There were a number of important musicians working at her court,
associated with her and with London generally.
Thomas Morley, William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, John Wilbey, Thomas Weelkes and
collectively they formed what's call the English Madrigal School.
So we're gonna take a listen to now, just one Madrigal
out of an important collection called the Triumphes of Oriana 1601,
a collection of, again, roughly 20 or so of these Madrigals.
This collection is interesting because each one of them,
in order to be included in this collection, you had to end your Madrigal
with the salutation, long live fair Oriana.
Oriana was the favored nickname of Queen Elizabeth.
So each of these madrigals ends this way.
We're going to turn our attention now to the madrigal
As Vesta was from Latmos Hill Descending, by Thomas Weelkes.
Again, you can see on the screen here six vocal parts to six part madrigal.
Each of the parts would be sung only by one voice.
And only four of the voices, the top four voices start out.
But let's move on now to three images.
One of the composer Wilkes who wrote this madrigal in 1601.
Second, in the middle of course, Queen Elizabeth the first,
the dedicatee of this madrigal.
And third, my friend and former colleague here at Yale before,
his regretted retirement, Simon Carrington who is the founder and
conductor for years and years of the King Singers.
So we're gonna turn now to a recording of the king singers.
And in it we're going to hear the following.
We're going to listen to this madrigal As Vesta was from hill descending.
It's full of what we call word painting or madrigalisms.
Moments when the music underscores the text in a direct
Onomatopoeic way, music in the service of text.
So, I'll talk a bit as we proceed.
Let's see this music now sung by the King's Singers.
[MUSIC]
Descending now.
[MUSIC]
That music of course is graded down, so everybody's coming down.
Latvis hill, what do they see?
They see the Queen ascending, so the music has to go up here.
[MUSIC]
Attended on by all.
Well we'll have a lot of voices here cuz everybody's in.
[MUSIC]
All six voices singing in [INAUDIBLE]
[MUSIC]
So Diana's darlings, those attending the goddess Diana,
they came running down a-mains.
So, it's going to go fast and downward.
[MUSIC]
Two by two?
Yes, two voice.