Francis Pilkington

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Francis Pilkington (* around 1570; † 1638 in Chester ) was an English composer , lutenist and singer of the early Baroque .

Live and act

Music historical research has not yet been able to gain any information about Francis Pilkington's youth and training, and his place and date of birth are also unknown. In Chester Cathedral there were several choristers and ministers named Pilkington in the late 16th century ; Francis was the first of them. On July 11, 1595 he reached the degree of Bachelor of Music at Oxford University ; On this occasion his statement is passed down that he has studied music for 16 years. In Chester he got the position of lay-clerk in the summer of 1602 , and ten years later he was lay minor canon (lay chorister) at this cathedral; there he was ordained a priest on December 18, 1614 . From 1623 he also served as precentor at this church . He also served as a curate at other churches in Chester and also served as a priest in the nearby village of Aldford in the 1630s . Like his father, Francis was promoted by the Earls of Derby , namely by Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby and especially by William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby . The collection The First Booke of Songs , published in London in 1605, is dedicated to the latter ; Another collection, which appeared in 1624, includes "a Pavin made for the orpharion by [...] William, Earl of Darbie, and consented by him to be placed in my books". After the composer's death, John Pilkington took his position as a minor canon - possibly a son or grandson of Francis Pilkington.

meaning

Francis Pilkington is one of the composers in the stylistic circle of John Dowland and Thomas Morley with a not quite as high level as the latter masters. Some of his compositions show a pronounced quality; in particular its four-part Ayres "Diaphenia" and "Rest Sweet Nymph" have a more polyphonic -modal and greater ingenuity than usual for this genre. He used poetic texts of particularly high quality as models. The simple three-part movements in his First Set of Madrigals collection (London 1613) are extremely effective. In his second collection from 1624, the composer shows an even greater security in the composition of five and six-part works. Here, for example in pieces like “Care for Thy Soule”, he combines old English traditions with the even stronger means of expression of his time. The composition "O Praise the Lord", a psalm setting, has striking dissonant and chromatic sections, and the piece "O Softly Singing Lute" is rightly regarded as one of his best compositions. There are also two consort songs by him with viol accompaniment ; one of them is the lament "Weep, Sad Urania" for his friend Thomas Purcell from Dinthill, probably a relative of Henry Purcell . He also has a Fantasia for viols for six voices. An earlier period of Pilkington's work obviously includes his well-crafted collection of lute pieces; only a small part of his compositions for this instrument has survived.

Works

  • Sacred vocal music
    • 2 pieces with four or five voices in "The Teares or Lamentacions of a Sorrowful Soule", London 1614
    • 2 madrigals with five or six voices in "The Second Set of Madrigals and Pastorals", London 1624
  • Secular vocal music
    • "The First Booke of Songs or Ayres of 4 Parts: with Tableture for the Lute or Orpherian, with the Violl de gamba", London 1605
    • "The First Set of Madrigals and Pastorals of 3rd, 4th and 5th parts", London 1613
    • "The Second Set of Madrigals and Pastorals, of 3. 4. 5. and 6. Parts: Apt for Violls and Voyces", London 1624
  • Instrumental works (see also: Francis Pilkington: Complete Works for Solo Lute , edited by B. Jeffery, London 1970)
    • Fantasia to six voices
    • Pavane for lute and bass viol, in “The First Books of Songs and Ayres”, London 1605
    • 15 lute pieces in Th. Robinson: "The Schoole of Musicke", London 1603; edited by B. Jeffery, Paris 1971

Literature (selection)

  • EH Fellowes: English Madrigal Verse , London 1920
  • M. Comegys Boyd: Elizabethan Music and Musical Criticism , University of Pennsylvania 1940
  • R. Newton: The Lute Music of Francis Pilkington , in: The Lute Society Journal No. 1, 1959, pp. 31-37
  • B. Jeffery: Foreword to Francis Pilkington: Complete Works for Solo Lute , London 1970
  • J. Ward: Music for Elizabethan Lutes , 2 volumes, Oxford 1992
  • M. Spring: The Lute in Britain: A History of the Instrument and Its Music , Oxford 2001

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ Andrew Ashbee: Pilkington, Francis , in: Ludwig Finscher (Ed.), The Music in Past and Present , Second Edition, Person Part, Volume 13 (Pal-Rib), Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2005, ISBN 3-7618- 1133-0 , columns 581-582
  2. ↑ Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil : The Great Lexicon of Music , Volume 6, Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1981, ISBN 3-451-18056-1
  3. ^ The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , edited by Stanley Sadie, 2nd Edition, Volume 19, McMillan Publishers, London 2001, ISBN 0-333-60800-3
personal data
SURNAME Pilkington, Francis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English composer and lutenist of the early Baroque
DATE OF BIRTH around 1570
DATE OF DEATH 1638
Place of death Chester