THE QUEEN’S GOODNIGHT

Johnson A Dump or the Queenes Treble / Dowland A Pavion Solus com Sola / Anon Robin is to the Greenwood Gone / Johnson A Medley / Allison Allison’s Knell / Anon. Artheres Dump / Robinson Twenty Waies upon the Bels / The Queenes Good Night / Dowland The Most Sacred Queene Elizabeth Her Galliard / Farnaby Rest / Hume Lamentations / Byrd The Bells / Hume Deth & Life / Gibbons Fantasia / Corkine & Gibbons Whoope, doe me no Harme, Good Man / Johnson The New Hunt is upp / Anon. The Scottish Huntsupe & Jigg

Charivari Agreable

"Her Majesty lay upon her back, with one hand in the bed and the other without. The bishop kneeled down by her, and examined her first of her faith: and she so punctually answered all his several questions by lifting up her eyes and holding up her hand, as it was a comfort to all beholders. Then the good man told her plainly, what she was and what she was to come to, and though she had been long a great Queen here upon

earth, yet shortly she was to yield an account of her stewardship to the King of Kings. Between one and two of the clock on Thursday morning, he brought me word the Queen was dead."

Thus wrote the queen’s cousin Sir Robert Carey, recording in his memoirs the events of March 23rd-24th 1603, and the end of an era in England’s history. Earlier, as Elizabeth I lay dying she called for her musicians to play around her bed so that “she may die gaily as she had lived, and that the horrors of death might be lessened; she heard the music tranquilly until her last breath”.

As the 400th anniversary of her death approaches, The Queen’s Goodnight

commemorates the music of the court of Queen Elizabeth I. The queen’s professional musical establishment was in some ways more modest than that of her father, Henry VIII, but she brought together the finest talent in the land and created collections of consort, lute and keyboard music that is still renowned today.

charivari agréable demonstrate representative facets of this wonderful 16th century repertory. The pieces are selected with a passionate attention to detail and charivari agreable have included music that depicts the life of the queen: music from the court, an exhilarating depiction of a hunt, celebrations from the queen’s coronation and the

moving laments on her death.

On The Queen's Goodnight, charivari agreable have once again performed with skill and charm, producing wonderful orchestrations with an historical accuracy that mirrors the paintings and writings of the day.

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