Funerall Teares or Dolefull Songes? Reconsidering Historical Connections and Musical Resemblances in Early English 'Absalom' Settings

Abstract

For over forty-five years, scholars have speculated about an unusual collection of early seventeenth-century settings of David's lament for Absalom by twelve English composers, including Thomas Weelkes and Thomas Tomkins. Though some see these works as referring symbolically to James I as both king and grieving father, and Henry as his dead son, others believe they were all written within a few months if not days of Henry's death specifically as memorial pieces for him. The period 1612–13 has thus been considered a significant dating marker for the manuscripts in which the settings are preserved. Using previously unexamined or unnoticed evidence from the text, music, and sources, I suggest that most of these Absalom settings were not written in the first few years of the 1610s but emerged slowly over the course of several decades. Although one or two settings may indeed have been prompted by Henry's death—there remains no evidence to suggest any were written specifically for the funeral ceremonies, however—it is more probable that most of them were composed in 1618 or later.