English melancholy and its Bards. Part 2

The English Virginalist School

Dec 17, 2024

My entry point to the music of the English Renaissance was Glenn Gould’s recordings of a few pieces by William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons. It was an entirely new soundworld to me, one of strange harmonies and stately elegance. I had to investigate further.

Cover art of Glenn Gould’s 1971 album *A Consort Of Musicke Bye William Byrde And Orlando Gibbons*

Byrd and Gibbons represent the English Virginalist School which refers to a group of composers of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods who wrote keyboard music. Keyboards of the time included virginals, muselars, clavichords, harpsichords and (chamber) organs. All of them, except for organs, have a similar mechanism: wire strings of various lengths plucked by plectra upon pressing of the keys. Virginals are box-shaped and have a smaller keyboard than harpsichords proper.

Clockwise from top left: virginal (source), muselar (source), clavichord (source), harpsichord (source).

Unlike fortepiano — a percussion instrument that was invented around 1700 — the harpsichord family of keyboards are plucked string instruments similar to lute and guitar.1 Since plucking always happens with the same strength, these instruments have a constant dynamic range, so you can’t play them softer or louder than the baseline in principle. But keyboardists can still mimic the dynamic capabilities of a piano through manipulations of time — with delays to convey softness and speeding up to imitate crescendo.

The art of playing harpsichord is to a large extent about the gap between the written and performed score. As the pianist Jeremy Denk writes in his autobiography Every Good Boy Does Fine:

…there is an important distinction between rhythms written on the page and the rhythms that you actually play. <…> A computer program can play back for you what’s mathematically written—it sounds horrible. The rhythms on the page of music, interpreted literally, are lifeless, or worse than lifeless, like a zombie. If you play metronomically 'right,' it is musically wrong. <…> Once a real person plays, though, a million small “errors” creep in. Certain notes come a bit sooner, others a bit later—microscopic deviations, handfuls of nanoseconds—and suddenly we have what is called, for lack of a better word, phrasing.

The performed rhythm is like a dance around the written rhythm, or a shading around it. This gap between written and performed is not a failing; it is the classical musician’s only hope of success. <…> the performer has two tasks: one is to do what’s written in the score—incredibly important; and the other, even more important, is to find everything that’s not.

What’s not found in the score is especially important in harpsichord music, where, absent dynamic capabilities, one can only rely on temporal devices to bring a piece to life.

Another peculiarity of the harpsichord family of keyboards is the relatively quick decay of sound from the plucked strings, compared to piano which can sustain sound through hammering of the strings and pedaling. This might be why Renaissance, and even moreso Baroque, keyboard music is so rich in ornament: thrills, mordents and the like are a way of extending the duration of sound that would otherwise decay too quickly. This is an example of an aesthetic choice influenced by technical limitations.

Works of EVS composers have reached us in several collections: Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, My Ladye Nevells Booke, The Mulliner Book and others. I’ll go over some of their most notable works below. These include not only keyboard music but also choral works and consort music.

Note: all links are from Apple Music (with a few exceptions of live recordings).

William Byrd (c. 1540–1623) is a composer to whom I owe one of the most transformative experiences of my life. In 2019 I attended a Groupmuse where a cello quartet played a selection of pieces ranging from Renaissance to Romanticism. The reason I decided to go to this concert was Byrd’s choral work Ave Verum Corpus whose cello quartet arrangement was in the program. As I was listening to it, I had a distinct feeling of something extraordinary happening, of the ground shifting under my feet, of an uncontainable awe welling up in my heart. I could not remain passive in response to this transfiguration, I had to do something about it. After some days of restlessness, I realized that I must start writing music myself. Byrd — and that cello quartet — are the reason I became a composer.

There’s a recording of this fateful performance on youtube, so you can perhaps relive it with me (I recommend listening to the original choral first).

Many of Byrd’s choral works are the fruit of his Catholic faith in a largely Protestant Elizabethan England. To her credit, Elizabeth I proclaimed, "I have no desire to make windows into men's souls”, and Byrd could practice his faith without major repercussions. But there’s an undercurrent of themes of persecution and martyrdom in his Cantiones Sacrae, possibly an expression of laments of the Catholic community. Byrd also wrote Anglican church service music which continued to be performed and built on after his death, unlike his Latin motets.

Choral works:

Keyboard works:

First Pavan and Galliard breath elegance and gentle melancholy, though perking up at times. The counterpoint in the last third of the First Pavan is an anticipation of Bach.

Tregian Ground is a stately, contemplative piece written as a theme and variations. I prefer slower recordings (Glenn Gould, Rachelle Taylor), I think it must not be rushed.

Recommended albums:

A Consort Of Musicke Bye William Byrde And Orlando Gibbons (Glenn Gould, piano) | Byrd: My Ladye Nevells Booke (Elizabeth Farr, harpsichord) | Byrd: Harpsichord Music (Aapo Hakkinen & Vernon Handley) | Contrapuntal Byrd (Colin Tilney, harpsichord) | William Byrd and John Bull: The Visionariest of Piano Music (Kit Armstrong, piano)| Byrd: Complete Harpsichord and Organ Music (Pieter-Jan Belder, harpsichord) | Byrd: Pavans & Galliards, Variations & Grounds (Daniel-Ben Pienaar, piano) | The Tallis Scholars Sing William Byrd | The Golden Renaissance: William Byrd (Stile Antico) | Byrd: Psalmes, Sonets, and Songs (The Consort of Musicke & Anthony Rooley) | Byrd 1589 (Fretwork, David Skinner & Alamire) | Byrd: Cantiones Sacrae (The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge & Richard Marlow)

Collections:

The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book Selections Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3 (David Ezra Okonşar, piano) | Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (Jovanka Marville, harpsichord) | Fitzwilliam Virginal Book Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 4, Vol. 5, Vol. 6, Vol. 7 (Pieter-Jan Belder, harpsichord) | Vox Virginalis: English Keyboard Music under the Tudor and Stuart Reigns (Rachelle Taylor, virginal & clavecin) | The Long 17th Century: A Cornucopia of Early Keyboard Music (Daniel-Ben Pienaar, piano)

Thomas Morley (1557–1602), a pupil of Byrd, mostly known for his madrigals and other choral works, which are excellent. Some of his keyboard pieces are in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.

Madrigals & choral works:

Keyboard works:

Fantasia | Galiarda | Irish Dumpe | Goe from My Window

Recommended albums:

Peter Philips (c. 1560–1628), like Byrd was a prolific Catholic composer but he left England for the continent at age 22. He wrote a lot of sacred music and keyboard works that are included in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.

Keyboard works:

Pavana Pagget & Galiarda | Amarilli di Julio Romano | Pavan in G (the “1580” Pavan) | Pavan & Galliard Dolorosa | Fantasy in D minor

Sacred choral music:

Recommended albums:

Philips: Cantiones Sacrae (The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge & Richard Marlow) | Philips: Motets and Madrigaux (Leonardo García Alarcón & Cappella Mediterranea)

John Bull (c. 1562–1628) wrote almost exclusively for keyboard.

Doctor Bull’s In Nomine a 3 (in 3 voices) is an exceptional piece where church bells can be vividly heard, with their slow swinging unfolding into a full-fledged peal and intricate clockwork-like collective pattern (I wrote more on the bell motifs in music here).

Keyboard works:

Recommended albums:

John Bull: Doctor Bull’s Good Night (Pierre Hantai) | Dr. Bull’s Jewel - Keyboard Music of John Bull (Kathryn Cok) | Basically Bull (Alan Feinberg)

Thomas Tomkins (c. 1572–1656), another pupil of Byrd and the last member of the Enlgish Virginalist School.

A Sad Pavan for These Distracted Times is a jewel of a piece, for all times.

Keyboard works:

A Sad Pavan for These Distracted Times (playlist) | Barafostus’ Dreame | A Grounde

Consort music:

Fantasia a 6 | In nomine a 3 | Fantasia a 3 | Pavan a 5

Choral works:

Music divine | When David heard | Then David mourned | Above the starrs my saviour dwells

Recommended albums:

Her Heavenly Harmony: Profane Music from the Royal Court (The Queen’s Six) | Thomas Tomkins: The Great Service | Thomas Tomkins: Above the Stars (Dame Emma Kirkby, Fretwork & Charles Daniels) | Thomas Tomkins: The Third Service - Anthems and Voluntaries (Choir of New College Oxford)

Orlando Gibbons (c. 1583–1625), one of the last members of the English Virginalist School and English Madrigal School, was Glenn Gould’s favorite composer, even before Bach. Gould referred to his works as “music of supreme beauty that lacks its ideal means of reproduction” but to me it is perfect — a most mature and noble expression of the spirit of the English Renaissance.

Keyboard works:

Choral works:

Out of the Deep | See, see, the Word is Incarnate | Magnificat (2nd Service) | Nunc dimittis (2nd Service) | The Silver Swan

Recommended albums:

Gibbons: Complete keyboard works (Daniel-Ben Pienaar, piano) | Orlando Gibbons - Fantasias and Cries (Fretwork) | Gibbons: Choral and Organ Music (Laurence Cummings, Oxford Camerata & Jeremy Summerly) | Gibbons: Madrigals and Motets, 1612 (The Consort of Musicke & Anthony Rooley)

There’s even a lute mode on harpsichord which can be configured with a buff stop that brings a strip of leather in contact with the strings, making the sound rounder and more mellow. Separately, there’s also lute-harpsichord, or lautenwerk, as a standalone instrument with gut strings (rather than metallic ones like in other harpsichords).

Banner image: Johannes Vermeer, Lady Seated at a Virginal (c.1670-72)

The Bass Line

Discussion about this post