April is in My Mistress' Face

Thomas Morley

 

April is in my mistress' face,  

And July in her eyes hath place;  

Within her bosom is September,  

But in her heart a cold December. 

 

 

About the piece:

April is in my mistress' face written by Thomas Morley is one of the best-known and shortest of English madrigals; it was published in 1594, and appears to be based on an Italian text by Livio Celiano, and set by Orazio Vecchi in 1587. 

 

Orlando_Gibbons.jpg
Thomas Morley (1557 – early October 1602)
Was an English composer, theorist, singer and organist of the Renaissance. He was one of the foremost members of the English Madrigal School. Referring to the strong Italian influence on the English madrigal, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians states that Morley was "chiefly responsible for grafting the Italian shoot on to the native stock and initiating the curiously brief but brilliant flowering of the madrigal that constitutes one of the most colourful episodes in the history of English music."