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With their usual charm and passion, the Toronto Consort recreates musical life at the court of Elizabeth I. Many of these songs were written for or about this remarkable monarch, and others are songs that would have been performed at her court. The Queen was an accomplished musician so it is likely that she played many of these songs herself. Elizabeth was also, famously, a lover of dancing and dance music. A courtier reported, "the Queene is so well as I assure you, six or seven galliards in a morning, besides musicke and singing, is her ordinairie exercise". Even as she lay dying, Elizabeth is said to have asked for music so that she might die as gaily as she lived. She heard music until her last breath.