Morley, Thomas (EN)

Morley Thomas, *1557 or 1558 Norwich, †before 7 October 1602 London, English composer, music theorist, editor, and organist. Son of Francis Morley of Norwich, brewer, and sexton of the local cathedral. He considered himself a pupil of W. Byrd, with whom he may have studied between 1572 and 1574. From around 1570 to 1574, he was a chorister at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. In 1575–76, he returned to Norwich, and in 1583 he took up the position of choirmaster and organist at the cathedral in that city, which had been promised to him nine years earlier, and held it until mid-1587. On 8 July 1588, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in music at Oxford, and from February 1589 at the latest, he was organist at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. On 24 July 1592, he was sworn in as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. In 1593, Morley began publishing, and in 1598 he obtained a monopoly for music printing, which had previously (until 1596) been held by W. Byrd. He lived with his family in the same district of London as Shakespeare, so contact between them is likely, although unconfirmed. He was probably ill from the mid-1590s onwards, as confirmed, among other things, in the introduction to his treatise A Plaine and Easie Introduction from 1597. On 7 October 1602, a new Gentleman of the Chapel Royal was sworn in, with the note that he was taking Morley’s place; as this position was essentially for life, it is assumed that the composer died before that date. According to preserved sources, Morley’s son, also named Thomas, was to be buried on 14 February 1589. The composer had at least three more children with his wife Susan, born between 1596 and 1600.

In literature, there are assumptions that part of Morley’s activities involved working as an agent for the English court against Catholics. This is partially confirmed by letters from other agents and double agents, especially Charles Paget, who allegedly discovered Morley’s true role during his trip to the Netherlands in 1591. However, there are no sources confirming the composer’s anti-Catholic activities in England.

Morley was not a particularly original composer, but literature emphasises the role he played in promoting Italian secular music and in the emergence of the English madrigal. His publications appeared shortly after the first print of this type of work collected by N. Yonge (Musica transalpina, 1588) and gained considerable popularity. Morley’s creative contribution to these works is varied. In the canzonettas for 4 voices and madrigals for 5 voices, he only added English lyrics, and the composers of these works are: F. Anerio, G. Croce, O. Vecchi, A. Ferrabosco, R. Giovanelli, G. Ferretti, G. de Macque, L. Marenzio, L. Viadana and others. Italians are also represented in the collections of balletti and canzonettas for 2 voices (G.G. Gastoldi and Anerio with 8 pieces each, Marenzio with 3, and others), but here Morley also interfered with the musical structure, reducing the voices from the canzonettas for 4 voices to 2; these pieces can be described as a kind of parody. No foreign models were detected in the canzonettas and madrigals for 3 and 5–6 voices from 1594; stylistically, they are very close to Italian works. With his collection of solo ayres, Morley contributed to the establishment of a specific English tradition, whose main representative in his time was J. Dowland. The name Oriana, mentioned in the title of the 1601 collection, refers to Elizabeth I; the print, modelled on the Italian Il trionfo di Dori (1592), contains works by 23 English composers dedicated to the queen. The collection of chamber works includes arrangements of dances and songs performed as part of masques. Morley’s compositions related to the Anglican liturgy did not gain as much popularity as his secular works, but they were performed for many decades in various regions of the country, as evidenced by numerous copies. The manuscripts often differ significantly from one another and are sometimes incomplete, which means that both the attribution and the original form of many works are uncertain. Nevertheless, it is an interesting body of work, including choral pieces (‘full’) and, more often, pieces combining choral and solo sections accompanied by organ (‘verse’); only one of the evening services is written in syllabic style (‘short service’). 

In three books of his treatise dedicated to Byrd, A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (London 1597), Morley presents the problems of shaping the melodic line, counterpointing cantus firmus in an arrangement for 2 voices, and creating structures for more voices. He focuses on contemporary compositional practice, attaching less importance to traditional theory; for example, he presents the issue of modes in a specific way, and his description of various cadences reflects the phenomena that led to the development of the major-minor system.

Literature: O. Becker Die englischen Madrigalisten William Byrd, Thomas Morley und John Dowland, Leipzig 1901; E.H. Fellowes The English Madrigal Composers, Oxford 1921, 2nd ed. 1948; E.H. Fellowes The English Madrigal, Oxford 1925, reprint 1952; P. Warlock The English Ayre, London 1926; J. Pulver The English Theorists. XIII – Thomas Morley, “The Musical Times” LXXVI, 1935; R.T. Dart Morley’s Consort Lessons of 1599, “Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association” LXXIV, 1947–48; A. Obertello Madrigali italiani in Inghilterra, Milan 1949; J.R. King An Aesthetic and Musical Analysis of the Madrigals of Thomas Morley, dissertation, University of Toronto, 1950; R. Stevenson Thomas Morley’s “Plaine and Easie” Introduction to the Modes, “Musica Disciplina” VI, 1952; J. Kerman Morley and the “Triumphs of Oriana,” “Music and Letters” XXXIV, 1953; D. Arnold Croce and the English Madrigal, “Music and Letters” XXXV, 1954; J.E. Uhler Thomas Morley’s Madrigals for Four Voices, “Music and Letters” XXXVI, 1955; D. Arnold Gastoldi and the English Ballet, “The Mounthly Musical Record” LXXXVI, 1956; D. Brown Thomas Morley and the Catholics: Some Speculations, “Monthly Musical Record” LXXXIX, 1959; T. Dart Morley and the Catholics: Some Further Speculations, “Monthly Musical Record” LXXXIX, 1959; R.C. Strong Queen Elisabeth I as Oriana, “Studies in the Renaissance” VI, 1959; F.B. Zimmerman Italian and English Traits in the Music of Thomas Morley, “Anuario Musical” XIV, 1959; D. Brown The Style and Chronology of Thomas Morley’s Motets, “Music and Letters” XLI, 1960; E. Doughtie Robert Southwell and Morley’s First Booke of Ayres, “The Lute Society Journal” IV, 1962; J. Kerman The Elisabethan Madrigal. A Comparative Study, New York 1962; R. Spencer Two Missing Lute Parts for Morley’s Consort Lessons, “The Lute Society Journal” IV, 1962; C.A. Murphy Thomas Morley. Editions of Italian Canzonets and Madrigals, Tallahassee 1964 (includes a collection of canzonettas for four voices from 1597 and madrigals from 1598); W. Shaw Thomas Morley of Norwich, “The Musical Times” CVI, 1965; D. Greer The Lute Songs of Thomas Morley, “The Lute Society Journal” VIII, 1966; P. Jenkins The Life and Works of Thomas Morley, dissertation, University of Aberystwyth, 1966; P.J. Seng The Vocal Songs in the Plays of Shakespeare, Cambridge 1967; L. Pike “Gaude Maria Virgo.” Morley or Philips?, “Music and Letters” L, 1969; L.M. Ruff and D.A. Wilson The Madrigal, the Lute Song and Elizabethan Politics, “Past and Present” XLIV, 1969; L.M. Ruff The Social Significance of the 17th–Century English Music Treatises, “The Consort” XXVI, 1970; W.A. Edwards The Sources of Elizabethan Consort Music, dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1974; G.H. Nutting Cadence in Late-Renaissance Music, “Miscellanea Musicologica” VIII, 1975; J.P. Baldwin The Latin Church Music of Thomas Morley, dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 1976; N. Nordstrom The English Lute Duet and the Consort Lesson, “The Lute Society Journal” XVIII, 1976; G.H. Nutting Thomas Morley: Friend or Foe of the Absurd?, “Parergon” XIV, 1976; R.H. Wells Thomas Morley’s Fair in a Morn, “The Lute Society Journal” XVIII, 1976; M. Chibbett Dedications in Morley’s Printed Music, “Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle” XIII, 1977; C. Monson Thomas Myriell’s Manuscript Collection. One View of Musical Taste in Jacobean London, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XXX, 1977; J.E. McCray The Canzonets of Thomas Morley, “The Choral Journal” XIX, 1978-9; R.H. Wells A Setting of Astrophil and Stella by Morley, “Early Music” VI, 1978; G. Beechey Morley’s Church Music, “Musical Times” CXXII, 1981; D.C. Jacobson Some New Perspectives of Thomas Morley’s Canzonets and Madrigals, dissertation, California State University, 1981; C. Thorpe-Davie A Lost Morley’s Song Rediscovered, “Early Music” IX, 1981; C. Monson Voices and Viols in England, 1600–1650. The Sources and the Music, Ann Arbor 1982; P. Phillips „Laboravi in gemitu meo.” Morley or Rogier?, “Music and Letters” LXIII, 1982; M.W. Foster The Vocal Music of Thomas Morley (c.1557–c.16O2). A Critical and Stylistic Study, dissertation, University of Southampton 1986; S. Klotz William Shakespeare und Thomas Morley im Goldenen Zeitalter der Musik. Historische Koordinaten zu ihren Schaffen, “Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft” XXXI, 1989; J.A. Irving Thomas Tomkins’s Copy of Morley’s A Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music, “Music and Letters” LXXI, 1990; G. Strahle Two Five-Part Consort Works by Morley, Newly Edited, “Miscellanea musicologica” XVII, 1990; G. Strahle Morley’s La Fantasia: For Voices No Viols, “Studies in Music” XXV, 1991; C. Monson “Throughout All Generations.” Intimations of Influence in the Short Service Styles of Tallis, Byrd, and Morley, in: Byrd Studies, ed. A.M. Brown and R. Turbet, Cambridge 1992; J.A. Irving Morley’s Keyboard Music, “Music and Letters” LXXV, 1994; M. Rebmann Zur Modusbehandlungin Thomas Morleys Vokalwerk, Frankfurt am Main 1994; G.T. Sandford Thomas Morley’s Fantasia Il Doloroso. An Analysis, “Journal of the Viola da Gamba Society of America” XXXI, 1994; D.B. Collins Thomas Tomkin’s Canonic Additions to Thomas Morley’s A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practical Musicke, “Music and Letters” LXXVI, 1995; D. Jacobson Thomas Morley and the Italian Madrigal Tradition. A New Perspective, “The Journal of Musicology” XIV, 1996; S. Klotz “Music with Her Silver Sound.” Kommunikationsformen im Goldenen Zeitalter der englischen Musik, Kassel 1998; J.L. Smith Print Culture and the Elizabethan Composer, “Fontes Artis Musicae” XLVIII, 2001; D.J. Smith “The Point Which Our Organists Use.” The English Pavan and the Origins of the Chromatic Fantasia, “Organ Yearbook” XXXII, 2003; J.L. Smith Thomas East and Music Publishing in Renaissance England, New York 2003; J. Harley “My ladye Nevell” Revealed, “Music and Letters” LXXXVI, 2005; T.T. Popović Thomas Morley als Musiktheoretiker, “Muzikologija” V, 2005; J.L. Smith Music and Late Elizabethan Politics: the Identities of Oriana and Diana, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” LVIII, 2005; J. Grimshaw Morley’s rule for first-species canon, “Early Music” XXXIV, 2006; R. Taylor Musicians and Intelligence Operations, 1570–1612: Politics, Surveillance, and Patronage in the Late Tudor and Early Stuart Years, dissertation, McGill University, 2007; T.A. Murray Thomas Morley and the Business of Music in Elizabethan England, dissertation, University of Birmingham, 2010; J.A. Mann “Both schollers and practicioners”: The pedagogy of ethical scholarship and music in Thomas Morley’s Plaine and easie introduction to practicall musicke, “Musica Disciplina” LIX, 2014; T. Murray Thomas Morley: Elizabethan Music Publisher, Woodbridge 2014; M.K. Long Hearing Homophony. Tonal Expectation at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century, New York 2020; R.W. Duffin Thomas Morley, Robert Johnson, and Songs for the Shakespearean Stage, w: The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Music, ed. C.R. Wilson, New York 2022; M.K. Long Reassessing the Plagal Cadence in Byrd and Morley, “Music Theory Online” XXVIII, 2022.