Consort Songs

How did composers set secular poetry before the “art song” developed in the 19th century? Consort songs were one way! Read up on them here and then come hear Sonnambula and I for The Henry Purcell Society of Boston’s concert on Friday evening!

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A consort song was a characteristic English song form of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, for solo voice or voices accompanied by a group of instruments, most commonly viols. Although usually in five parts, some early examples of four-part songs exist. It is considered to be the chief representative of a native musical tradition which resisted the onslaught of the italianate madrigal and the English lute ayre, and survived those forms' brilliant but short-lived ascendancy (Brett 2001).

In contemporary usage, the term was confined to a number of songs for four voices accompanied by the standard mixed consort of six instruments, found in Teares or Lamentacions of a Sorrowfull Soule: Composed with Musicall Ayres and Songs, both for Voyces and Divers Instruments by William Leighton, published in 1614, but was first used in the modern sense by Thurston Dart (Brett 2001).

William Byrd is recognized as the composer whose adoption and development of the consort song established its musical importance. He regarded it as a standard means to set vernacular poetry (Brett 2001).

A consort song was a characteristic English song form of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, for solo voice or voices accompanied by a group of instruments, most commonly viols. Although usually in five parts, some early examples of four-part songs exist.

Hemiola

Still unclear about this whole sesquialtera situation? Not even sure what it is, let alone when it applies?

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In music, hemiola (also hemiolia) is the ratio 3:2. The equivalent Latin term is sesquialtera. In pitch, hemiola refers to the interval of a perfect fifth. In rhythm, hemiola refers to three beats of equal value in the time normally occupied by two beats.

The word hemiola comes from the Greek adjective ἡμιόλιος, hemiolios, meaning "containing one and a half," "half as much again," "in the ratio of one and a half to one (3:2), as in musical sounds."[1] The words "hemiola" and "sesquialtera" both signify the ratio 3:2, and in music were first used to describe relations of pitch. Dividing the string of a monochord in this ratio produces the interval of a perfect fifth. Beginning in the 15th century, both words were also used to describe rhythmic relationships, specifically the substitution (usually through the use of coloration—red notes in place of black ones, or black in place of "white", hollow noteheads) of three imperfect notes (divided into two parts) for two perfect ones (divided into three parts) in tempus perfectum or in prolatio maior.[2][3]

Hemiola can be used to describe the ratio of the lengths of two strings as three-to-two (3:2), that together sound a perfect fifth.[2] The early Pythagoreans, such as Hippasus and Philolaus, used this term in a music-theoretic context to mean a perfect fifth.[4]

In music, hemiola (also hemiolia) is the ratio 3:2. The equivalent Latin term is sesquialtera . In pitch, hemiola refers to the interval of a perfect fifth. In rhythm, hemiola refers to three beats of equal value in the time normally occupied by two beats.

1 Year of Early Music Monday

Early Music Monday takes a look at the past year:
- 15 posts about composers/performers
- 14 musical examples
- 13 performance practice/theory topics
- 8 history-related topics
- 3 musical philosophy posts
Onward for Year 2!