Foreward

Thomas Morley's Canzonets for Two Voices are among my favorite pieces for introducing Renaissance polyphony. As a performer and teacher, I enjoy them frequently both as concert pieces and as musical practice for students.

We know that the 16th century was a wonderful period of humanism in which language was held in high esteem. We should also know that one the greatest goals of this very artistic age was to capture in music the imagined art of the ancient world in which the greatest poetry (e.g.the Iliad and the Odyssey) was typically sung.

This ideal of "heightened speech" created a brilliant union of words and music quite different from many of our modern habits. In the 16th century, there is often no real difference between beautiful speaking and singing and herein lies one of the keys to appreciating the deceptive simplicity of much of this music.

The beauty of reading the music laid out like the original is that we begin to appreciate the fact that we are dealing with language (which is after all horizontal, unbarred, and full of rhythmic freedom!). Putting the parts together then becomes not an exercise in vertical alignment but rather of a musical understanding of the imitation and cadences of interdependent phrases.

Using this clearly printed and well-thought-out new edition will make it easier for all musicians to better understand these musical treasures.

John Tyson

Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

October 7, 1999

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