John Wilbye Draw On, Sweet Night, Best Friend unto Those Cares, madrigal John Wilbye and Thomas Weelkes are often credited with bringing the genre of the English madrigal to new heights of perfection. Though all of the Elizabethan gentlemen who crafted music in this genre ultimately derived their style from Italian culture of the late Renaissance, this pair especially brought a freshness and individuality to their music; this era of English madrigals has taken great strides from the 1590 collection of contrafacts, Italian Madrigals Englished. Rather than merely shoehorning English texts into Italian compositions, Wilbye and Weelkes assimilate the best of Italian musical techniques -- text-painting, musical sequences, careful formal structure -- into an expressive platform for setting the English language. Wilbyes six-voiced madrigal Draw on, sweet night has been considered the epitome of his expressive style. Though he sets a relatively simple text of stereotypical melancholy, and one that is rather devoid of words that might trigger text-painting madrigalisms, Wilbye creates in Draw on, sweet night a deeply passionate affect within a remarkably tight musical structure. The long opening passage, reminiscent of Marenzio, sets a yet somewhat unquiet scene of approaching night; its barren textures and harmonies gently expand downward through musical space, yet evade a sense of strong cadential arrival through inversions and elided phrases. The first mention of rising melancholy answers the opening with fuller textures and a powerfully rising harmonic sequence. As the poetic speaker proceeds to bemoan the life so ill through want of comfort, the music undergoes a jarring shift of mode, and an increase in musical tension through increased counterpoint, melodic speed, and recurring harmonic cross-relations. Finally, at the textual midpoint, the music reaches a complete cadence, and Wilbye gives his second verse a near-exact mirror of the same structure. Once again, a more expansive and evasive draw on section leads to another shift of mode at my griefs. As the speaker reaches the final line of text, where under the enfolding cover of night he may give full vent to his complaining, the music reaches its climax, with even denser concentrations of cross-relations and the most florid melodic gestures. The storm of the poets grief breaks, and Wilbye has drawn his music inexorably along.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 04:26:44 +0000
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