English Keyboard Music Before The Nineteenth Century

English keyboard art from Robertsbridge Codex (c. 1325) to John Field. Illuminating coverage of organ, harpsichord, pianoforte, other instruments; works of Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, Tomkins, many others. Bibliography.

English keyboard music reached an unsurpassed level of sophistication in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries as organists such as William Byrd and his students took a genre associated with domestic, amateur performance and treated it as seriously as vocal music. This book draws together important research on the music, its sources and the instruments on which it was played. There are two chapters on instruments: John Koster on the use of harpsichord during the period, and Dominic Gwynn on the construction of Tudor-style organs based on the surviving evidence we have for them. This leads to a section devoted to organ performance practice in a liturgical context, in which John Harper discusses what the use of organs pitched in F may imply about their use in alternation with vocal polyphony, and Magnus Williamson explores improvisational practice in the Tudor period. The next section is on sources and repertoire, beginning with Frauke Jürgensen and Rachelle Taylor’s chapter on Clarifica me Pater settings, which grows naturally out of the consideration of improvisation in the previous chapter. The next two contributions focus on two of the most important individual manuscript sources: Tihomir Popović challenges assumptions about My Ladye Nevells Booke by reflecting on what the manuscript can tell us about aristocratic culture, and David J. Smith provides a detailed study of the famous Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. The discussion then broadens out into Pieter Dirksen’s consideration of a wider selection of sources relating to John Bull, which in turn connects closely to David Leadbetter’s work on Gibbons, lute sources and questions of style.

Since the publication of The London Pianoforte School (ed. Nicholas Temperley) twenty years ago, research has proliferated in the area of music for the piano during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and into developments in the musical life of London, for a time the centre of piano manufacturing, publishing and performance. But none has focused on the piano exclusively within Britain. The eleven chapters in this volume explore major issues surrounding the instrument, its performers and music within an expanded geographical context created by the spread of the instrument and the growth of concert touring. Topics covered include: the piano trade and how piano manufacturing affected a major provincial town; the reception of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and Clementi's Gradus ad Parnassum during the nineteenth century; the shift from composer-pianists to pianist-interpreters in the first half of the century that triggered crucial changes in piano performance and concert structure; the growth of musical life in the peripheries outside major musical centres; the pianist as advocate for contemporary composers as well as for historical repertory; the status of British pianists both in relation to foreigners on tour in Britain and as welcomed star performers in outposts of the Empire; marketing forces that had an impact on piano sales, concerts and piano careers; leading virtuosos, writers and critics; the important role played by women pianists and the development of the recording industry, bringing the volume into the early twentieth century.

Keyboard Music Before 1700 begins with an overview of the development of keyboard music in Europe. Then, individual chapters by noted authorities in the field cover the key composers and repertory before 1700 in England, France, Germany and the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain and Portugal. The book concludes with a chapter on performance practice, which addresses current issues in the interpretation and revival of this music.

Studies in English Organ Music is a collection of essays by expert authors that examines key areas of the repertoire in the history of organ music in England. The essays on repertoire are placed alongside supporting studies in organ building and liturgical practice in order to provide a comprehensive contextualization. An analysis of the symbiotic relationship between the organ, liturgy, and composers reveals how the repertoire has been shaped by these complementary areas and developed through history. This volume is the first collection of specialist studies related to the field of English organ music.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Authorship is a pertinent issue for historical musicology and musicians more widely, and some controversies concerned with major figures have even reached wider consciousness. Scholars have clarified some of the issues at stake in recent decades, such as the places of borrowing and arranging in the creative process and the wider cultural significance of these practices. The discovery of new sources and methodologies has also opened up opportunities for reassessing specific authorship problems. Drawing upon this wider musicological literature as well as insights from other disciplines, such as intellectual history and book history, this book aims to build on what has already been achieved by focussing on keyboard music. The nine chapters cover case studies of authorship problems, the socioeconomic conditions of music publishing, the contributions of composers, arrangers, copyists and music publishers in creating notated keyboard compositions, the functions of attribution and ascription, and how the contexts in which notated pieces were used affected concepts of authorship at different times and places.