Ye Sacred Muses
Encyclopedia
Ye Sacred Muses is William Byrd
's Musical elegy
on the death of his colleague and sometime mentor, Thomas Tallis
. It is scored for 5 vv (usually four viol
s and countertenor
).
The words are:-
The concluding lines are particularly effective and are repeated.
William Byrd
William Byrd was an English composer of the Renaissance. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard and consort music.-Provenance:Knowledge of Byrd's biography expanded in the late 20th century, thanks largely...
's Musical elegy
Elegy
In literature, an elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.-History:The Greek term elegeia originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter, including epitaphs for tombs...
on the death of his colleague and sometime mentor, Thomas Tallis
Thomas Tallis
Thomas Tallis was an English composer. Tallis flourished as a church musician in 16th century Tudor England. He occupies a primary place in anthologies of English church music, and is considered among the best of England's early composers. He is honoured for his original voice in English...
. It is scored for 5 vv (usually four 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...
s and countertenor
Countertenor
A countertenor is a male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of a contralto, mezzo-soprano, or a soprano, usually through use of falsetto, or far more rarely than normal, modal voice. A pre-pubescent male who has this ability is called a treble...
).
The words are:-
- Ye sacred Muses, race of JoveJOVEJOVE is an open-source, Emacs-like text editor, primarily intended for Unix-like operating systems. It also supports MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. JOVE was inspired by Gosling Emacs but is much smaller and simpler, lacking Mocklisp...
, - whom Music's lore delighteth,
- Come down from crystal heav'ns above
- to earth where sorrow dwelleth,
- In mourning weedsWidow's weedsWidow's weeds can refer to:* Widow's Weeds , an album by the Norwegian gothic metal band Tristania* Clothes worn by a widow during a period of mourning for her husband -...
, with tears in eyes: - Tallis is dead, and Music dies.
The concluding lines are particularly effective and are repeated.