The English Virginalist School usually refers to the English
keyboard
Keyboard may refer to:
Text input
* Keyboard, part of a typewriter
* Computer keyboard
** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping
** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware
Music
* Musi ...
composers of the late
Tudor and early
Jacobean periods. The term virginalist does not appear to have been applied earlier than the 19th century. Although the
virginals
The virginals (or virginal) is a keyboard instrument of the harpsichord family. It was popular in Europe during the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods.
Description
A virginal is a smaller and simpler rectangular or polygonal form of ...
was among the most popular keyboard instruments of this period, there is no evidence that the composers wrote exclusively for this instrument, and their music is equally suited to the
harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
, the
clavichord
The clavichord is a stringed rectangular keyboard instrument that was used largely in the Late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras.
Historically, it was mostly used as a practice instrument and as an aid to compositi ...
or the
chamber organ
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...
.
The term is sometimes also applied to other northern European composers of this period, such as
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck ( ; April or May, 1562 – 16 October 1621) was a Dutch composer, organist, and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras. He was among the first major keyboard compo ...
and
Samuel Scheidt
Samuel Scheidt (baptised 3 November 1587 – 24 March 1654) was a German composer, organist and teacher of the early Baroque era.
Life and career
Scheidt was born in Halle, and after early studies there, he went to Amsterdam to study with ...
.
English virginalists
*
John Blitheman
*
John Bull
John Bull is a national personification of the United Kingdom in general and England in particular, especially in political cartoons and similar graphic works. He is usually depicted as a stout, middle-aged, country-dwelling, jolly and matter- ...
*
William Byrd
William Byrd (; 4 July 1623) was an English composer of late Renaissance music. Considered among the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he had a profound influence on composers both from his native England and those on the continent. He ...
*
Benjamin Cosyn Benjamin Cosyn (also ''Cosens'', ''Cousins'' or ''Cowsins''; c.1580 - c. 14 September 1653) was an English composer, organist and virginalist. He was organist of St Laurence's Church, Ludlow (1621 to 1622), Dulwich College (1622 to 1624) and Charte ...
*
Giles Farnaby
Giles Farnaby (c. 1563 – November 1640) was an English composer and virginalist whose music spans the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque period.
Life
Giles Farnaby was born about 1563, perhaps in Truro, Cornwall or near London. ...
*
Richard Farnaby
Giles Farnaby (c. 1563 – November 1640) was an English composer and virginalist whose music spans the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque period.
Life
Giles Farnaby was born about 1563, perhaps in Truro, Cornwall or near London. ...
*
Orlando Gibbons
Orlando Gibbons ( bapt. 25 December 1583 – 5 June 1625) was an English composer and keyboard player who was one of the last masters of the English Virginalist School and English Madrigal School. The best known member of a musical famil ...
*
Edmund Hooper
*
William Inglott
*
Thomas Morley
Thomas Morley (1557 – early October 1602) was an English composer, theorist, singer and organist of the Renaissance. He was one of the foremost members of the English Madrigal School. Referring to the strong Italian influence on the Englis ...
*
John Munday
*
Martin Peerson
Martin Peerson (or Pearson, Pierson, Peereson) (between 1571 and 1573 – December 1650 or January 1651 and buried 16 January 1651) was an English composer, organist and virginalist. Despite Roman Catholic leanings at a time when it was illegal n ...
*
Peter Philips
Peter Philips (also ''Phillipps'', ''Phillips'', ''Pierre Philippe'', ''Pietro Philippi'', ''Petrus Philippus''; ''c.''1560–1628) was an eminent English composer, organist, and Catholic priest exiled to Flanders. He was one of the greatest ke ...
*
Ferdinando Richardson
Ferdinando Richardson (also known as Sir Ferdinando Heyborne) (c. 1558–1618) was an English composer, musician, and courtier.
He was a pupil of Thomas Tallis, and various works for the keyboard by him survive in the manuscript collection know ...
*
Nicholas Strogers
*
William Tisdale
*
Thomas Tomkins
Thomas Tomkins (1572 – 9 June 1656) was a Welsh-born composer of the late Tudor and early Stuart period. In addition to being one of the prominent members of the English Madrigal School, he was a skilled composer of keyboard and consort mus ...
*
Thomas Weelkes
Thomas Weelkes (baptised 25 October 1576 – 30 November 1623) was an English composer and organist. He became organist of Winchester College in 1598, moving to Chichester Cathedral. His works are chiefly vocal, and include madrigals, anthe ...
Collections
*
The Mulliner Book
The Mulliner Book (British Library Add MS 30513) is a historically important musical commonplace book compiled probably between about 1545 and 1570, by Thomas Mulliner, about whom practically nothing is known, except that he figures in 1563 as '' ...
*
The Dublin Virginal Manuscript
The Dublin Virginal Manuscript is an important anthology of keyboard music kept in the library of Trinity College Dublin, where it has been since the 17th century under the present shelf-list TCD Ms D.3.29.
History
The Manuscript was probably pur ...
*
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 Renais ...
*
Susanne van Soldt Manuscript The Susanne van Soldt Manuscript is a keyboard anthology dated 1599 consisting of 33 pieces copied by or for a young Flemish or Dutch girl living in London. Its importance lies mostly in the fact that it is the only known source of early Dutch keybo ...
*
Fitzwilliam Virginal Book
The ''Fitzwilliam Virginal Book'' is a primary source of keyboard music from the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods in England, i.e., the late Renaissance and very early Baroque. It takes its name from Viscount Fitzwilliam who beque ...
*
Clement Matchett's Virginal Book
Clement Matchett's Virginal Book is a musical manuscript from the late renaissance compiled by a young Norfolk man in 1612. Although a small anthology, it is notable not only for the quality of its music but also for the precise fingering indicati ...
*
Parthenia (music)
''Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls'' was, as the title states, the first printed collection of music for keyboard in England. 'Virginals' was a generic word at the time that covered all ...
*
Priscilla Bunbury's Virginal Book
Priscilla Bunbury's Virginal Book is a musical commonplace book compiled in the late 1630s by two young women from an affluent Cheshire family. It is important more for its fingering indications than for the quality of the music it contains.
Th ...
*
Elizabeth Rogers' Virginal Book
''Elizabeth Rogers' Virginal Book'' is a musical commonplace book compiled in the mid-seventeenth century by a person or persons so far unidentified. Of all the so-called English "virginal books" this is the only one to mention the name of the inst ...
*
Anne Cromwell's Virginal Book
Anne Cromwell's Virginal Book is a manuscript keyboard compilation dated 1638. Whilst the importance of the music it contains is not high, it reveals the sort of keyboard music that was being played in the home at this time.
The manuscript
The ...
See also
*
Virginals
The virginals (or virginal) is a keyboard instrument of the harpsichord family. It was popular in Europe during the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods.
Description
A virginal is a smaller and simpler rectangular or polygonal form of ...
*
References
Sources
*
Further reading
*Charles Van den Borren, ''Les origines de la musique de clavier en Angleterre'', Brussels, 1912 (Reprint : Louvain, 1979)
*Walter Niemann, ''Die Virginalmusik'', Leipzig, 1919
*Margaret Glyn, ''About Elizabethan Virginal Music and its Composers'', London, 1924 (revised 1934)
*R.L. Adams, ''The Development of Keyboard Music in England during the English Renaissance'', Diss., University of Washington, 1960
*
Willi Apel
Willi Apel (10 October 1893 – 14 March 1988) was a German-American musicologist and noted author of a number of books devoted to music. Among his most important publications are the 1944 edition of '' The Harvard Dictionary of Music'' and ''Fre ...
, ''The History of Keyboard Music to 1700'', Indiana University Press, 1972, p. 156–164, 253–258, 278–287, 293–323.
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English Renaissance
Renaissance composers
Stuart England