Elizabethan Music

Elizabethan Music

Elizabethan Music

hello ! I'M going to talk a little about the music at the Elizabethan age.

Elizabethan Music

Music was an important form of entertainment to the people who lived during the Elizabethan era. Music and Elizabethan instruments could be performed by Elizabethan musicians, or simple songs and ballads could be sung in the villages and fields to ease the monotonous tasks undertaken by the Lower Classes. All Elizabethans attended church on a Sunday which led to the popularity of hymns and secular songs. The earliest Church organ dated back to to the 8th Century!

The plays of William Shakespeare were divided into three categories - Comedies, Tragedies and Histories. Each genre required a different emotions to be reflected in the music.

Elizabethan music had developed into sophisticated and varied forms. The introduction of the theatre during the Elizabethan era was enhanced as the plays were accompanied by music.

The different types of Elizabethan music were:

·        Elizabethan Church music:

The style of Elizabethan church music is described as choral polyphony (polyphonic, counterpoint, contrapuntal), meaning more than one part. Thomas Tallis and William Byrd ( organist of the Chapel Royal ) were the chief Elizabethan composers of Elizabethan Church music providing the new Protestant Church of England with a wealth of Hymns that are still played today.

·        Elizabethan Court music:

Queen Elizabeth employed at least 70 musicians and singers. The range of Elizabethan music played at court varied enormously from traditional, simple English ballads to sophisticated madrigals and from solemn church music to lively dance music.

·        Elizabethan Street Music:

Elizabethan street music was played at weekly markets and the occasional fairs. Elizabethan Feasts, Fairs and Festivals were all common occurrences and were celebrated during specific times of the year (most of which were dictated by the Church and religious festivals.) 

·        Elizabethan Theatre Music:

Music had been used to accompany poems during the medieval era. The importance of music to the Elizabethans was reflected in the plays of William Shakespeare who makes more than five hundred references to music in his plays and poems!

·        Elizabethan Town Music:

There were official musicians in the large English towns who were called the Waits, equivalent to a town band. The Waits dated back to the early medieval era when they accompanied town watch. The role of the Waits gradually evolved into groups of musicians employed by the towns. The Waits were expected to compose and play music for important town and civic ceremonies and occasions

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