This exposition presents new insights into the liturgical soundscape of early seventeenth-century England. Through musicological, organological and practice-led enquiry, three fragmentary artefacts are brought together for the first time, establishing a new material context for performance practices of the period. This research has led to the reconstruction and publication of two rare pieces of English instrumental music with winds (partially preserved in Henry Loosemore's Organ Book, US-NYp MS Drexel 5469), enabling the first complete performances of these pieces for nearly 400 years, as heard in the illustrative recordings, below. The research process has also illuminated broader aspects of performance practices in seventeenth-century England, relating to pitch, key, and temperament, further demonstrating the value of practice-led research methods traditionally under-used in this field. It is suggested that the reader explore the critical edition and recordings first, before discovering more about the background research process in the extended essay.
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abstract
This exposition comprises a package of outputs from practice-led research around two unique pieces of instrumental music with winds from early seventeenth-century England. Along with the first critical performance edition and a world premiere recording of these two pieces, I present a detailed discussion of the investigation which informed the editorial process, focussing on three historical artefacts: MS Drexel 5469, the fragmentary source of the music in question; the Christ Church cornetts, two original instruments that may historically have been associated with performance of this type of repertoire; and the St Teilo organ, an instrument reconstructed after Tudor archaeological evidence and representative of the style of instrument in use when MS Drexel 5469 was compiled. I examine each artefact in turn, establishing the wider historical context of each and assessing the connections between all three. This process has not only shed new light on two pieces overlooked by historical performers until now, but raised important questions surrounding the performance of early-seventeenth century liturgical music in general.
- Helen Roberts - Reconstructing Verses by Henry Loosemore and John Coprario - 2020
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