April is in my mistress' face
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.
Web links
- Free scores of April is in my mistress' face in the Choral Public Domain Library - ChoralWiki (English)
- April is in my mistress' face - sung by the Hilliard Ensemble (video)