# Consort song

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{{Short description|English song form}}
{{One source
| date = June 2020
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A '''consort song''' was a characteristic [English](/source/England) [song](/source/song) form of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, for solo voice or voices accompanied by a group of [instrument](/source/musical_instrument)s, most commonly [viol](/source/viol)s.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brett|first=Philip|title=The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians|publisher=Macmillan Publishers (China) Limited|year=1993|isbn=0-333-23111-2|location=Hong Kong|pages=675|language=en}}</ref>  Although usually in five parts, some early examples of four-part songs exist. It is considered to be the chief representative of a native musical tradition which resisted the onslaught of the italianate [madrigal](/source/madrigal_(music)) and the [English lute ayre](/source/Air_(music)), and survived those forms' brilliant but short-lived ascendancy {{harv|Brett|2001}}.

In contemporary usage, the term was confined to a number of songs for four voices accompanied by the standard [mixed consort](/source/Broken_consort) of six instruments, found in ''Teares or Lamentacions of a Sorrowfull Soule: Composed with Musicall Ayres and Songs, both for Voyces and Divers Instruments'' by [William Leighton](/source/William_Leighton), published in 1614, but was first used in the modern sense by [Thurston Dart](/source/Thurston_Dart) {{harv|Brett|2001}}.

[William Byrd](/source/William_Byrd) is recognized as the composer whose adoption and development of the consort song established its musical importance. He regarded it as a standard means to set vernacular poetry {{harv|Brett|2001}}.

==References==
{{Reflist}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Brett|2001}}|reference=[Brett, Philip](/source/Philip_Brett). 2001. "Consort Song". ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by [Stanley Sadie](/source/Stanley_Sadie) and [John Tyrrell](/source/John_Tyrrell_(musicologist)). London: Macmillan Publishers.}}

==Further reading==
* <!--{{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Brett|1961–62}}|reference=-->Brett, Philip. 1961–62. "The English Consort Song, 1570–1625". ''Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association'' 88:73–88.<!--}}-->
*Kerman, Joseph. 1962. ''The Elizabethan Madrigal: A Comparative Study''. [New York]: American Musicological Society.

Category:16th-century music genres
Category:17th-century music genres
Category:Song forms

{{music-genre-stub}}

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