My Ladye Nevells Booke
My Ladye Nevells Booke (British Library MS Mus. 1591) is a music manuscript containing keyboard pieces by the English composer William Byrd, and, together with the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, one of the most important collections of Renaissance keyboard music.
Description
My Ladye Nevells Booke consists of 42 pieces for keyboard by William Byrd, widely considered[1] one of the greatest English composers of his time. Although the music was copied by John Baldwin, a singing man from St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, who was also paid for copying music at the chapel in the 1580s,[2] the pieces seem to have been selected, organised and even edited and corrected by Byrd himself.
A heavy, oblong
History
John Harley has established the dedicatee as
The date of the manuscript however leaves no doubt, as it was signed as completed by the scribe John Baldwin in Windsor with the following colophon:
finished & ended the leventh of September in the yeare of our lorde god 1591 & in the 33 yeare of the raigne of our sofferaine ladie Elizabeth by the grace of god queene of Englande etc, by me Jo. Baldwine of windsore.
laudes deo.
Baldwin was a fervent admirer of Byrd: at the end of the fourth galliard he noted: "mr. w. birde. homo memorabilis",[5] and in his commonplace book,[6] he wrote a poem praising Byrd, "whose greate skill and knowledge doth excelle all at this tyme / and farre to strange countries abroade his skill dothe shyne"[7]
Elizabeth Neville must have been closely associated with Byrd, whether as pupil or patron is not known, but the book was most probably a gift to her. She lived principally at
Contents
(Spelling as in the score's pages or in the index – there are some minor differences.)
- my ladye nevells grownde
- Qui paſse: for my ladye nevell
- the marche before the battell
- the battell
- the souldiers sommons
- the marche of footemen
- the marche of horsemen
- the trumpetts
- the Irishe marche
- the bagpipe and the drone
- the flute & the drõme
- the marche to the fighte – tantara tantara – the battels be ioyned
- The retreat
- the galliarde for the victorie
- the barlye breake
- the galliard gygg
- the huntes upp
- vt re mi fa sol la
- the first Pavian
- the galliarde to the same
- the seconde pavian
- the galliarde to the same
- the third pavian
- the galliarde to the same
- the fourth pavian
- the galliarde to the same
- the fifte pavian
- the galliarde to the same
- the sixte pavian [Kinbrugh Goodd]
- the galliarde to the same
- the seventh pavian
- the eighte pavian
- the nynthe pavian [the Passinge Mesures]
- the galliarde to the same
- the voluntarie lesson
- will you walk the woods soe wylde
- the maydens songe
- a lesson of voluntarie
- the seconde grownde
- have wt you to walsingame
- all in a garden greene
- lthe:lo:willobies welcome home
- the carmans whistle
- hughe ashtons:grownde
- A fancie – for my ladye nevell
- sellingers rownde
- munsers almaine
- the tennthe pavian: mr:w:peter
- the galliarde to the same
- A fancie
- A voluntarie
With the exception of the two pieces dedicated to Lady Nevell, the compositions were evidently neither created specifically for the book, nor for the dedicatee, but are representative of some of Byrd's work of the ten to fifteen previous years. The tenth
The naive battell was supposedly written after the
The
Recordings
Complete recordings of the music in the booke have been made by harpsichordists Christopher Hogwood, Pieter-Jan Belder, and Elizabeth Farr. Davitt Moroney's recording of the complete keyboard works of William Byrd includes all these pieces.[9] Some pieces, including "Sellingers Rownde" and "Hughe Ashtons Grownde", have been recorded by Glenn Gould on piano.
Notes
- ^ The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edition (29 volumes, 2001)[page needed]
- ^ Hilary Gaskin, "Baldwin and the Nevell hand" in Byrd Studies (Cambridge University Press 1992), 159–173
- ^ Harley 2005, p. 4; Tittler 1976, p. 153.
- ^ Harley 2005, pp. 4–7.
- ^ My Ladye Nevells Booke 1969, p. 75.
- ^ Baldwin Commonplace Book (ca. 1580–1606), GB-Lbl RM 24 d. 2
- ^ Fellowes 1948, p. 238
- ^ British Library MS Mus. 1591 with an introduction by Oliver Neighbour (Kassel, Bärenreiter, 2012)
- ^ Weatherburn 1999
References
- Harley, John (2005). "'My Ladye Nevell' Revealed". .
- Tittler, Robert (1976). Nicholas Bacon; The Making of a Tudor Statesman. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press.
- Fellowes, Edmund Horace (1948). William Byrd (2nd (reprint) ed.). Oxford University Press.
- Andrews, Hilda, ed. (1969). My Ladye Nevells Booke of Virginal Music. New York: ISBN 0-486-22246-2.
- Weatherburn, Robert (1999). "William Byrd: The Complete Keyboard Music. Davitt Moroney Playing: Harpsichords, Muselar Virginal, Chamber Organ, Clavichord, Ahrend Organ of l'Eglise-Musee Des Augustins in Toulouse". Musical Opinion. Musical Opinion Ltd. Archived from the original on 31 March 2002. Retrieved 25 November 2014.[verification needed]
Further reading
- ISBN 0-571-10055-4.
External links
- My Ladye Nevells Booke, digitised version at the British Library
- My Ladye Nevells Booke: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project