Morley was born in
Norwich, the son of a brewer. Most likely he was a singer in
the local cathedral from his boyhood, he studied with
William Byrd, whom he named as his mentor in his 1597 publication
A Plain and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke. Byrd also taught Morley's contemporary,
Peter Philips. In 1588 he received his bachelor's degree from the
University of Oxford, and shortly thereafter was employed as organist at St. Paul's in London. His young son died the following year in 1589. He and his wife Susan had three more children between 1596 and 1600. In 1588
Nicholas Yonge published his
Musica transalpina, the collection of Italian
madrigals fitted with English texts, which touched off the explosive and colourful vogue for madrigal composition in England. Morley found his compositional direction at this time, and shortly afterwards began publishing his own collections of madrigals (11 in all). Morley lived for a time in the same parish as Shakespeare, and a connection between the two has been long speculated, but never proven. His famous setting of "It was a lover and his lass" from
As You Like It has never been established as having been used in a performance of Shakespeare's play during the playwright's lifetime. However, given that the song was published in 1600, there is evidently a possibility that it was used in stage performances. While Morley attempted to imitate the spirit of Byrd in some of his early sacred works, it was in the form of the madrigal that he made his principal contribution to music history. His work in the genre has remained in the repertory to the present day, and shows a wider variety of emotional colour, form and technique than anything by other composers of the period. Usually his madrigals are light, quick-moving and easily singable, like his well-known "
Now Is the Month of Maying" (which is actually a ballett); he took the aspects of Italian style that suited his personality and anglicised them. Other composers of the English Madrigal School, for instance
Thomas Weelkes and
John Wilbye, were to write madrigals in a more serious or sombre vein. In addition to his madrigals, Morley wrote instrumental music, including keyboard music (some of which has been preserved in the
Fitzwilliam Virginal Book), and music for the
broken consort, a uniquely English ensemble of two
viols, flute,
lute,
cittern and
bandora, notably as published by
William Barley in 1599 in
The First Booke of Consort Lessons, made by diuers exquisite Authors, for six Instruments to play together, the Treble Lute, the Bandora, the Cittern, the Base-Violl, the Flute & Treble-Violl. Morley's
Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (published 1597) remained popular for almost two hundred years after its author's death, and is still an important reference for information about sixteenth century composition and performance. Thomas Morley was buried in the graveyard of the church of
St Botolph Billingsgate, which was destroyed in the
Great Fire of London of 1666, and not rebuilt. Thus his grave is lost. ==Compositions==