Chapter 3 - The Royal Household and its Revels

Summary

INTIMATE and informal performances were only heard by a select group of courtiers and ambassadors. The outward face of court music-making was the royal musical establishment and its provision for both daily ceremonies and grand seasonal revels. These performances in the Presence Chamber and the Great Hall were open to English nobility and gentry, as well as ambassadors and visiting foreign nobility. Music was essential to the image of a court, and Elizabeth's was no exception. Aside from offering entertainment, musicians had to produce the aural equivalent of the magnificent visual effects of portraits, architecture, jewellery, courtly dress, or silverware that conveyed the prosperity and richness of the court to English and foreign visitors alike. Whether grand and ceremonial or the height of innovation and sophistication, music's political purpose was to display the prosperity and sophistication of Queen, court, and kingdom in the best possible light.

Having considered Elizabeth the performer, this chapter turns to Elizabeth the patron. How active and innovative a musical patron was she, and to what extent was she in control of all the music performed at her court? It was not only Elizabeth who commissioned entertainments, and nor was it only court employees who performed in them. In addition to enriching the royal image, what other messages were musical entertainments in the royal household projecting?

Like most Renaissance courts, Elizabeth's musical establishment consisted of musicians for the Chapel Royal and for the royal household, though in practice these boundaries were blurred when special occasions called for extended resources in either space. The Chapel Royal employed thirty-two gentlemen and twelve boys, who might also be used as singers and even actors in secular court entertainments. The majority of the secular music, however, was performed by the musicians of the royal household. The largest group were the consorts of viols or violins, flutes, recorders, and sackbuts with shawms, typically each with six or seven members. The consort of sackbuts with shawms and the drum and fife band were those most suitable for outdoor music or performances in large halls during noisy events, while the softer ensembles such as the recorders and violins played mainly in indoor settings (such as the Presence Chamber) on quieter occasions.