Singing madrigals

On Facebook I'm reminded by Sarah that we sometimes used to sing madrigals of an evening in Welwyn Garden City in the 1980s. Our children and some of their friends (that same Sarah) used to join in, and one of us modifed the name of the activity to Mad Wriggles. We used to stand in a circle to sing

Thomas Morley (1558-1602)

• Since first I saw your face (Ford)
• Never weather-beaten sail (Campion)

... they were the easier ones ...

• April is in my mistress' face (Morley)
• Sing we and chant it (Morley)
• Now is the month of maying (Morley)

and

• Adieu, sweet Amaryllis (Wilbye)

(There was an occasion when we set a flowering amaryllis in its pot in the centre of the circle for inspiration.)

Even further back: as a student at university I was in a madrigal group which used to sing on the college lawn, and before that I sang first soprano in our Madrigal Group (The New Elizabethans) at school. Further still, one of my earliest memories is of visiting my dad's "big" school as a small child and observing a select group of his pupils sit round a table on the school stage to sing in harmony ... guess what? ... Never weather-beaten sail.

We did the mad wriggles again here at our house, Saturday night, with Bill, Jennie, Gianluca, Dan, Vija, Rolf, Carmen and Frank. We were bottom-heavy in the distribution of parts, comprising three basses, three tenors, two altos and two sopranos, but for this sort of occasion it didn't matter. Towards the end, Bill insisted that we attempt Since first I saw your face without looking down at the music, even those of us who were new to it, and it worked.

When I was young and innocent I was unaware of some of the double-entendres in the Elizabethan madrigals, but it has now been pointed out to me that there's more to such songs as Fair Phyllis I saw sitting all alone (Farmer) than meets the eye at a first sight-reading.