News
5 April 2021
Following the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book edition published last year, the new version of My Lady Nevell’s Book is now available via lyrebirdmusic.com/shop/. A video about the project is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg5zzptjQtc
6 March 2021
Carrying on from the complete Fitzwilliam Virginal Book recital series, I've now performed all of the keyboard and organ music by Tallis, Byrd, Farnaby, Morley, Philips and Gibbons, as well as the smaller number of surviving works by Aston, Blithemann, Carlton, Hooper, Inglott, Johnson, Marchant, Mundy, Peerson, Redford, Richardson, Strogers, Tisdall, Warrock and Weelkes. That has also included playing the complete My Lady Nevell’s Book, Mulliner Book, Tisdale’s Virginal Book, Clement Matchett’s Virginal Book, the Dublin Virginal Manuscript, Parthenia and Parthenia Inviolata. Once Tomkins and the rest of Bull are done in the next couple of years, that’s the attributed virginalist corpus finished, which will be a first.
14 November 2020
The publications list at formal-methods-in-musicology.webnode.com/projects/ has been updated, and now shows eight articles. The related book will be finished next summer.
3 November 2020
The complete 1350-page Fitzwilliam Virginal Book edition, which Jon Baxendale and I have been working on for over a year, is now published, and available via lyrebirdmusic.com/. A video about the project is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd3zw2D_NQo
16 October 2020
Sunday saw the last of 21 recitals of the complete keyboard works of Bach, which has taken 3 1/2 years and involved learning some 300,000 notes. This was the first ever complete series of these works on the clavichord, and the project also generated about a dozen conference papers and articles related to organology, stylistic development and performance practice.
11 October 2020
The Clavichord Discography has just been published, and available from https://www.jackspipesandhammers.co.uk/product/clavichord-discography/. It lists 250 performers, 350 composers and almost a century of recordings, and represents three decades of work collecting information.
21 September 2020
The final concert of the complete Byrd keyboard works took place yesterday, using both chamber organ and spinet, and including all his music not in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book or My Lady Nevell's Book - some wonderful pieces that are hardly ever played. That completes Tallis, Byrd and Farnaby; next, to finish Bull and Gibbons.
24 December 2019
Sunday saw the latest in a series of 20th and 21st century music for clavichord, with a programme from the US, all of which were UK premieres. This will be followed by another programme of new British music, then one of German repertoire.
21 October 2019
After more than ten years and 30 concerts, I've now performed the complete Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, on Italian harpsichord, Flemish harpsichord, Italian virginals, Flemish virginals, spinet, ottavino, clavichord, chamber organ and church organ. Yesterday's final concert of Byrd was back at the Fitzwilliam Museum itself, where the first concert took place, with the manuscript on display in the next room.
27 May 2019
A recital of Chopin on clavichord: this is by no means a new idea (Judith Conrad, Anna Maria McElwain and Wim Winters have done it, and there are some recordings on YouTube), but I thought to try it out too, on the basis that clavichords were still being made and used into the 1840s, and that some selected Chopin piano pieces (Mazurkas, Preludes, Waltzes) are of the right range - and can dispense with the sustaining pedal to a sufficient extent - to make it work. Result: success. A related article about the project appeared in Tangents in the US.
16 March 2019
As a break from the ongoing FVB, Bach and German clavichord series, there was a concert last week at Hughes Hall, Cambridge, which was a century-long survey of modern clavichord music, likely the first time that has ever been done. As well as Seiber, Berkeley and Howells, there were a fair number of second performances, and world premieres of music by Alan Bullard, Barry Guy and Alexander Blustin.
25 November 2018
The 350th Anniversary marathon of Couperin’s complete keyboard works on 10 November went very well indeed, with some exceptional performances; special thanks to Jonathan Hellyer Jones, Aline Zylberajch and Mark Kroll, who stepped in with extra ordres to cover an indisposed player. The website couperin2018.webnode.com/ has been updated to a legacy version, with performer biographies and event photos.
23 June 2018
As part of the usual May Week recital series at Jesus College, there was a rare programme of music for three harpsichords, where I was joined by Edward Lilley and Dan Tidhar, for a programme including the premiere of a new version of Vulcan Chess (2018) by Mark Bellis, the Superlocrian Trio by David W. Solomons (2012, world premiere) and Edwin McLean's Sonata for three harpsichords (1998, UK premiere). The Bach pieces included the Ricercar a6 (from The Musical Offering, BWV 1079) and my new arrangement of Brandenburg Concerto No.3.
21 October 2017
Two recent projects with CNM colchesternewmusic.com/ have taken us musically from the1960s to just last week, with concerts performing new works constructed using mathematical patterns at colchesternewmusic.com/2017/08/11/new-structures-in-composition-concert-16-sept-2017/ and a survey of modern American harpsichord duets. There was also a workshop testing out some passages from new duets created as a result of the ongoing Call for Scores with CNM colchesternewmusic.com/calls-for-scores/call-for-scores-harpsichord-duets/.
30 April 2017
The website for the Louis Marchand 350th Anniversary is now up at marchard-2018.webnode.com/.
16 March 2017
The Formal Methods in Musicology website now online at formal-methods-in-musicology.webnode.com/.
24 February 2017
The first NEMA Newsletter contains an interview with Peter Holman, articles by Christopher Page, Claudio di Veroli, Mark Windisch and Alexander Blustin, and a full listings section, with Composer anniversaries, News, Obituaries, Early Music Fora events, Publications, Research reports, Conferences and Festivals. It is accessible free online at www.earlymusic.info/newsletters.htm.