MORLEY, THOMAS

(1557-1603)

Thomas Morley was an English composer particularly known for his madri­gals and other secular dance music. Little is known about his early life. He was a pupil of William Byrd,* from whom he purchased a royal monopoly to print music and music paper, and an Oxford classmate of John Dowland,* earning his bachelor's degree in music on the same day in 1588.

Some of his surviving music explicitly celebrates the Virgin Mary, indicating probable composition for Roman Catholic patrons. Morley played the organ first at Norwich Cathedral and then at St. Paul's before joining the Chapel Royal musicians, who played at court. However, Morley is known less for religious compositions than for his secular dance music in forms imported from Italy: the madrigal, the canzonet ("little song"), and the ballett (derived from the dance).In addition to seven collections of these dances (1593-1603), Morley published music for ensembles of mixed instruments inThe First Booke of Consort Les­sons(1599) and a book of music theory with the deceptive name ofA Plaine and Easie Introduction(1597). His final collection of madrigals,The Triumphes of Oriana, was published in honor of Elizabeth I.* Morley may have spied for Elizabeth during continental travels; although he was a Catholic himself, he apparently used his time in the Low Countries to discover information about Catholics in England, presumably because even the Church of England was preferable to rule by Catholic Spain. In his composing, Morley was particularly interested in the madrigal's basis in dance and poetry. Some have admired his experimentation with the madrigal and its related forms. Others have charged that his compositions rely too heavily on continental work, and even that he may have deliberately put his name to the work of others.

D. C. Jacobson, "Thomas Morley and the Italian Madrigal Tradition: A New Perspec­tive," Journal of Musicology 14 (Winter 1996): 80-91.