SOURCE: Mellers, Wilfrid. “Thomas Campion and the Solo Ayre.” In Harmonious Meeting: A Study of the Relationship between English Music, Poetry and Theatre, c. 1600-1900, pp. 70-80. London: Dennis Dobson, 1965.

In the following excerpt, Mellers looks at how poetry and music interact in selected music by Campion. Mellers also speculates on how Campion composed such pieces.

                    Author of light When to her lute Corinna sings                     Follow thy fair sun           It fell on a summer's day 

We have seen how, in the madrigals of Ward and still more of Wilbye, a new kind of musical structure, apposite to a new kind of experience, was in process of evolution. This new technique often implied, and sometimes literally involved, instrumental resources; ultimately it was to seek fulfilment in the humanistic (rather than divine) ritual of opera. But in order to provide the basic elements of operatic music there had to be...