This collection brings together five classic examples of the English Madrigal School. John Dowland, Thomas Morley and Thomas Weelkes were from a stable of composers who flourished under the rule of Elizabeth I and who had significant impact in a period often referenced as the golden age of English music.

Editorial note : Some pieces in this volume feature brackets that comprise ‘ternary cells’ – cells of three beats – of differing lengths. Before the mid-17th century in the stile antico, it was common for each vocal line to have an independent stress pattern: a sequence of binary or ternary accentuations guided by the declamation of the text in order to give life to each voice. Despite the non-legato of the individual single layer – created by elements including the musical articulation, the (hairpin) phrasing of the ternary cells and a natural text declamation – the constant displacement of stresses between the voices provides an overall feeling of flow right through to the next cadence, at which point the ‘cells’ come together. Certain characteristics of this style, such as hemiolas and cadential conventions, survived in the following centuries and can be found in the music of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Brahms, and even later composers with an affinity for vocal polyphony. The voices in these SAM arrangements take on more than just their own polyphonic role, occasionally switching between parts to maintain the integrity of the original music. Despite the initial challenges the removal of a part would suggest, choirs will reap the benefits of replicating the contrast and vitality of the original inner textural phrasing, and although the brackets and absence of normal bar lines may seem very different from a conventional edition, we are confident that any initial difficulties should be quickly overcome, and that the resulting quality and transparency of performance will be considerably more satisfying for both singer and listener.