| The music composers of this period offered an | | | | you imagine sneaking out to listen to your |
| example to the world as writers of madrigals as | | | | favourite piece of music? Music was about to |
| well as Church music and instrumental music. | | | | take another dramatic change in direction. |
| With the death of Orlando Gibbons (1625), the | | | | By an Act of Parliament of the year 1643, the |
| Madrigalian period was coming to an end. Gibbons | | | | cathedral service was declared abolished |
| was the last of the writers of the so-called | | | | throughout the country; organs were pulled down, |
| "great" period, and after his death, music | | | | choirs disbanded, and as much Church music as |
| composition, just as quickly as it had rose to | | | | could be seized, destroyed. |
| popularity, just as quickly declined in popularity, | | | | Public musical performances were also forbidden, |
| originality and quality. | | | | but the legislation of the time could only go so far. |
| Even the country as a whole was still very music | | | | Even with the massive Puritan disapproval, music |
| interested in music. The great composers of the | | | | was still very widely cultivated, although very |
| Elizabethan age had simply been used up, most of | | | | carefully, it had to be kept behind closed doors, |
| the great masters were dead, and others were | | | | and even then managed, with a certain discretion. |
| old men. The day of the great Elizabethans was | | | | The effects of legislation, apart from the loss of |
| gone. | | | | many musical treasures, was when the restriction |
| Music and musicians received no support from the | | | | was removed, music could be enjoyed freely as |
| Puritans of the time. The great body of the | | | | before, although changed, this was a natural |
| Puritans regarded it at best with great suspicion, | | | | change that is inevitable with all art forms, and |
| and music lovers had to exercise a certain | | | | not because of any political enforcements. |
| discretion in the pursuit of their favourite art. Can | | | | |