April is in my mistress' face

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April is in my mistress' face is a four-part madrigal by the English Renaissance composer Thomas Morley . It is one of the most famous and shortest pieces of English madrigal music. It was published in 1594. The text is based on an Italian poem by Livio Celiano , which was also set to music by Orazio Vecchi in 1587 . The English text is:

April is in my mistress' face,
And July in her eyes hath place;
Within her bosom is September,
But in her heart a cold December.

literature

  • Max Frey , Bernd-Georg Mettke, Kurt Suttner (Hrsg.): Chor aktuell. A choir book for music lessons in high schools. Unchanged new edition. Verlag Bosse, Kassel 2010, ISBN 978-3-7649-2248-1 .
  • Phillip Ledger (Ed.): The Oxford Book of English Madrigals. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 1978, ISBN 0-19-343664-7 (with accompanying CD recording by Pro Cantione Antiqua ).
  • Score in: The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular 4 (1852), No. 93, pp. 331–333 (freely available from JSTOR ).
  • John Earle Uhler: Thomas Morley's Madrigals for Four Voices. In: Music & Letters 36 (1955), No. 4, pp. 313-330, here p. 323.

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