Best Weelkes
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Thule, the Period of Cosmography is a six-part English madrigal by Thomas Weelkes, published in his collection Madrigals of Five and Six Parts in 1600. Its text invokes distant Thule, icy seas, and Mount Etna, contrasting extreme cold with volcanic fire. Weelkes uses abrupt harmonic shifts, chromati...
William Weelkes’s “As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending” is a complex six-voice madrigal originating from *The Triumphs of Oriana* (1601). This work showcases sophisticated musical techniques including detailed word painting, reflecting the era's focus on evocative vocal music. It was composed f...
Death Hath Deprived Me is an English Renaissance madrigal by Thomas Weelkes, written as an elegy for the composer and madrigalist Thomas Morley. Scored for six voices, it sets a text of bereavement through interwoven vocal lines, somber harmony, and expressive changes that reinforce the language of...
John Weelkes’s “Thule” is a complex six-voice madrigal from his 1600 collection. Noteworthy for its innovative chromatic harmony, it vividly describes the mythical island of Thule. This work is particularly appreciated by musicologists and choral enthusiasts interested in late Renaissance English vo...
O Care, Thou Wilt Despatch Me is an English madrigal by Thomas Weelkes, published in 1600 in his collection Madrigals of Five and Six Parts. The text addresses care as a destructive force and moves between resignation, agitation, and defiance. Weelkes reinforces those contrasts through chromatic wri...
'Take here my heart' is an English madrigal by Thomas Weelkes (c.1576–1623), one of the most inventive and harmonically adventurous madrigalists of the Elizabethan era.
Since Robin Hood is a secular English madrigal by Thomas Weelkes, published in 1608 in his collection Ayres or Phantasticke Spirites for Three Voices. Its text recalls communal games and festivities associated with Robin Hood and other figures from English popular tradition. Written for three vocal...
Sacred-themed madrigal by Thomas Weelkes addressed to heavenly saints, blending devotional text with the polyphonic madrigal idiom of late Elizabethan England.
English madrigal by Thomas Weelkes rejecting sorrow in favor of merriment, one of several companion pieces he wrote on the theme of banishing care.
Lady, the birds right fairly is an English madrigal by Thomas Weelkes, a composer active around the turn of the seventeenth century. Written for four voices, it uses pastoral imagery in which birds and their singing provide the setting for an address to a lady. The work belongs to the English madrig...
“Hark, All Ye Lovely Saints Above” is an English madrigal by Thomas Weelkes, published in The Triumphs of Oriana in 1601. The anthology, assembled by Thomas Morley, consists of secular works honoring Oriana, a poetic name associated with Queen Elizabeth I. Weelkes's setting has a lively, dance-influ...
An English madrigal by Thomas Weelkes from his late 1590s collections, offering solace through pastoral convention in the mode of late Elizabethan secular vocal music.
A light-hearted English madrigal by Weelkes (c.1597) referencing folk figures Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and Friar Tuck, blending popular culture with part-song style.
