Thomas Morley (1557 or 1558 – October 1602) was an
English composer, theorist, editor and organist of the
Renaissance, and the foremost member of the English
Madrigal School. He was the most famous composer of
secular music in Elizabethan England and an organist at
St Paul's Cathedral. He and Robert Johnson are the
composers of the only surviving contemporary settings
of verse by Shakespeare.
Morley was born in Norwich, in East England, the son of
a brewer. Most likely he was a singe...(+)
Thomas Morley (1557 or 1558 – October 1602) was an
English composer, theorist, editor and organist of the
Renaissance, and the foremost member of the English
Madrigal School. He was the most famous composer of
secular music in Elizabethan England and an organist at
St Paul's Cathedral. He and Robert Johnson are the
composers of the only surviving contemporary settings
of verse by Shakespeare.
Morley was born in Norwich, in East England, the son of
a brewer. Most likely he was a singer in the local
cathedral from his boyhood, and he became master of
choristers there in 1583. However, Morley obviously
spent some time away from East England, for he later
referred to the great Elizabethan composer of sacred
music, William Byrd, as his teacher; while the dates he
studied with Byrd are not known, they were most likely
in the early 1570s. In 1588 he received his bachelor's
degree from Oxford, and shortly thereafter was employed
as organist at St. Paul's in London. His young son died
the following year in 1589.
In 1588 Nicholas Yonge published his Musica
transalpina, the collection of Italian madrigals fitted
with English texts, which touched off the explosive and
colorful vogue for madrigal composition in England.
Morley obviously found his compositional direction at
this time, and shortly afterwards began publishing his
own collections of madrigals (11 in all).
In addition to his madrigals, Morley wrote instrumental
music, including keyboard music (some of which has been
preserved in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book), and music
for the broken consort, a uniquely English ensemble of
two viols, flute, lute, cittern and bandora, notably as
published by William Barley in 1599 in The First Booke
of Consort Lessons, made by diuers exquisite Authors,
for six Instruments to play together, the Treble Lute,
the Bandora, the Cittern, the Base-Violl, the Flute &
Treble-Violl.
Although this work was likely created for Recorder and
Tabor (Drum), I created this arrangement for Flute
Trio.
, 08 Jun 2017 at 11:44 
SHEET MUSIC