18 JUNE Musicians of the Globe

The Music Room, Gregynog

Grand Elizabethan gardens with their walkways, artificial mounds, outdoor banqueting houses, galleries and mazes were designed for the delight of the aristocracy. Many such as Kenilworth, Nonsuch and Theobalds were described by contemporary chroniclers in lavish detail.

The imagery of the garden and its pleasures was a favourite theme of Elizabethan poets and musicians and this new programme illustrates the enormous variety, beauty and subtlety of the conceit, with such evocatively-titled miniature masterpieces as The marygold, The honiesuckle, The eglantine, The primrose, The leaves be green, Roses their sharp spines, There is a garden in her face and With fragrant flowers.

The refinement and novelty found in the design of the great country-house gardens was most aptly reflected in music performed by the newly-fashionable Consort of Six in honour of Elizabeth I’s summer progresses to Kenilworth and Elvetham in 1575 and 1591, which Philip Pickett and the Musicians of the Globe have reconstructed and restored to life.