Elizabethan Music

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Music in the Elizabethan Era was more of a performing art than just being music or a hobby like today in the 21st century.  It reflected on moods and emotions. During that era there were lots of different types of music genres like we have today.However, each of the genres was for a specific purpose and not just to differentiate the genres.

The popular music genres of the elizabethan era include: church music, court music, theatre music and ordinance. Instruments that were played during the Elizabethan era include the organ, violin, lute and virginals. Music was given names like thunder and ordinance.

As we know the meaning of thunder it was used for he same purpose for music. It was referred to a loud noise and it was produced by cannon fire and drums. Ordinance was not musical expression, however it was used for military activity's. It was also used in the theatres for the direction of sound effects.

Church music consisted of vocal music. However, the protestants were heavily against music being played in the church. As Elizabeth was a woman of her own word it was played. After 1575 the church music crew at st pauls cathedral began to act and sing in theatres as well.

According to Richard Mulcaster (1575), Elizabeth loved playing music and that too she did very well as well as she used to sing excellently. This can also be seen from the movie Elizabeth 1 the movie as she loves to dance. This is seen as a performing art in that era and the music was also specific to dance.

Shakespeare (1564-1616) was a famous poet of the time. He is known for his plays and theatrical dramas. He was known to be one if the best dramatists. Renaissance dramas and plays is also something he has written about and has had theatrical drama on this genre. Looking into theatrical drama, Shakespeare used the Elizabethan understanding of music and portrayed this through his plays. Like different instruments had different sounds for different parts in plays for example the sounds of bells had different meanings as well as the sounds of trumpets were used for different signals.

Ref

Books

• Christopher R Wilson & Michela Calore. 2014. Music in Shakespeare: a dictionary. London, Bloomsbury. 
• Bertrand Jestaz, 1995. Art of the Renaissance. New York, Abrams

The Video above contains Lute music that was played during the Renaissance period between 1550-1630. A Lute is an instrument that has strings on it. I t almost resembles a guitar but is twice the size of one. Listening to the music I found it to be very calming and relaxing. I think this shows that during the Elizabethan era music was indeed linked to mood and emotion. As the video below, contains the dance instrumental music. 

The video above contains the "La Volta" music instrumental music tune. This tune was famously used in that era specially for couple dancing. This music is also used in the movie Elizabeth 1(1998), where Elizabeth is seen dancing to this tune performing a couple dance. The video below shows Elizabeth dancing to la volta in the movie Elizabeth1 by Shekhar Kapur.
Looking at their dance and seeing how energetic and bold it is the music complements the same as it the music itself is quite fierce as the dance. This also portrays how Elizabeth enjoyed dancing and music as a whole.

Relating music to my lady in waiting, it is Queen Elizabeth who forced Lettie to get close to Robert Dudley as she wanted her to do everything that Elizabeth couldn't being the queen. This is shown in the movie Elizabeth-The Golden Age, in the scene where Elizabeth forces Lettice to dance with Robert on La volta and perform a couple dance.

Even though she asked her to dance with him it was clearly sen how jealous she was, as she kept telling him how to dance properly and how to hold her. At this point she seemed very confused about herself and she didn't seem to have a stable mind as in my opinion it was always over-thinking.

This was portrayed in the movie by actors and therefore I feel that it could be slightly over acted or could not be portrayed as it was for Elizabeth. However, I think that this is where it all started from where Dudley and Lettice started getting closer and loser to each other. This also shows how the Queen was jealous of Lettice as she resembled her in any ways.