Book Review: Early English Keyboard Music Explored

by Kenneth Slowik
Published April 13, 2020

Aspects of Early English Keyboard Music before c.1630. David J. Smith, editor. Routledge, 2019. xvi + 245 pages.

This is the most recent volume in the Ashgate Historical Keyboard Series (AHKS), which now comprises six titles. The concept of the series is ā€œto provide a natural home for studies in all aspects of keyboard music by musicologists, organologistsĀ and analysts as well as performers and instrument makers engaged in practice-led research.ā€ However, ā€œhistoricalĀ should not be taken to implyĀ early,ā€ and indeed the series includes volumes devoted to the origins of Beethovenā€™s piano sonatas; the influence of Muzio Clementi on British musical culture; and the 20th-century revival of early keyboard music, and individual chapters on the British organ sonata 1895-1945; sonority and pedaling in the music of Robert Schumann; and Portuguese female composers of the 19th century.

Aspects of Early English Keyboard Music before c.1630Ā takes the rough terminus of the Jacobean era as ā€œthe end of an exceptional period during which keyboard music was elevated from functional music for church or the home to autonomous music to be shared with professional colleagues and connoisseurs.ā€ The 11 studies it contains range widely in structure and focus, reflecting their diverse origins as papers first delivered at various conferences between 2004 and 2008, as well as several specifically commissioned for the volume.

David J. Smithā€™s ā€œChanging approaches to the study of early English keyboard music before c.1630ā€ opens Part I, documenting how attitudes towards the composers, their music, and the instruments for which it was conceived have evolved from the publications of the Musical Antiquarian Society in the 1840s throughĀ theĀ Fuller Maitland/Barclay Squire 1899 edition of theĀ Fitzwilliam Virginal BookĀ up to and including the 2018 AHKS volumeĀ Studies in English Organ Music. Smithā€™s excellent bibliography ā€” like those included for all the papers (with the exception of Richard Turbetā€™sĀ  ā€œAn annotated bibliography of selected writings about early English keyboard music,ā€ which contains pithy comments on 27 important publications not listed in his earlier bibliographies about ā€œTudor Musicā€ and ā€œWilliam Byrdā€) ā€” is conveniently placed at the end of the chapter itself, immediately following the endnotes.

Part IIĀ containsĀ offerings by two prominentĀ organologist/instrument builders. Tracing bothĀ nomenclatureĀ and survivingĀ  instruments, or those whose one-time existence may be inferred, John Kosterā€™s ā€œThe harpsichords of theĀ virginalistsā€ reinforces the concept that, for the period, the termĀ virginallsĀ does not specifyĀ instruments of either wing or rectangular shape. Further, it is clear from the ranges of theĀ preponderanceĀ of the repertoire, which utilizes a chromatic (or nearly chromatic) compass down to C rather than one of the more typically Continental short-octave arrangements, that theĀ virginalistsĀ ā€œmust have conceived most of their works with native instruments in mind.ā€ Koster also addresses pitch level and scaling, whichĀ are takenĀ up again in ā€œThe lost musical world of the Tudor organā€ by Dominic Gwynn, who, with his late business partner Martin Goetze, made four new instruments based on surviving Tudor fragments. Such larger church instruments were designed around 5-foot and 10-foot ranks, reflecting the use of ā€œquire pitch,ā€ approximately a1=480, about three half steps above 440, and ā€œorgan pitch,ā€Ā approximately a1=640, about a fifth above modern pitch. (There were also slightly later chamber organs at somewhat lower pitches, with registrations based on 8-foot pitch.)Ā GwynnĀ writes: ā€œThe reconstruction of historical musical instruments only has a purpose if it encourages and illuminates the performance of music written for them.ā€

David J. Smith

Part III presents two studies that grapple with issues relating to liturgical use of such instruments, including questions about notated and actual pitch. John Harperā€™s ā€œAlternatim performance of English pre-Reformation liturgical music for organ and voices composed c1500ā€“60ā€ looks at how the organ would have been used in alternation with sung chant, improvised polyphony (specifically faburden), and notated polyphony, or ā€œpricksong.ā€ Magnus Williamson approaches ā€œPlaying the organ, Tudor style: Some thoughts on improvisation, composition and memorizationā€ from the perspective of a seasoned performer-scholar.

Space limitations here allow only a listing of the self-explanatory titles in Part IV, ā€œSources and Repertoire.ā€ Frauke JĆ¼rgensen and Rachelle Taylor explore ā€œSeven settings ofĀ ClarificaĀ meĀ Pater byĀ Tallis, Byrd, and Tomkins: friendlyĀ emulation or friendly competition?ā€ TihomirĀ PopovićĀ investigatesĀ ā€œHunting, heraldry, and humanists: reflections of aristocratic culture inĀ MyĀ LadyeĀ NevellsĀ Booke.ā€ To aĀ series of questions bringing to mind those in Arthur Conan Doyleā€™s The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual, Smith offers ā€œSeven solutions for seven problems: the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.ā€ Pieter Dirksen addresses problems of transmission and attribution in ā€œTowards a canon of the keyboard music of John Bull.ā€ Lastly, David Ledbetter discusses ā€œStylistic change in English lute and keyboard sources in the time of Orlando Gibbons.ā€

Because their specialist audiences prohibit large print runs, Routledge publications are rarely inexpensive, and, at $155, this volume is no exception. Even at that price, it is an intriguing read: Those whose interests it parallels can rent it as an ebook for as little as $11, or buy it in that format for $58. (Earlier volumes in the series were eventually offered in paperback for about a third of their hardcover price.)

Performer-scholar Kenneth Slowik is artistic director of the Smithsonian Chamber Music SocietyĀ and the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute.Ā His extensive discography, spanning composers from Monteverdi toĀ Stravinsky, includes more than 70 recordings.


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