Holborne †Pavane and Galliard Essay

Holbornes Pavane The image of affliction and G anyiard Ecce quam bonum (Behold, how good a thing is) are devil pieces that belong to the musical style of consort music, a form of domestic music that make its appearance in Elizabethan England. A consort may project derived from the French concert which implied an ensemble of instruments or voices that perform. In later years, from roughly 1575, Broken consorts were introduced and these included mixed ensembles. The usual instrumentation for a disordered consort was lutes, viols (treble and bass) and flute. Consorts of viols began to appear during the time of Henry VIII with the earliest root system of the music existence a songbook of Henry VIII, found after his shoemakers last that included copies of Viol consorts.There are three main types of consorts, one being the Pavane and Galliard, which is a saltation form. In many of the pieces, the writing was precise similar to that of contemporary writing for voices therefore it was usually polyphonic in texture. When paired together, the Pavane usually takes the more melancholy character, while the Galliard a more cheerful one which is shown in these two movements by Holborne. Although dance forms were used for both movements, the dense counterpoint provides melodic interest for all five players and also listeners, which suggests the music to be more for listening than dancing. not much is known about Holborne, but he did publish two collections of music with about 120 works altogether.