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. I am very happy to tell you that links to the sheet music (parts and scores) are being added! It is almost all housed on International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), although some are to be found elsewhere. The links appear as underlined boldface.
If you do not see a link to the sheet music of a piece you are interested in, Please leave me a message and I will see if I can track it down. Don't forget, though, you can easily print the sheet music directly from the MIDI file using MuseScore. See the blog entry on 7/6/2020 for the simple steps to do it. The first music periodical was written and published every two weeks by Georg Philipp Telemann for amateur musicians. Der getreue Music-Meister (The faithful music master) contained 70 compositions in 25 lessons of 4 pages each. Ever the practical business man, Telemann proclaims on the title page that Der getreue Music-Meister covers “all genres of music … for different voice parts and almost all common instruments”. Many of the pieces are designed to work on different instruments, and to keep people hooked, some were serialized across several issues! Telemann adds to the pleasure in his lessons with a number of character pieces: one of my favorites is the trio sonata TWV42:C1 in which several movements are named after a woman from classical civilization. If you can’t quite remember who Xanthippe, Lucretia, Clelia or Corinna are, you could perhaps guess something about them from Telemann’s lively musical depictions, but there’s no doubt when it comes to the final movement for Dido, in which a lament alternates with flickering flames of sixteenth notes. Here is what I found on Wikipedia about Dido: When the new city of Carthage had been established and become prosperous, Iarbas demanded Dido for his wife or he would make war on Carthage. Still, she preferred to stay faithful to her first husband and after creating a ceremonial funeral pyre and sacrificing many victims to his spirit in pretense that this was a final honoring of her first husband in preparation for marriage to Iarbas, Dido ascended the pyre, announced that she would go to her husband as they desired, and then slew herself with her sword. After this self-sacrifice Dido was deified and worshiped as long as Carthage endured. Yikes! Aeneas recounting the Trojan War to Dido, a painting by Pierre-Narcisse Guérin. This scene is taken from Virgil's Aeneid, where Dido falls in love with, only to be left by, the Trojan hero Aeneas.
I have rarely had the opportunity to play six-part viol music. The only time I can think of was at a workshop or two where there happened to be six players left over after everyone else had been assigned to a session. I do remember it was glorious!
Lately I have been playing through some of the six-part music because I know that even if we were not sheltering in place I would still not get many chances to read it. I have been finding it some of the most satisfying music, partly because of the inspired writing and partly because a large ensemble sounds so "orchestral"! Some of the composers that MIDI files of six-part fantasias and pavans can be downloaded here are: William Byrd Charles Coleman John Coprario Alfonso Ferrabosco II Orlando Gibbons John Jenkins Thomas Lupo Thomas Tomkins John Ward William White I have just posted the eight fantasias of 5 parts by Michael East. An interesting note about East, besides his individual style and ability to get his music into print, is that he named all his works! Because if this, the Viola da Gamba Society elected to not assign numbers to his works. The Roman numerals are those found in the printed editions.
If all works of a specific type by a composer have been posted, I have added the annotation (complete). For example, there are twelve known Fantasias à 6 by John Jenkins, so that is marked as (complete).
If you do not see this, you will know that other works of that type exist by that composer. For example, there are six duets for two alto recorders by Georg Philipp Telemann available here, but it is not marked as (complete), as there are at least twelve other duets that I know of. I would especially value hearing from you if you know of some additional works that I am unaware of! The practice of composing canzoni intended for instrumental ensembles began around 1570. The earliest instrumental canzoni were usually for four voices and typically consisted of clearly defined sections, organized in some repetitive pattern, such as ABCA or ABCDD. Imitative counterpoint was the order of the day, although chordal sections were occasionally used. I have posted several of these works for you to explore, namely the
As I noted in an earlier post, I have listed these as recorder music, but as with much of the music of this period, any quartet of instruments with suitable ranges will enjoy playing this lively music. After learning of Floriano Canale (1550-1603) I came across Adriano Banchieri (1568-1634). His “Canzoni alla francese a quattro voci” remind me a LOT of Gabrieli’s canzons. They are light-hearted and fun for everyone to play, as the parts are equally interesting.
Many of these pieces begin with the trademark of a canzona, namely a long-short-short motif on a single note. I present all eleven of his four-part canzons as recorder music, but as with much of the music of this period, any quartet of instruments with suitable ranges will enjoy playing this lively music. As it turns out, Adriano Banchieri was one of the most important and prolific musical figures in the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque periods. He came into contact with Gioseffo Guami during his stay at the monastery in Lucca in 1592. Guami had been a colleague of Giovanni Gabrielli at San Marco in Venice. The titles of some of these canzonas likely refer to surnames of individuals or families to whom Banchieri wanted to pay his respects. I have often wondered about the titles of some works I have encountered because they didn't translate into words of the language of the composer. Another mystery solved! The scoring of music in the Baroque period was rather fluid. Composers would often designate the instrumentation with weak nominations such as "two violins or the like". Anthony Rowland-Jones said it very well In the article "The baroque chamber-music repertoire" in The Cambridge Companion to the Recorder: "Playing the music well, in a lively, committed and persuasive manner, was more important than what instrument it was played on..."
In the early 17th century Venice was the center of the development of the canzona francese, so-called because its form was derived from the French chanson. In his Primo Libro delle Canzoni (1628), Frescobaldi said that his canzoni were "to be played by all sorts of musical instruments". The 17 Canzoni of Canale that I posted today are fine examples of this form and work well on recorders, so I present them as music for recroders, although a quartet of any instruments with suitable ranges will also enjoy exploring these works. |
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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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