Singing Spenser: Shepheardes Calender Lyrics as Songs

Singing Spenser: Shepheardes Calender Lyrics as Songs

Only a handful of Edmund Spenser ’s lyrics were set to music in the early modern period, all but two after his death, and all single stanzas set as madrigals. No consort song, lutesong, or continuo song settings of his poems survive, but in studying his poetry, I realized that the highly musical context that he creates, particularly in The Shepheardes Calender (1579), could be stylishly served by solos contrafacted from composed and popular song repertoires. Using music by Byrd, Dowland, Campion, and others, this edition is the result of that realization. While the music is too late to have been known to Spenser in 1579, it shows how his lyrics can be adapted to extant secular music, composed or popular, either from his lifetime, or within a few years of his death. The results are often surprising and lovely, confirming the musical potential of his poetry, and providing a welcome means of expanding the early song repertoire to include—for the very first time—period solo-song settings of Spenser’s iconic lyrics.