Morley: Now Is the Month of Maying

Well, it’s May. We could do something on International Worker’s Day, but drawing on older celebrations of May Day seem more appropriate. May Day is celebrated in many countries with dances and songs and Maypoles marking the beginning of Spring. It was so much fun the Puritans banned it.

Thomas Morley (1557 or 1558 – 1602) has a prominent place among the English Madrigalists of Elizabethan times. Perhaps his most famous madrigal is this one: “Now Is the Month of Maying.” Madrigals are part songs sung without accompaniment.

Our own little a cappella group in Bowie, Texas sang this work rather successfully, although not quite as successfully as The King’s Singers.