So what interests us now bespeaks our condition and no one else’s. No amount of historical learning
can replace new understanding with old understanding. All one can hope to do is add depth and detail to
our misunderstanding. (That is where the sacred music and the instrumental music can usefully fit into
even the most biased modern appreciation of Gesualdo.) If that seems a paradoxical thing to say, that has
been precisely the intention.
POSTSCRIPT: THE ENGLISH MADRIGAL
Both the music printing business and the cultivation of vernacular art music had a relatively slow start in
England. The beginning, splendidly signaled by the publication of XX. Songes in 1530, did not take hold.
William Byrd, who with Thomas Tallis sought and received monopoly rights on music printing, turned out
to be an ineffectual or indifferent businessman. He did not publish even his own settings of English poetry
until he had turned his patent over to a printer-musician named Thomas East, who finally made a go of it.
Apart from compositions for the Anglican liturgy, Byrd’s vernacular settings can be found in two volumes
printed by East in 1588 and 1589: Psalmes, sonets and Songs of sadness and pietie, and Songs of
sundrie natures, some of gravitie, and others of myrth, fit for all companies and voyces. Most of the
songs are grave and semireligious; they are mainly set for solo voice with instruments and show no
interest in the new directions being taken on the continent toward “literary” experiment.