Renaissance Music: An Introduction

Gentle Lords and Ladies, good morrow to you!

We are The Arbor Consort and we have come to sing the songs of the courts and people from Renaissance England and Europe. Our costumes and songs come from the times between 1495 and 1603, and are mostly representative of the court of Queen Elizabeth.

Click here to see what we look like in court garb.

The Renaissance was a time of great awakening of the creative spirit, in science, education, medicine, and the arts. Many middle class and most upper class people had time to think and to play, and the wealth to patronize artists, be they composers and musicians or painters and sculpters. There is a great deal of high spiritedness in our songs.

Many of our songs originated or evolved from the music of the "lower classes", whose songs had an, shall we say, earthy quality to them (some of the lyrics being quite bawdy. Therefore, when the people of the courts heard them and wanted to sing them, they had to change some of the words to fit their more genteel ears and minds. We couldn't have the Ladies of the Court *blush*ing all the time over 'naughty' words, now, could we? So, it is said (with wit, if not much basis in fact) that in many of our songs, the fa-la-la's have replaced the "naughty words".

This part is under construction: eventually, there will be links here (and in the other indicated places) to our rep, so you may choose to hear a snatch or two of what we sound like. Meanwhile, back to our narrative...

In our first three songs, see if you can hear where the fa-la-la's have been put in for the "bad" words!

Hark! all ye lovely saints above
Now is the month of maying
Sing we and chant it!