How music grew, from prehistoric times to the present day

by Marion Bauer; Ethel R. Peyser

CHAPTER XIV
Musicke in Merrie England

You will recall how far away England was in the 16th century from Rome, the Pope, and the other nations. Not that it has been pushed any nearer now, but the radio, the aeroplane and the steamship have made it seem closer. In the 16th century it took a long time to reach the people of the continent, and for this reason England seemed to many to have little musical influence, but in reality it had much for it was forced to develop what it found at home.

About 1420, John Dunstable wrote beautiful motets, canzonas and other secular music in the contrapuntal style of his period. He is supposed to have held a post in the Chapel Royal, founded during the reign of Henry IV, and to have taken part in the musical services held to celebrate Henry’s victories in France.

Then came the War of the Roses between the Houses of York and Lancaster, and musical composition in England was checked for the sake of war-making. Yet, the Chapel Royal was maintained and the universities gave degrees to students of music. Judging from the number of singing guilds and cathedral choirs, and from the amount of singing and organ playing, music, even in spite of war, seemed to have its innings.

In the 16th century England made such strides forward that she holds a high place in the growth of music. England loved the keyboard instruments such as the virginal, and in this century, developed her own way of making a delightful combination of polyphony and harmony with the new music for the Protestant Church service.

Bluff Prince Hal

Right here came the Reformation of the English Church under Henry VIII of the six wives. In 1535 he wanted to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, to marry Anne Boleyn, her lady in waiting, which the Pope would not permit him to do, as the Roman Catholic Church prohibits divorce. So, like Germany and Switzerland, England cut herself off from the Pope and founded the English or Anglican Church with the King as its head. You can imagine the excitement this caused, can’t you? People lost their heads in very truth, for what they thought right and religious, some of the rulers called sacrilegious and heretical.

Breaking away from the Church of Rome gave English music a great push forward, for, the Mass (the musical setting of the main part of the service), the motet (the particular lines of the particular day) and the plain song (which ministers intoned), were discontinued, and for these were substituted, after Henry VIII’s reign, the Church “Services” founded on the Elizabethan Prayer book. On this book, still in use, the new music was written and included such compositions as would fit this Liturgy (prayers), the Litany, Creed, Psalms, Canticles (line verses), and the Communion, the Plain Song, Versicles and Responses. Then, too, came hymn tunes and anthems. Among the composers of these in the Elizabethan reign were John Shepherd, John Marbeck, Robert Whyte, Richard Farrant, William Byrd and John Bull.

But let us go back to Bluff Prince Hal (Henry VIII), who was good to music. Not only did he love it, but he played and composed himself. One of his pieces is called The King’s Balade, or Passetyme with Goode Companie and the pastimes of this monarch were many. Read this list, set down by one who knew him: “He spent his time in shooting, singing, dancing, wrestling, casting of the bar, playing at the recorders (a reed instrument), flute, virginals (the English spinet) in setting songs and making ballads.” So with eating and sleeping and attending to affairs of state and to his many wives as they came along, he must have had plenty to do! How many kings and governors today write music as a “passetyme”?

In 1526 he had a band of players, says Edmundstoune Duncan in his Story of Minstrelsy, “composed of fifteen trumpets, three lutes, three rebecks, one harp, two viols, ten sackbuts, a fife, and four drumslades”; a few years later a trumpet, a lute, three minstrels, and a player of the virginals were added. (A rebeck is an early form of violin; a sackbut is a reed instrument with a sliding piece such as we have today in the trombone; the drumslade is an old word for drum.)