Once again logic reasoning has ended up in deep trouble. By repeating lines\u00a01, 2, 7 & 8, Thomas Morley\u2019s music for OMM resulted in a song of exactly\u00a0one-hundred words. RVW reduced his partsongs to thirty-three lines. And\u00a0Francis Bacon was a close friend of George Herbert. Taken into account that\u00a0about 1600 he also must have been in touch with that \u201cilliterate player\u201d, as\u00a0the Baconians prefer to call the man from Stratford, this information is better\u00a0not published before 2013 at least; as if it is not enough to annoy the RVW-society, I now risk another death warrant from the Stratfordians for\u00a0discrediting their hero as well.<\/p>\n
The next fatwa will doubtlessly come from the Baconians I presume. But\u00a0art demands sacrifices; there is a price to be paid for confronting people\u00a0with inconvenient facts. Unnecessary facts for all that. It is even less difficult\u00a0to unravel the mystery of the partsongs, if all damaging information is\u00a0carefully circumnavigated.<\/p>\n
Combining their words is all it needs. But the almost invisible clues Vaughan\u00a0Williams has planted so carefully in his music, have to be exposed to his\u00a0admirers – and this music was all it needed to make me one – in good order.\u00a0If only to learn what it means to live for one\u2019s art, whatever the\u00a0consequences may be.<\/p>\n
The ultimate clue must have been a performance of the partsongs in the\u00a0presence of the King himself. To arrange such an event was the greatest of\u00a0all challenges the artist would have faced when indeed deciding to write his\u00a0music in an imitative style. In earnest or jokingly, it must be a thrilling\u00a0experience to tell a reigning monarch straight into his face that he lacks\u00a0virtue, and will be kicked out from office for it in near future.<\/p>\n
The available information on his personality testifies that Ralph Vaughan Williams\u00a0never could have been contemplating such action in earnest. But pushing\u00a0his imitation to the limit, he must at least have tried everything to get the\u00a0king within hearing distance of his singers – that dedication letter simply\u00a0must be somewhere – being the only way to go through the experience of\u00a0risking his neck. In his case the public disgrace would of course have been\u00a0the worst part of the prosecution, but what about the original authors of\u00a0these subversive songs?<\/p>\n
George Herbert made a political career under James I. Being Scottish, this\u00a0king could never depend on the loyalty of all his courtiers. Their dislike of the\u00a0foreign ruler resulted in the mischievious leaking of \u2018first hand information\u2019\u00a0from Royal Court to the man in the street. Causing the king to enter history\u00a0as a practising homosexual. A piece of knowledge recent research has given\u00a0some reason to distrust.<\/p>\n
\nStill more recent research, however, has thoroughly outed James I; his affair with the Duke of Buckingham has recently been exposed in full detail by the BBC. Without any doubt about the interpretation of the evidence.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Under these circumstances Herbert would certainly\u00a0have put his head at stake by releasing his contribution to the cycle. In the\u00a0end\u00a0Virtue<\/i>\u00a0was never published before 1633. Just as RVW\u2019s\u00a0Sweet Day<\/i>\u00a0was\u00a0kept off the market untill all danger of backfiring was over.<\/p>\n
So there is no reason at all to regard the cycle as an assault on James I.\u00a0Edward VII\u2019s reputation was to Herbert no concern either, let us therefore\u00a0focus our attention on the sixth of January 1601, when it was perhaps\u00a0composer Thomas Morley himself who set RVW an example by conducting in\u00a0the presence of his sovereign the one and only<\/p>\n
ELIZABETHAN PART of the SONG.<\/p>\n
Twelfth-Night<\/i>\u00a0was\u00a0most likely\u00a0<\/span>first performed at Royal Court as the conclusion of its\u00a01600 Christmas-revels. The central character in the play is the Countess\u00a0Olivia. Though she is not the hero\u00efn, her relations with the other characters\u00a0are motivation and pilot of every development. Her position as the spider in\u00a0the web closely resembling that of Elizabeth I at Court.<\/p>\n
As a matter of fact, her high birth, wisdom, and her habit to send suitors\u00a0packing, has caused scholars to accept Olivia generally as a portrait of the\u00a0Virgin Queen. Supposedly intended to grant her for the durance of the play,\u00a0through Olivia\u2019s youth and beauty, the illusion of being still as young and\u00a0attractive as a couple of decades ago. To enhance the identification of the\u00a0Queen with Olivia, Olivia\u2019s suitor Duke Orsino was sitting next to her all the\u00a0time. The year\u2019s guest of honour being Italian diplomat Don Valentino\u00a0Orsino, Duce di Bracciano.<\/p>\n
\nFor this very reason Shakespeare Studies does not take an identification of\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Twelfth-<\/span>Night<\/span>\u00a0for granted as the play that was performed at Court that day. The presence of\u00a0Duke Valentino Orsini is usually regarded as evidence that Shakespeare started his\u00a0work on the play featuring his namesake somewhere during 1601. But the name\u00a0Orsino may instead have replaced the play\u2019s Duke original name during rehearsals..<\/span><\/em><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Olivia being portrayed as a much junior lady, is strong evidence she is\u00a0indeed modelled after the Queen. In all her life, Elizabeth I never allowed\u00a0any portrait to bear testimony of her to grow old. And no mirror either. She\u00a0preferred to fend off reality with increasingly thick layers of priming, which in\u00a0time turned her gradually into a caricature of her original appearance. But\u00a0any hint in that direction could trigger her wrath, so she got nothing but\u00a0flattery instead. Evidently\u00a0Twelfth-Night<\/i>\u00a0made in her sixty-eight year no\u00a0exception, that is to say; no exception but\u00a0O Mistress Mine<\/i>, whose closing\u00a0line tells her straight into her face:<\/p>\n
Youth\u2019s a stuff will not endure.<\/i><\/em>
\nYouth cannot be preserved.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/i>A punchline that really hurts. Provided it catches the attention of the vain lady.\u00a0Occupied as Elizabeth was by keeping track with the story, this unexpected\u00a0mockery of her person must have escaped her attention. Otherwise the trial\u00a0might have been the most famous part of the author\u2019s biography. And\u00a0nobody would ever have dared to use this song once more unobtrusively\u00a0against a head of state.<\/p>\n
Now attention must focus on the fact that most of RVW\u2019s imitative surprise\u00a0assault is composed on words written after the queen\u2019s death, making\u00a0\u2018Elizabethan\u2019 in \u2018Three Elizabethan Part Songs\u2019 definitively referring to the\u00a0person, rather than to her era. And suddenly the punchline is nothing but the\u00a0final sneer from a song that is in every respect \u2018Edwardian\u2019.<\/p>\n
Of all impossibilities featuring in this article, this one hits the ceiling. Every\u00a0historian will drop from his chair when this message comes home. Ralph\u00a0Vaughan Williams, however, was no historian, and unconcernedly used\u00a0three \u2018Private-Part-Songs\u2019 to connect the legendary \u2018Virgin Queen\u2019 to her not\u00a0over-virtuous successor by their parts of death. For obvious reasons the\u00a0composer was unable to copy the exact timing of the playwright, who wrote\u00a0Mistress<\/i>\u00a0three years before the Queen ended her mortal days, but he could\u00a0reverse this timing on Edward VII, and consequently published in 1913.<\/p>\n
—<\/span><\/p>\n
—<\/span><\/p>\n
go to next chapter<\/a>\u00a0– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/span>\u00a0back to the previous chapter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Once again logic reasoning has ended up in deep trouble. By repeating lines\u00a01, 2, 7 & 8, Thomas Morley\u2019s music for OMM resulted in a song of exactly\u00a0one-hundred words. RVW reduced his partsongs to thirty-three lines. And\u00a0Francis Bacon was a … Continue reading