[24] Penna’s name should not be connected with the word “Penna” in the title of Diruta’s book, where it merely means “quill,” and “stromenti di Penna” = “harpsichords.”
[25] This is also the case with the English variations. The last one is commonly the most valuable and convincing.
[26] It is right to mention here that Thomas Tallis actually did write a motet in forty parts, “Spem in alium non habui,” which, thanks to the enthusiasm of Dr Mann of Cambridge, has been published (1888), and performed in public on more than one occasion during the last few years.
[27] Meaning a “manufacturer” of show pieces.
[28] Sfumato means “smoky,” and refers, in painting, to the blurring of the outlines.
[29] The mordent is a grace where the main note is alternated rapidly with the note below.
[30] This is a really fine passage, and (by the way) bears every mark of the madrigal for double chorus.
[31] The passage has four times over a chromatic scale of six notes, every note properly harmonised. Neither Purcell (a century later) nor Bach (later still) could have done it better.
[32] The author here makes a startling leap of a century or so in his chronicle of English composers. From Munday, who was a grown man in 1586, he suddenly goes to Blow and Purcell, who flourished in 1690, and even mentions Arne in the same breath, who died in 1778.
The “isolation” of the early English clavier school is fairly explained by the immense amount of attention that was now given, from 1600-1695, in England, to the development of the dramatic scena or cantata, for one or two voices, to the song, and to the cultivation of concerted music for strings and keyed instruments. It is only to prevent any one from supposing that there was no “secular” music in England between the days of Elizabeth and the coming of Purcell that I give a few names, all of which have a real claim to remembrance. Songs—Campion (flourished 1600), Johnson (1600), Cæsar (early 17th cent.), Cooper (1612), Laneare (1620), H. Lawes (1630), Wilson (1640). Cantatas or “Scenas”—H. Lawes (1630), C. Colman (1640). Instrumental music—Gregorie (mid. 17th cent.), Jenkins (1630), W. Lawes (1630), Lock (1650), Sympson (1660).