This sweet and merry month of May (a 4) (William Byrd)

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• CPDL #18159:

Editor: David Fraser (submitted 2008-10-15).   Score information: A4, 5 pages, 142 kbytes    Copyright: CPDL

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: This sweet and merry month of May
Composer: William Byrd

Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: ATTB
Genre: Secular, Madrigal

Language: English
Instruments: a cappella
Published: The first sett, of Italian Madrigalls Englished (1590), no.8; Psalmes, Songs, and Sonnets... (1611), no.9

Description: N.B. despite the title of Watson's publication, Byrd's madrigal is not based on an Italian original. The title continues There are also heere inserted two excellent Madrigalls of Master William Byrds, composed after the Italian vaine... Fellowes's monumentally careless scholarship is shown at its worst with regard to this publication, where he explains the "two excellent Madrigalls" as being the two separately-numbered sections of the 6-part setting of This sweet and merry month, having failed to notice that the 4-part version is also included in the book. Needless to say, neither of these is in two sections, and each bears only one number. (E.H. Fellowes, William Byrd (OUP, 2nd ed. 1948), p.154)

External websites:

Original text and translations

English text

This sweet and merry month of May,
While Nature wantons in her Prime,
And birds doe sing, and beasts do play,
For pleasure of the joyfull time.
I choose the first for holy day,
And greet Eliza with a rime.
O beauteous Queene of second Troy,
Take wel in worth a simple toy.