The period covered by this volume is one of the most eventful and fruitful in the history of English music. This selection - embracing the motet, festal psalm, anthem, canticle and devotional song - has been edited according to modern scholarly standards, but with the needs of practical performance in mind. The choice of music gives a comprehensive picture of the period, with many well-known works included as outstanding examples of their kind. Less familiar compositions are also featured, and they fill important gaps in the available repertory - notably settings of the Nunc dimittis by Tye, Robert Parsons and Thomas Tomkins, a festal psalm by Tallis, verse anthems by William Mundy and Walter Porter, and full anthems by Amner, Batten, Thomas Tomkins and William Child. A general historical introduction and a calendar of events are supplied, together with notes on each piece and a list of the sources used.

This study explores the relationship between the poetic language of Donne, Herbert, Milton and other British poets, and the choral music and part-songs of composers including Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, Weelkes and Tomkins. The seventeenth century was the time in English literary history when music was most consciously linked to words, and when the mingling of Renaissance and 'new' philosophy opened new discovery routes for the interpretation of art. McColley offers close readings of poems and the musical settings of analogous texts, and discusses the philosophy, performance, and disputed political and ecclesiastical implications of polyphony. She also enters into the discourse about the nature of language, relating poets' use of language and composers' use of music to larger questions concerning the arts, politics and theology.

These nine essays consider for the first time the day-to-day performing practice of English composers of choral music of the period 1440-1650.