# Talk:The Silver Swan (madrigal)

Wouldn't this article be better entitled "The Silver Swan", as that is the title of the madrigal? Cf. The Magic Flute and The Long and Winding Road.
217.41.247.51 (talk) 10:28, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Good point—this was done by Graham a few years after your comment: [1] – Aza24 (talk) 01:20, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

The recent edits to this article are intriguing, but I have two questions about them: (1) could some references be added to the new text (after a bit of Google searching I have no trouble believing it, but Google doesn't index everything) and (2) is this the same Christopher Hatton as the person covered by the Wikipedia article Christopher Hatton (died 1619)? Graham87 05:06, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes (added, but with more caution) and yes. Aza24 (talk) 00:07, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Should mention be made of the 2006 version by Qntal? Drabkikker (talk) 18:03, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

I can't see why not; I've added it. Graham87 06:33, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks! Drabkikker (talk) 18:47, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

The present text notes:

 The last line may be a comment on the demise of the English madrigal form or, more generally, on the loss of the late Elizabethan musical tradition. 
I'm a layman, but I think we can go further.
One of the most famous madrigals, both now and at the time, was Jacob Arcadelt's Il bianco e dolce cigno, published in 1539, which is on the same theme. Italian madrigalists such as Orazio Vecchi used it as inspiration until the madrigal fell out of fashion there, around 1600. So Gibbons's swan refers to the madrigal's Italian origins, and this line refers to the death of the madrigal tradition as such.
Some way of mentioning this in the article seems in order, but it would have to be quoted from a source. Rp (talk) 14:56, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

@Rp, interesting ideas, but I'm afraid we're lacking reliable sources that explicitely make the connection. Indeed I've had to remove the assertion entirely amid my recent expansion of this article; its source is unreliable: a blog post by a non-subject matter expert. I was not able to find it backed up by any authorities. Although it's mentioned in passing by Carol Rumens ([2]), she does so by citing this Wikipedia article, itself using said unreliable source. Not sure if that really justifies inclusion. I'll leave the text here for archival purposes:
"The last line may be a comment on the demise of the English madrigal form or, more generally, on the loss of the late Elizabethan musical tradition. The English madrigal school flourished from the late 1580s and lasted into the 1620s, long after it had become unfashionable in the rest of Europe. But things were already in decline by the time The Silver Swan was published in 1612. The last line could be taken as a biting condemnation of contemporary madrigal composers – though Gibbons himself was only in his thirties." Aza24 (talk) 00:20, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
Also for archival purposes, another portion I removed is also unsourced (the older article version included Ledger 1978, but this quote is not in that publication): "Though composed as a madrigal, "The Silver Swan" is, in modern times, often performed as a song for chamber choir. It is also performed as a song for soprano and viol consort. Commenting on the musical form, Philip Ledger notes that 'in common with the lute-song, and unlike any true madrigal, it has two musical sections, the second one repeated, and new words are provided for this repeat'." Aza24 (talk) 00:38, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
When I last did this song, I did some research and found that a friend and patron of Gibbons (Hatton?) was known as "the swan" or "the silver swan", according to a eulogy written upon his death, but that was years ago, I did not save the reference, and I cannot find it now. Rp (talk) 12:32, 26 December 2024 (UTC)