Luogo e data di registrazione		Michaelskerk, Zwolle (Olanda) - 1962
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Direction artistic		-
	Recording Engineer		-
	Prima Edizione LP		Cambridge Records | CRM 510 Mono - CRS 1510 Stereo | 1 LP - durata 48' 34" | (p) 1965 | ANA
	Prima Edizione CD		Paadizo | PA0019 | 1 CD - durata 48' 34" | (p) 2022 | ADD
	Cover		-
	Note		-

Elizabethan Organ Music played by Gustav Leonhardt The mention of “Elizabethan England” brings forth images of an era of great artistic productivity and of a society dominated by heroic individuals. The list of the prominent ones must begin with the Queen herself and would continue with William Shakespeare, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe, Sir Francis Bacon, and many others. Some are known for their heroic adventures, some for the grandeur or even the extravagance of their personal life-styles, and some for their masterpieces of literature. The reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603) also witnessed the apex of music for the virginals - by which was meant any type of harpsichord but especially the oblong instrument so often painted by Vermeer in particular. The virginals had been favored by Henry VIII, himself a skilled performer. Some of the music within this great flowering - known as the “English virginalist school”- is, however, optionally and even idiomatically for organ. This is suggested by the titles of some pieces and by the texture and writing of others. Gustav Leonhardt chose this program accordingly, and undertook to record it on the famous organ at Zwolle, not because of its size but rather for its appropriate sounds and the renaissance acoustical atmosphere of the church. The Composers The most famous of the composers represented here is undoubtedly William Byrd (1543-1623). Byrd was a master of virtually every major genre of music of his day: madrigal and solo song, church music for both his own Roman Catholic church as well as for the Church of England, chamber music for a variety of “consorts,” and keyboard music. An evaluation of Byrd by a contemporary in 1586, quoted by Edmund Fellowes in his biography of the composer, acknowledges Byrd as “the most celebrated musician and organist of the English nation who was held in the highest estimation.” In 1575 Queen Elizabeth granted Byrd and his teacher Thomas Tallis a monopoly for printed music and music paper - the first copyright in England. Unlike Sir Walter Raleigh, who made a fortune from his monopoly on the sale of wine, Byrd and Tallis did not make even a modest profit. But Byrd, who was constantly in lawsuits as a result of his real estate dealings, seems to have tried to take advantage of the copyright; one complaint reads that “One Byrde, a Singing man, hathe a licence for printinge of all Musicke bookes and by that meanes he claimeth the printing of ruled paper." As a musician Byrd was organist at Lincoln Cathedral from 1563 until 1572, and from 1570 was a member of the Chapel Royal - the musical establishment “on call” to the royal household. His favor with the Queen seems remarkable, and attests to his greatness, since he never converted from his Roman Catholicism. While Byrd stands alone in his generation, the next had several prominent composers, most of whom are represented here. The virtuoso of the era was John Bull, often referred to as Dr. Bull (c. 1562-1628). Due to his fame throughout Europe for his ability to dazzle crowds with technical virtuosity, music historians today refer to him as the “Liszt of his Age." The title of “Doctor” was conferred upon him at Cambridge in 1592; he had received the Mus. Bac. at Oxford in 1586, “having practised in that faculty fourteen years.” By 1585, Bull had joined the Chapel Royal where he became organist in 1591. He left England in 1613 and by at least 1617 had become the organist at the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Antwerp, where he died eleven years later. Through his performances in the Low Countries, his music provided a link from the English Virginalist School to the famed Dutch master J. P. Sweelinck, who taught the English style of keyboard figuration to generations of North German organists. On the same day that Bull was awarded his doctorate, Giles Farnaby (c. 1560-1640) was receiving the B. Mus. at Oxford. Little else is known of the career of Farnaby, but, like Bull's, his fame is for his keyboard music. Because he did not compose in other genres (such as choral music) and because he was not famous as a virtuoso performer, Farnaby has suffered undue neglect and he is only recently becoming better known to modern audiences. Many writers judge his keyboard composition as second only to that of William Byrd. Another composer who worked principally in keyboard music is John Munday or Mundy (c. 1560-1630). Munday was awarded the B. Mus. at Oxford in 1586 and the D. Mus. in 1624. He was organist at Eton College and after about 1585 at St. George's Chapel, Windsor. Peter Philips (1560 or 1561-1628) was, like Byrd and Bull, a Roman Catholic and probably began his musical career as a chorister at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. While in his very early twenties he inherited enough money to travel extensively on the Continent. In 1585, while in Rome in the service of Cardinal Alessandre Farnese, he joined the household of Lord Thomas Paget and traveled with him through Spain, France, and the Netherlands. From early 1587 through June of 1588 they were in Paris, and by 1589 in Antwerp. Lord Paget died in 1590 but the story does not end there. Philips spent the remainder of his life mostly in Antwerp, but made a trip to Amsterdam in 1593 where he met Sweelinck. Returning from this visit he was arrested in Middelburgh and charged with planning the assassination of Queen Elizabeth, and alleged to have participated with Lord Paget in the act of burning the Queen in effigy in Paris. The case was brought to trial in September, 1593 but he was released for lack of evidence. In the third generation of composers represented in this recording are Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) and Thomas Tomkins (1572-l656). Gibbons is endeared to madrigal singers by his famous “The Silver Swan” and other highly polished gems but he is perhaps more important for his church music. In this and other regards he can be compared with J. S. Bach, who followed him by nearly a century. Both stood at the end of brilliant eras - the Elizabethan in England, and the Baroque in Germany. Both stand unexcelled in the genres in which they worked. Both represent the highest in inspirational and artistic integrity, which accounts for their continued popularity in the Sunday services of Anglicans and Lutherans today - and in other churches and concert halls as well. And both were members of prominent musical families. From 1605 Gibbons was a member of the Chapel Royal and in 1619 was listed as one of his majesty's “musicians for the virginalles to attend in his highness privie chamber.” He was also famous as one of the finest organists of his time. Thomas Tomkins, like Gibbons, was part of an important musical family. He was a pupil of William Byrd and was granted the Mus. B. at Oxford in 1607 at the age of thirty-five - “after fourteen years a student.” He was an organist of the Chapel Royal in 1621 but his most important position was as organist at Worcester Cathedral, which post he held from about 1596 (the year before he married the widow of his predecessor) until 1646. As pointed out by Denis Stevens in his biography of Tomkins, the composer was very much a part of the Elizabethan “school” of composers although he outlived the others by decades and continued writing in the old style even as fashions were changing markedly during his mature and later years. The Musical Sources While all of the music on these records is available in print today, none was printed when it was composed. In fact there was very little keyboard music published in England at the time. Only two small collections (Parthenia and Parthenia In-violata) appeared in print, both in the 1610's. At a time when music printing flourished for vocal music, it seems strange that only a few dozen keyboard pieces appeared in print out of the hundreds that survive in manuscript or hand-written copies. The majority of the works on this recording can be found in a famous manuscript collection, The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, now available in an inexpensive two-volume paperback edition. The abbreviation FVB below refers to this source, with appropriate volume and page numbers. This collection is named for the museum housing it and contains about three hundred works - almost one half the total number of keyboard works surviving from the English Virginalist School. It was copied out, by Francis Tregian (d. 1619), apparently while he was in prison for politico-religious reasons. Other virginal books and manuscripts are mentioned below in those cases where a different source was used for the performance. Music not in The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book can be found easily in the scholarly editions of the keyboard works of individual composers in the Musica Britannica series (abbreviated MB below and followed by appropriate volume and page numbers); the music of Tomkins was edited by Stephen Tuttle, Gibbons by Gerald Hendrie, and Bull by Thurston Dart. The Music Side A - “Robin” refers to none other than the very Robin chased about by the Sheriff of Nottingham. The song upon which this set of varìations is based is sometimes referred to by the titles “My Robin is to the Greenwood Gone” or “Robin Hood is to the Greenwood Gone.” Giles Farnaby and William Byrd also wrote variations on this lovely song and called their works “Bonny Sweet Robin;” from this we can possibly learn one line of the tune (none are known for sure) since Shakespeare's Ophelia sings the line in Hamlet “for bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.” The sweet pastoral and melancholy mood that this line might suggest is also present in the graceful melody and in Munday's lightly frolicking varìations. “Loth am I to depart; O Music, sound my doleful plaints when I am gone away” says Damon as he departs in the old Damon and Pithias. The “Loth to Depart” is referred to in several contemporary plays and was customarily performed when friends took leave of one another. In his variations on the song, Farnaby avoids any contrapuntal complexities and uses simple ornamental figuration - for the invention of which he is particularly famous. What a contrast the reserved variations of Farnaby provide to the pastoral set of variations by Munday - but both more than likely quite in keeping with the mood of the original songs. Farnaby is represented in The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book by no fewer than ten fantasias - more than any other composer. According to Willi Apel this fantasia is “the most unified and on the whole successful fantasy” of the group; after the lively opening rhythmic section, echo effects, inherent in the music itself, are further brought out in this performance on the organ. To understand Bull`s “Gloria Tibi Trinitas” it is necessary to understand the concept of a cantus firmus, literally fixed song. Just as Shakespeare was wont to take a basic plot from another source and then imbue it with his own elaborations and character development, many Renaissance composers chose to take a song (or chant, or perhaps an invented melody) and set this in relatively long notes while weaving more active figuration and embellishment about these predetermined notes. In this work by Bull, the cantus firmus can be heard quite clearly in the long notes in the top voice, beginning with the pitches a, c, a, a, g, c, d, c. These notes are the beginning of the chant “Gloria tibi trinitas” and this particular chant has served as the cantus firmus for an enormous number of compositions - over one hundred pieces for lute or keyboard in the sixteenth century use it and it occurs in even more pieces for consorts of viols and other ensembles. Many of these pieces are titled “In nomine”, following the title which John Tavener used for a keyboard transcription of a mass section where the text “In nomine” happened to appear. The side ends with a monumental fantasia by Philips. He begins with a musical idea taken from another fantasia by William Byrd and subjects this to a wide variety of treatment in the course of the piece. This musical idea appears several times in the original note values (the entrances numbered 1 to 18 in the score); then, at just the point in this recording where the organ registration adds the bright mixture stops, the subject appears in diminution (or faster note values) and in stretto (or overlapping appearances of the subject). The third section (entrances numbered 28 to 31) is played on still another change of registration as the subject appears now in augmentation (or slower noie values). The work concludes with further use of diminution and stretto and a return to the original note values. Side B - The first use of these three works by Gibbons are brief but beautiful miniatures; hearing them in this highly reverberant organ performance makes it easy to imagine their use as interludes in a liturgical service. Indeed the “prelude” was undoubtedly so used since it is called “A Short Voluntary” in a different source (and “A Fancy" in still another). Despite the organ performance which seems so natural for these works, all three are performed as they appear in Benjamin Cosyn's Virginal Book. The third piece is a more expansive work, with considerable variety of expressive content within a prevailing quiet and serious mood that seems so typical of the music and musical personality of Gibbons. The term “ground” refers to the foundation of certain pieces; specifically, the ground bass (in Italian basso ostinato) is a musical phrase that is repeated continuously. Here the ground is the scalewise passage d, e, f, g, a, a, d, in alternating long and short note values. While it would be easy for the listener to “lock onto” the ground itself as it becomes more and more familiar through repetition, the interest and momentum of the piece is more in the figuration that accompanies the ground and weaves arabesques about it. “Miserere” seems to be another chant, like “Gloria tibi trinitas,” and is the cantus firmus Byrd uses in this piece. It is audible throughout the work even though it is “hidden” in the alto voice rather than in the more prominent melodic or bass voice. The collection concludes with a fantasia by Byrd. In the first section, which consists of twelve numbered, entries of the same “subject,” and the second, which is a little brighter, the music is nonetheless somewhat sober. Then a more cheerful section begins with a lively subject; this yields to an even more playful section with sharply articulated short and incisive ideas. A scalewise passage is added to the texture and the rhythms become more and more dancelike until the meter changes into the rollicking triple-time dance known as the corranto. In this section, the organ again brings out the many written echo effects. The brief concluding section consists mostly of flourishes in one hand with sustained chords in the other, bringing the fantasia to a brilliant close. The organ used is the 63-stop Schnitger at Zwolle, Holland. It was built in 1721, two years after the death of Arp Schnitger, by his two sons following in the footsteps of their illustrious father (whose work won such praise from J. S. Bach). The Zwolle Schnitger was chosen by Mr. Leonhardt as offering the best approximation, among accessible old instruments, of the sounds and ambience available to these composers. This marvelous reverberation must indeed be close to what Bull knew in Antwerp, Gibbons in Canterbury and Tomkins in Worcester. Notes by William Pepper