Campion, Thomas | Wilfrid Mellers (essay date 1965)
Wilfrid Mellers (essay date 1965)
SOURCE: Mellers, Wilfrid. “Thomas Campion and the Solo Ayre.” In Harmonious Meeting: A Study of the Relationship between English Music, Poetry and Theatre, c. 1600-1900, pp. 70-80. London: Dennis Dobson, 1965.
[In the following excerpt, Mellers looks at how poetry and music interact in selected music by Campion. Mellers also speculates on how Campion composed such pieces.]
Author of light When to her lute Corinna sings Follow thy fair sun It fell on a summer's day
We have seen how, in the madrigals of Ward and still more of Wilbye, a new kind of musical structure, apposite to a new kind of experience, was in process of evolution. This new technique often implied, and sometimes literally involved, instrumental resources; ultimately it was to seek fulfilment in the humanistic (rather than...
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