are still often heard, although the happy custom of singing Madrigals when friends mot together has almost banished from modern usages. But the way in which the Madrigal made itself a real part of our national life is one small piece of musical history of which England may be justly proud.

A Canzonet was originally a small Canzona, another form of Madrigal. At the end of the sixteenth and in the seventeenth centuries the name was chiefly used for short songs set for four voices, and in 1597 Morley published a collection of Canzonets to which that description applies. The word was later used for many different forms of song.

This old piece, dating right back to the thirteenth century, is one of the most interesting specimens of the music of the Middle Ages. It is the oldest known Canon - that is, a piece in which the voices imitate each other, singing the same phrases one after another, and in many other ways it is the starting point of our present-day music.