Clement Matchett's Virginal Book

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 indications that reveal the contemporary treatment of phrasing and articulation. Moreover, the manuscript is unusual in that each piece bears the exact date of its copying.

Contents

The Manuscript

The manuscript consists of a small oblong quarto measuring some 15 by 19 centimetres. It is in excellent condition and retains its original binding formed from several sheets of rough paper folded, pasted and stitched to a strip of vellum to form the spine. The manuscript contains 32 leaves bearing two pairs of hand-ruled six-line staves on which are twelve short pieces written in a neat hand.

On the first of the two front flyleaves is the inscription: Clement Matchett ownes this booke 1613, with a table of contents on the verso. The second flyleaf bears a Guidonian hand figuring the Gamut. The end flyleaf bears some doggerel rhyme. The manuscript is precisely dated on the inside back cover: Iste liber per me Clement Matchett eiusdem possessorem compositus fuit in Anno Domini 1612/mense augustaneo/1612.

The manuscript is now in the collections of Panmure House in Aberdeen (Scotland), the seat of the Ramsays of Dalhousie, under catalogue number En 9448. It is possible that the manuscript found its way to Scotland through one Duncan Burnett (circa 1590-1651), a Glasgow musician whose own music book is also in the Panmure House collection, and who may have been related to another Duncan Burnett, physician of Norwich, birthplace of Clement Matchett himself.

The Author

Clement Matchett was born in Norwich, Norfolk, in 1593, the son of a schoolmaster. He attended a local school and was subsequently admitted a scholar of Caius College, Cambridge, where he may have studied law. From then on nothing more is known about him.

Contents

Most of the pieces are known from other sources, but numbers 3, 8 and 12 are unique to this manuscript, the last being the only known piece of keyboard music by John Wilbye:

  1. My Ladyes left hande (August 13, 1612)
  2. Nans thinge (August 13, 1612)
  3. Tille valle Monye growe (August 14, 1612)
  4. The whislinge Carman (Mr. Byrde, August 14, 1612)
  5. Mounsiers Allmayne (Mr. Byrde, August 16, 1612)
  6. Farwell delighte: Fortune my Foe (Mr. Byrde, August 19, 1612)
  7. The Ghoste (Mr. Byrde, August 20, 1612)
  8. My Choice I will not Change (Mr. Bull, August 24, 1612)
  9. Preludium (August 24, 1612)
  10. A Grownde (August 24, 1612)
  11. Pegge Ramsye [John Bull] (August 25, 1612
  12. The Frogge John Dowland, [set by] Mr. Willoughbye, August 25, 1612

See also

References

  • Clement Matchett's Virginal Book (1612). Transcribed and edited by Thurston Dart. Stainer & Bell, London, n.d.
  • [1] Edwards, W. Seventeenth-century Scotland: the musical sources. In Porter, J. (Eds) Defining Strains. The Musical Life of Scots in the Seventeenth Century, pages pp. 47-71. Bern: Peter Lang
  • [2] David J. Smith, Keyboard Music in Seventeenth-Century Scotland: Genre, Gender and Context

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Fitzwilliam Virginal Book — Le Fitzwilliam Virginal Book est le plus important recueil de musique pour le virginal ou le clavecin en Angleterre à la fin du XVIe siècle et au début du XVIIe siècle. Selon la tradition apocryphe le compilateur est Francis Tregian… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Fitzwilliam virginal book — Le Fitzwilliam Virginal Book est le plus important recueil de musique pour le virginal ou le clavecin en Angleterre à la fin du XVIe siècle et au début du XVIIe siècle. Selon la tradition apocryphe le compilateur est Francis Tregian… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • 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 bequeathed… …   Wikipedia

  • 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. Contents 1 History 2 Description 3… …   Wikipedia

  • The Mulliner Book — (British Library Additional Manuscript 30513[1]) 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… …   Wikipedia

  • Mulliner Book — Das Mulliner Book ist eine historisch wertvolle Sammlung von Stücken für Orgel oder andere Tasteninstrumente. Die Stücke wurden wahrscheinlich zwischen 1545 und 1570 von Thomas Mulliner gesammelt, von dem nur bekannt ist, dass er Organist des… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Virginals — Virginal redirects here. For other uses, see Virginal (disambiguation). Virginals Flemish virginals (Paris, Musée de la Musique). Note the inset keyboard placed left of centre. Classification Keyboard instrument Playing rang …   Wikipedia

  • 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 keyboard music of the renaissance.… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”