Early on I elected to divide the files into two broad categories: music written for Viola da Gamba and that written for Recorder. I ran into trouble with the music that was not specific about the instrumentation (Gabrieli and Holborne, for examples). It seemed like a reasonable choice to put those works in the Recorder catagory, at least for now.
Georg Philip Telemann is something of a speical case, as he wrote a lot of music for both instruments, sometimes together! Due his stature (at least in my eyes) I have decided to have two pages for the music of Telemann, one in each catagory. For the most part the works listed on each of these pages are unique, but there will necessarily be a few that appear on both pages. This was done intentionally, as I wanted to insure that they would be found no matter which catagory a visitor was interested in.
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The Pavans, Galliards, Almains and other short Aeirs, both grave and light, in five parts, for Viols, Violins, or other Musicall Winde Instruments was published in 1599 and consisted of 65 of his own compositions. It is the largest surviving collection of its kind. Most are pavan-galliard pairs, with the other pieces being of the allemande style.
This collection constitutes the only known dance ensemble music by Holborne. For the most part all his other works are for solo lute, cittern and bandora. The size of the collection and the quality of the part-writing makes this publication a milestone in the development of English chamber music. The only other publication of the period that can be compared with it is John Dowland's Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares published in 1604 and consisting of 21 pieces (the MIDI files for all of them are also available on this site). Dowland's musical debt to Holborne may be heard in the frequent echoes of musical motifs throughout his collection, and also in his style of five-part writing, but most obviously in his funeral pavan, Sir Henry Umpton's Funeral which is entirely based on the Holborne Funerals. Both composers enjoyed close contacts with literary circles at court--Dowland via Lucie Russell, Countess of Bedford, and Holborne via Mary Sidney, a leading intellectual, poetess, and patroness of Edmund Spenser. These literary connections can easily be discerned in Dowland's work -- after all his 88 songs use some of the finest lyric poetry of the period -- but Holborne's connections are less obvious, for only one song of his survives (My heavie sprite, oppress'd with sorrow's might, No. 1 of A Musicall Banquet, 1610). Holborne's literary interests are hidden in his instrumental works, and specifically in their epigrammatic and mystifying titles. Little by little it is being discovered that each fanciful title connects with specific poetry or prose. Some of the titles that are known to link with literature in this way include Paradizo, which refers to Mary Sidney's publication of her brother Philip's Arcadia in 1593; and The Sighes to the same lady's anguish on the untimely death of her brother. The Funerals, written for the Countess of Pembroke (Mary Sidney), is an instrumental elegy on the deaths of her father, mother and brother, all in the year 1586. It may be that Pavana Ploravit also refers to Mary's weeping over the same tragedy, or the title may refer to the use in this pavan of the opening four-note motif, the tear-motif, linked indissolubly with Dowland's Lachrimae. Even the lighter works, the, two corantos that conclude Holbome's publication, belong to the August eclogue of Edmund Spenser's The Shepheardes Calendar,1579. The shepherds, Perigot and Willye meet and decide to have a singing match (a rustic game immortalized in the Idylls of Theocritus). Each shepherd sings a line, answered by the other. One begins 'As it fell on a holie eve', and the other replies 'Heigh Ho Holiday' and so their contest proceeds. Perhaps Holborne's rustic jigs embody the tunes that Spenser's shepherds sang. Not all of these enigmatic titles have yet revealed their specific meaning; some may refer to such private exchanges that their meanings are lost forever. This material was taken from the article about Holborne on the Here Of A Sunday Morning website. Once you have loaded a MIDI file into MuseScore, pressing the space bar will start/stop playback. For more playback controls, turn on the Play Panel. Just press F11, or do the following:
There are three sliders in the center; move them up and down to control the
Below the Metronome slider are two buttons. The left button will add a count-in measure (very cool!), and the right button will turn on/off the metronome during playback. Additionally, you can use the Position slider at the top to quickly move through the file, and below it are the rewind, play/stop buttons. The next three buttons allow you to set start/end points for looping a section of the music. |
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Formerly a successful software engineer and then Mathematics instructor, I am now retired and keep busy as an amateur musician of early music. Archives
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