A broken consort in English early Baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

 musical terminology refers to ensembles featuring instruments from more than one family, for example a group featuring both string and wind instruments. A consort consisting entirely of instruments of the same family, on the other hand, was referred to as a "whole consort

Consort of instruments

A consort of instruments was a phrase used in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to indicate an instrumental ensemble. These could be of the same or a variety of instruments. Consort music enjoyed considerable popularity at court and in households of the wealthy in the...

", though this expression is not found until well into the seventeenth century (Boyden 1957, 229). The word "consort", used in this way, is an earlier form of "concert", according to one opinion (Scholes 1970), while other sources hold the reverse: that it comes from the French term concert or its Italian parent term concerto, in its sixteenth-century sense (Boyden 1957, 228). Matthew Locke published pieces for whole and broken consorts of two to six parts as late as 1672 (Scholes 1970).

History of the term

Though historically the term only came into use in the late seventeenth century and with reference only to English music, some more recent writers have applied the term retrospectively to music of earlier periods and of different nationalities, and—through a confounding of the terms "broken music" with "broken consort"—more specifically to a six-part instrumentation popular in England from the late-sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, contemporaneously referred to as an "English consort" (Kennedy and Kennedy 1994).

In late sixteenth-century England the word "consort" on its own was normally applied to groups of diverse instruments coming from different families (Boyden 1957, 228–29), and the sense of the term "broken" in the Elizabethan period refers primarily to division

Division (music)

Division in music refers to a type of ornamentation or variation common in 16th and 17th century music in which each note of a melodic line is "divided" into several shorter, faster-moving notes, often by a rhythmic repetition of a simple musical device such as the trill, turn or cambiata on each...

, the "breaking" of long notes into shorter ones (Edwards 2001, §3). "It is the shimmering effect of this ‘sweet broken music’ that so delighted audiences then and continues to cast its spell today" (Harwood 1978, 611).

The English consort

As constituted during the time of Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

 (called an "Englisch consort" by Praetorius

Michael Praetorius

Michael Praetorius was a German composer, organist, and music theorist. He was one of the most versatile composers of his age, being particularly significant in the development of musical forms based on Protestant hymns, many of which reflect an effort to make better the relationship between...

 in 1618 (Edwards 2001)), and more recently a "mixed consort" or "consort-of-six" (Harwood 1978, 609–13), or a "Morley consort" (Sealey 2007)), it typically featured three plucked string instruments (lute

Lute

Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....

, cittern

Cittern

The cittern or cither is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is descended from the Medieval Citole, or Cytole. It looks much like the modern-day flat-back mandolin and the modern Irish bouzouki and cittern...

, and bandora), two bowed instruments (treble viol

Viol

The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...

 or violin, and bass viol), and a recorder

Recorder

The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes—whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple...

 or transverse flute. Such consorts became quite popular during the Elizabethan era

Elizabethan era

The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...

 and often accompanied vocal songs.

Two manuscript sets of partbooks dating from 1588 and ca. 1590 are the earliest substantial sources of music for this consort. The earlier collection is known as the Walsingham Consort Books, and contains 34 pieces, including twelve by Richard Allison

Richard Allison

Richard Alison was an English composer. He wrote de la Tromba, a fine broken consort piece which has several professional recordings and first became well known due to the Julian Bream Consort....

 and seven by Daniel Bachiler

Daniel Bacheler

thumb|right|250px|Daniel Bacheler from an engraving by [[Thomas Lant]] of the funeral procession of Sir Philip Sidney in 1586Daniel Bacheler, also variously spelt Bachiler, Batchiler or Batchelar, was an English lutenist and composer...

, who likely wrote and owned these books (Edwards 1974). The later set of partbooks was copied by Matthew Holmes, and is known both as the Holmes Consort Books and as the Cambridge Consort Books, because they are deposited in the University Library at Cambridge (Harwood 1978, 211). There are also individual parts from consorts found in various other manuscripts, most notably the "Browne bandora book", which contains the bandora parts to 35 consort pieces (Harwood 1978, 211). There are also twenty-five surviving compositions for this type of consort by several composers in a collection published by Thomas Morley

Thomas Morley

Thomas Morley was an English composer, theorist, editor and organist of the Renaissance, and the foremost member of the English Madrigal School. He was the most famous composer of secular music in Elizabethan England and an organist at St Paul's Cathedral...

 (1599/1611). There were a number of other consort compositions published by Philip Rosseter

Philip Rosseter

Philip Rosseter was an English composer and musician, as well as a theatrical manager. From 1603 until his death in 1623 he was lutenist for James I of England. Rosseter is best known for A Book of Aires which was written with Thomas Campion...

 (1609), and some vocal music accompanied by this specific consort was published in collections such as William Leighton's The Teares and Lamentatacions of a Sorrowfull Soule (1614) and the Psalms of David in Metre (1599) by Richard Allison (Brown 1981, 111).

Sidney Beck

Sidney Beck

Sidney Beck was a lutenist and musicologist who was principally responsible for reviving the English broken consort. He made the first modern editions of this music and had a professional consort in New York State....

 made the first modern edition of Morley's collection and had a professional consort in New York state. Julian Bream

Julian Bream

Julian Bream, CBE is an English classical guitarist and lutenist and is one of the most distinguished classical guitarists of the 20th century. He has also been successful in renewing popular interest in the Renaissance lute....

 was a pioneer in reviving the consort. James Tyler did much to popularise the playing of these consorts by getting music students at the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

 to play all six instruments. The Baltimore Consort

The Baltimore Consort

The Baltimore Consort is a musical ensemble that performs a wide variety of early music, Renaissance music and music from later periods. They began in 1980 as a group specializing in music of the Elizabethan period, but soon expanded their repertoire to include Scottish music, broadside ballads,...

, an American ensemble, specializes in the performance of music for broken consort.

External links

• Broken consort page