Dates for Lute composers

Alternatives 7 Julian Bream Morley Pavan

W H Palmer on Morley and Holborne

In his book from 1908  Two Thousand Questions with Answers on Musical History, Biography, Form, Instrumentation, and Kindred Subjects W H Palmer says this 

441. What kind of  music had undivided sway in Elizabeth's reign, and what was the instrumental music of that period like ?

Vocal music; instrumental music was confined to Solo Performances and used as accompaniments to the Voice.

442. When did a great change thus take place, and what did Morley and Holborne do ?

In 1599. Morley printed a first book of Consort lessons for 6 instruments to play together, Anthony Holborne a collection of Pavans, Galliards and airs in 5 parts.

443. How were these works arranged for instruments?

Morley's for Treble Lute, Pandora, Cittern, English Flute, Treble, and Bass Viol; Holborne's for Viols, Violins, or for wind instruments. 

A Pavan Video

Composer Thomas Morley (Pavan)

Thomas Morley (1557/58–1602) Wikipedia says 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. He and Robert Johnson are the composers of the only surviving contemporary settings of verse by Shakespeare.

Morley was born in Norwich, East Anglia, the son of a brewer. Most likely he was a singer in the local cathedral from his boyhood, and he became master of choristers there in 1583. However, Morley evidently spent some time away from East Anglia, for he later referred to the great Elizabethan composer of sacred music, William Byrd, as his teacher; while the dates he studied with Byrd are not known, they were most likely in the early 1570s. In 1588 he received his bachelor's degree from Oxford, and shortly thereafter was employed as organist at St Paul's, London. His young son died the following year in 1589.

In 1588 Nicholas Yonge published his Musica transalpina, the collection of Italian madrigals fitted with English texts, which touched off the explosive and colourful vogue for madrigal composition in England. Morley evidently found his compositional direction at this time, and shortly afterwards began publishing his own collections of madrigals (11 in all).

Morley lived for a time in the same parish as Shakespeare, and a connection between the two has been long speculated, though never proven. His famous setting of "It was a lover and his lass" from As You Like It has never been established as having been used in a performance of Shakespeare's play, though the possibility that it was is obvious. Morley was highly placed by the mid-1590s and would have had easy access to the theatrical community; certainly there was then, as there is now, a close connection between prominent actors and musicians.

While Morley attempted to imitate the spirit of Byrd in some of his early sacred works, it was in the form of the madrigal that he made his principal contribution to music history. His work in the genre has remained in the repertory to the present day, and shows a wider variety of emotional colour, form and technique than anything by other composers of the period. Usually his madrigals are light, quick-moving and easily singable, like his well-known "Now is the Month of Maying"; he took the aspects of Italian style that suited his personality and anglicised them. Other composers of the English Madrigal School, for instance Thomas Weelkes and John Wilbye, were to write madrigals in a more serious or sombre vein.

In addition to his madrigals, Morley wrote instrumental music, including keyboard music (some of which has been preserved in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book), and music for the broken consort, a uniquely English ensemble of two viols, flute, lute, cittern and bandora, notably as published by William Barley in 1599 in The First Booke of Consort Lessons, made by diuers exquisite Authors, for six Instruments to play together, the Treble Lute, the Pandora, the Cittern, the Base-Violl, the Flute & Treble-Violl.

Morley's Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (published 1597) remained popular for almost 200 years after its author's death, and remains an important reference for information about 16th century composition and performance.

The article also lists Morley's works here.

On the album Akkerman plays just one short Morley track, a solo Pavane (Track 8).

Pavan
Wikipedia says that the pavane, pavan, paven, pavin, pavian, pavine, or pavyn (It pavana, padovana; Ger Paduana) is a slow processional dance common in Europe during the 16th century. A pavane is a slow piece of music which is danced to in pairs. (More here)

Composers

The tracks on the album were composed by Jan Akkerman and George Flynn along with five composers from the Elizabethan age (she reigned 1558-1603) the age of William Shakespeare, who lived 1564-1616.

These are

John Dowland 1563-1626

Francis Pilkington 1565-1638

Anthony Holborne c 1545-1602

Thomas Morley 1556/7-1602

Laurencini of Rome c 1550-1608