English keyboard music reached an unsurpassed level of sophistication in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries as organists such as William Byrd and his students took a genre associated with domestic, amateur performance and treated it as seriously as vocal music. This book draws together important research on the music, its sources and the instruments on which it was played. There are two chapters on instruments: John Koster on the use of harpsichord during the period, and Dominic Gwynn on the construction of Tudor-style organs based on the surviving evidence we have for them. This leads to a section devoted to organ performance practice in a liturgical context, in which John Harper discusses what the use of organs pitched in F may imply about their use in alternation with vocal polyphony, and Magnus Williamson explores improvisational practice in the Tudor period. The next section is on sources and repertoire, beginning with Frauke Jürgensen and Rachelle Taylor’s chapter on Clarifica me Pater settings, which grows naturally out of the consideration of improvisation in the previous chapter. The next two contributions focus on two of the most important individual manuscript sources: Tihomir Popović challenges assumptions about My Ladye Nevells Booke by reflecting on what the manuscript can tell us about aristocratic culture, and David J. Smith provides a detailed study of the famous Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. The discussion then broadens out into Pieter Dirksen’s consideration of a wider selection of sources relating to John Bull, which in turn connects closely to David Leadbetter’s work on Gibbons, lute sources and questions of style.

Keyboard Music Before 1700 begins with an overview of the development of keyboard music in Europe. Then, individual chapters by noted authorities in the field cover the key composers and repertory before 1700 in England, France, Germany and the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain and Portugal. The book concludes with a chapter on performance practice, which addresses current issues in the interpretation and revival of this music.

Research in the field of keyboard studies, especially when intimately connected with issues of performance, is often concerned with the immediate working environments and practices of musicians of the past. An important pedagogical tool, the keyboard has served as the ’workbench’ of countless musicians over the centuries. In the process it has shaped the ways in which many historical musicians achieved their aspirations and went about meeting creative challenges. In recent decades interest has turned towards a contextualized understanding of creative processes in music, and keyboard studies appears well placed to contribute to the exploration of this wider concern. The nineteen essays collected here encompass the range of research in the field, bringing together contributions from performers, organologists and music historians. Questions relevant to issues of creative practice in various historical contexts, and of interpretative issues faced today, form a guiding thread. Its scope is wide-ranging, with contributions covering the mid-sixteenth to early twentieth century. It is also inclusive, encompassing the diverse range of approaches to the field of contemporary keyboard studies. Collectively the essays form a survey of the ways in which the study of keyboard performance can enrich our understanding of musical life in a given period.

Research in the field of keyboard studies, especially when intimately connected with issues of performance, is often concerned with the immediate working environments and practices of musicians of the past. An important pedagogical tool, the keyboard has served as the ‘workbench’ of countless musicians over the centuries. In the process it has shaped the ways in which many historical musicians achieved their aspirations and went about meeting creative challenges. In recent decades interest has turned towards a contextualized understanding of creative processes in music, and keyboard studies appears well placed to contribute to the exploration of this wider concern. The nineteen essays collected here encompass the range of research in the field, bringing together contributions from performers, organologists and music historians. Questions relevant to issues of creative practice in various historical contexts, and of interpretative issues faced today, form a guiding thread. Its scope is wide-ranging, with contributions covering the mid-sixteenth to early twentieth century. It is also inclusive, encompassing the diverse range of approaches to the field of contemporary keyboard studies. Collectively the essays form a survey of the ways in which the study of keyboard performance can enrich our understanding of musical life in a given period.

Covers every aspect of the harpsichord and its music, including composers, genres, national styles, tuning, and the art of harpsichord building.

Authorship is a pertinent issue for historical musicology and musicians more widely, and some controversies concerned with major figures have even reached wider consciousness. Scholars have clarified some of the issues at stake in recent decades, such as the places of borrowing and arranging in the creative process and the wider cultural significance of these practices. The discovery of new sources and methodologies has also opened up opportunities for reassessing specific authorship problems. Drawing upon this wider musicological literature as well as insights from other disciplines, such as intellectual history and book history, this book aims to build on what has already been achieved by focussing on keyboard music. The nine chapters cover case studies of authorship problems, the socioeconomic conditions of music publishing, the contributions of composers, arrangers, copyists and music publishers in creating notated keyboard compositions, the functions of attribution and ascription, and how the contexts in which notated pieces were used affected concepts of authorship at different times and places.