In these collections we often find the names Fancies, Fantazia, or Fantasies, a type of composition that grew out of the madrigal and led to the sonata. It was the name given to the first compositions for instruments alone like the ricercari of the Italians, which were original compositions and not written on a given subject (called in England “ground”), or on a folk song. The Fancies were sometimes written for the virginal, and sometimes for groups of instruments such as a “chest of viols” or even five cornets(!).
The Chest of Viols
“Chest of Viols” may sound queer to you, but it isn’t! It was the custom in England at that time for people to have collections of instruments in or out of chests. So, when callers came they could play the viol, instead, probably of bridge! You can read about these interesting old days in Samuel Pepys’ Diary. He played the lute, the viol, the theorbo, the flageolet, the recorder (a kind of flute) and the virginal, and he was the proud owner of a chest of viols. He always carried his little flageolet with him in his pocket, and he says that while he was waiting in a tavern for a dish of poached eggs, he played his flageolet, also that he remained in the garden late playing the flageolet in the moonlight. (Poetic Pepys!)
Thomas Morley, Byrd’s pupil, who was made a partner in the publishing house after Tallis’s death, wrote his madrigals for virginal, and a collection called First Book of Consort Lessons for Six Instruments, Lute, Pandora, Cittern (an old English form of guitar), Bass Viol, Flute, and Treble Viol, and much sacred music. He also wrote a Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practical Musick, a book of great value and interest to musicians for the last three centuries, for it is a mirror of his time and of his fellow composers.
He tells of a gentleman, who, after dinner, was asked by his hostess to sing from the music she gave him. It was the custom in England to bring out the music books after dinner and for the guests to play and sing, as we wind up our graphophones and switch on the radio. The gentleman stammeringly declared that he could not sing at sight and “everyone began to wonder; yea, some whispered to others, demanding how he was brought up.” He was so ashamed of his ignorance that he immediately took music lessons to remedy his woeful lack of culture. This proves that musical education was not looked upon as a luxury but a necessity in the 17th century.
Truly, it was a musical era, this time of Morley and Byrd! Fancy playing, while waiting for the barber, the viol, flute, lute, cittern, or virginal left for that purpose. Yet what would our dentist do today if he had to listen to a saxophone and jazz chorus from his waiting room? In those days, too, there was always a bass viol left in a drawing-room for the guest, to pass the time, waiting for the host to appear. Think of all the practising you could do waiting for the busy dentist or eternally late hostess!
The children of people who were poor, were taught music to make them fit to be “servants, apprentices or husbandmen.” Laneham, a groom who had been brought up in the royal stable, was advanced to the post of guarding the door of the council chamber and this is how he described his qualifications for the job: “Sometimes I foot it with dancing; now with my gittern, and else my cittern, then at the virginals (ye know nothing comes amiss to me); then carol I up a song withal; that by-and-by they come flocking about me like bees to honey; and ever they cry, ‘Another, good Laneham, another!’” (From The Story of Minstrelsy by Edmundstoune Duncan.)
Shakespeare and Music
This was the day in which Shakespeare lived, and from his plays we get a very good idea of the popular music of his time, for he used bits of folk songs and old ballads. It was a Lover and his Lass from As You Like It was set to music by Thomas Morley, and is one of the few songs written to Shakespeare’s words in his own day that has come down to us. In Twelfth Night there is O Mistress Mine, Hold thy Peace, Peg-a-Ramsey, O, London is a Fine Town, Three Merry Men be We, and the Clown’s song:
Hey! Robin, jolly Robin,