Home > Fitzwilliam Virginal Book

Originally called Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book (though the title has been abandoned because it has been determined that she never owned it), it is the manuscript collection of an amateur keyboard player of the very early 17th century named Francis Tregian, who copied the entire collection between 1609 and 1619. It is a rarity among music sources of the time in presenting an enormous quantity of music by current composers, collected by a performer rather than a publisher.

It includes music dating from approximately 1562 to 1612 by John Bull, Giles Farnaby , William Byrd, and Jan Pieterszoon SweelinckJan Pieterszoon Sweelinck ( 1562 October 16, 1621) was a Dutch composer, organist, and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras. He was born in Deventer and died in Amsterdam. Many of his family were musi, as well as many others; there are more than 300 separate pieces. Although written for the virginal, the pieces are often performed on other keyboard instruments including more modern harpsichordA harpsichord is the general term for a family of European keyboard instruments, including the large instrument nowadays called a harpsichord, but also the smaller virginals the muselar virginals and the spinet . All these instruments generate sound by pls and the pianoPiano is a common abbreviation for pianoforte a large musical instrument with a keyboard (see keyboard instrument). Its sound is produced by strings stretched on a rigid frame. These vibrate when struck by felt-covered hammers, which are activated by the. Most of the pieces in the book are short, and many of them are character pieces with droll and memorable titles, including: "Put up thy Dagger, Jemy," "The New Sa-Hoo," and "Quodlings Delight," by Giles Farnaby; "Nobody's Gigge," by Richard Farnaby ; "Pakington's Pownde" and "The Irishe Dumpe" (anonymous); "The Ghost" and "The Earle of Oxford's Marche," by William Byrd; "Worster Braules" by Thomas TomkinsThomas Tomkins ( 1572 June 9, 1656) was a Welsh-born composer of the late Tudor and early Stuart period. In addition to being one of the prominent members of the English Madrigal School, he was a skilled composer of keyboard and consort music. Life He was, and the famous "Lachrymae Pavan" by John DowlandJohn Dowland (pronounced to rhyme with "Roland") ( 1563 February 20, 1626) was an English, possibly Irish-born composer and lutenist. He is best known today for his song "Flow, my tears". Very little is known of Dowland's early life, but it generally thou, as arranged by Giles Farnaby.

Sources

• Gustave ReeseGustave Reese ( November 29, 1899 September 7, 1977) was an American musicologist and teacher. He was born in New York, where he mainly lived and taught, and died in Berkeley, California. Reese is mainly famous for his groundbreaking work on medieval and, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. BooksEnthsiast.com
• The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, ed. Don Randel. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1986. BooksEnthsiast.com
• Article "Sources of Keyboard Music" in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. BooksEnthsiast.com
• Percy A. Scholes, The Oxford Companion to Music. London, Oxford University Press, 1970. No ISBN.
• Harold Gleason and Warren Becker, Music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Music Literature Outlines Series I). Bloomington, Indiana.