Part 1 of Elizabethan instrumental music (1580-1600)

To skip to a different track, click on the time stamp below:

0:00 Fantasia for 6 (William Byrd)
5:12 Monsieurs alman (Byrd)
12:04 Come again (Dowland)
13:32 Passamezzo pavan (Peter Phillips)
20:21 Honie suckle (Anthony Holborne)

Program notes:
The life of Princess Elizabeth, better known by her later title Queen Elizabeth I, did not begin very auspiciously. Her mother, Queen Anne, second wife to Henry VIII, had been tried for treason on false pretenses and executed when the young Elizabeth was barely three years old. At age 21, she was imprisoned in the darkness and grime of the Tower of London by her half sister, Queen Mary I, a monarch equal in ruthlessness to their father Henry. In 1588, her navy (and the English nation), faced with imminent destruction by the mighty Spanish Armada, miraculously defeated the once invincible forces of Spain's King Phillip II. Thereafter, Queen 'Bes rose to the zenith of her power, and her life would forever be remembered as the Elizabethan era, the first of many pinnacles in the history of the British nation. Elizabeth's reign lasted an unusually long span and gave rise to a veritable English Renaissance in a region of the world otherwise neglected as the backwater of western civilization.

Her love and patronage of the arts allowed a somewhat more open expression of new ideas through the literary arts of masters such as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Edmund Spencer. The musical world was also infused with a new energy of enlightened English composers that included William Byrd, John Dowland, Anthony Holborne, Thomas Morley and many others. The Queen herself occasionally indulged in musical performance and dance (as can be seen in two late 16th century paintings included in the clip and the organ keyboard that she used as a child).

The soundtrack for this video was made using MIDI files downloaded from various websites. Like all other videos on my channel, I edited the original digital files using the editing software MusicStudio 2. The Holborne Honie-suckle Alman had no specific instrumental designation. The title page recommends violin, viols or "winde" instruments. I put together a "brass ensemble" with tympani.

Credits for the original uploads are as follows.

1. Fantasia for 6 (W. Byrd): Ulrich Alpers at IMSLP.com
2. Monsieurs Alman (W. Byrd): Anton Höger at IMSLP.com
3. Come Again (J. Dowland): Staffan Lundberg at IMSLP.com
4. Passamezzo Pavan (P. Philips): Ulrich Alpers at IMSLP.com
5. Honie Suckle (A. Holborne): Charlie Jackson at home.earthlink.net/~cornetto45/cj/cjmusic.html

The portraits are nearly all of Queen Elizabeth from her earliest days as a young princess to her later years as an elder stateswoman. There is one lithograph print of William Byrd at the beginning. I included photos of the royal palaces where the queen entertained herself and her distinguished guests. There are also paintings and photos of numerous musical instruments from the Elizabethan era.