English Music

Historians of music in Great Britain have established a notable position for the art in what must be called its infancy; and though the monuments on which they rely are not numerous, they are striking and significant enough to indicate that the ardent love for music which survives among the Welsh was once shared by all the people of England. Tradition credits King Alfred, in the 9th century, with the founding of a chair of music at Oxford. The discovery of a manuscript copied by John of Fornsete, a Reading monk of the 13th century, containing a rota, or round in six real parts, beginning. "Sumer is icumen in," gives the English priority long conceded to the Nether landers in the invention of COUNTERPOINT (q.v.). The Cambridge Roll, preserved in Trinity College, supposed to be the work of John of Duns table (d. 1453), contains a song of thanksgiving for the victory won at Agin court 1415. The pre-eminence of certain composers in the subsequent centuries has led to the a ignment to each of the headship of a school of composition, whether there was anything distinctive in their work or not. A few of their names may serve as milestones. They are R. Fayrfax, Doctor of Music 1511; J. Redford (1491-1547); Dr. C. Tye, Farrant, Bull, Tallis, Byrd, and Gibbons, who mark the high tide of the contrapuntal art in England as exemplified in church music and madrigals. The Rebellion checked musical development; but it began with renewed energy after the Restoration, one of the first