Music in the English courtly masque, 1604-1640

by Peter Walls

Those privileged enough to attend performances of masques at court in the early seventeenth century invariably commented on the sumptuousness of the music (and often had little to say about the literary aspects of the entertainments). Yet our view of the masque has been dominated by the texts, and modern scholarship has tended to treat the masque first and foremost as a literary genre. Music in the English Courtly Masque is the first complete study of the music of the courtly masque. It takes a multi-faceted view, piecing together a picture of what the music was actually like from musical sources, documentary evidence, and the dramatic texts. Vocal music and dance in the Jacobean masque are treated separately - a division that reflects the way in which the music was originally composed, with one group of composers writing songs while violinist/dancing masters prepared the dances. Other chapters re-examine the William Lawes masques, discuss Inigo Jones's musical priorities, and investig