Unmasked

The 1613 marriage of Princess Elizabeth of England to Count Palatine was one of the most spectacular events of King James's court, lavishly celebrated with banquets, tournaments, fireworks, and most notably, with masques-extravagant entertainments with elaborate sets, costumes, dancing, and songs. Although the masque lyrics were all printed with the dialogue in 1613, music survives for only one song.

In Unmasked, author Ross W. Duffin reconstructs music for the three wedding masques of Thomas Campion, George Chapman, and Francis Beaumont, revealing through close reading that the songs are partsongs sung by an ensemble, rather than an accompanied solo singer. His reconstruction enables complete performance of the masques for the first time in four centuries.

Duffin's study also presents a fourth masque which survives from the Palatine wedding but was not published or performed in England at the time. Celebrating the joining of the two Protestant powers and urging the Protestant conversion of the rest of the world, it is also in French, with lyrics for singing, and dances called for at several points. The songs have been reconstructed using music from the French metrical psalm repertoire, and the dances from a collection of French dances published in Germany just months before the wedding.

All four of the Palatine wedding masques appear in the book with complete dialogue and descriptions, along with reconstructed songs and dances, for the first time making them fully available for study and performance. In Unmasked, students, scholars, and renaissance readers of all stripes will find rich new material to use in their own research and teaching and a new perspective on these important court entertainments.