William Byrd - Consort Songs

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday (and today) was the Renaissance Faire, an excuse for people to dress up in odd costumes and eat turkey legs while watching jousting.  It's pretty goofy, but a lot of fun if your imagination runs that way.

It's tissue-thin "story line" is that it "recreates" early 16th Century renaissance society - without the yucky plague and beheadings of the real thing.  But if we're going to let our imaginations run that way, it behooves us to listen to some actual renaissance music.

William Boyd was one of the most famous English composers of the mid-sixteenth century.  He was born too late for Harry of the many wives but was prolific and influential during the reign of Good Queen Bess.  He developed Consort Music, where "consort" refers not to the many wives of the Monarch but rather a grouping of chamber instruments.  He also wrote considerable church music.

You see, he was not just making a living from selling music to as many as would commission it, but he was a Roman Catholic in an England where that was uncomfortable and even dangerous.  But he avoided the most subversive sort of agitators, and his reputation was such that he died an old and wealthy man.

This is the real music of the middle renaissance.  You're unlikely to find it at your local Ren Faire.  Pity, that.