Reconstructing Verses by Henry Loosemore and John Coprario

Helen Roberts

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.

Back

Bibliography:

Dart, Thurston, ‘Henry Loosemore’s Organ-Book’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 3 (1960), pp. 143–51.

Locke, Matthew, The present practice of musick vindicated against the exceptions and new way of attaining musick lately publish'd by Thomas Salmon, M.A. (London: John Playford, 1673).

Nelson, Alan H., ed., Cambridge 2: Editorial Apparatus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989).

Roberts, Helen, ed., English Music for the Cornett: Two Verses from MS Drexel 5469 (Frome: Septenary Editions, 2020).

———, ‘Wind Instruments in Provinical English Cathedrals c.1580–c.1680: Towards a Performance Practice’ (PhD, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, 2020).

Savan, Jamie, and Ricardo Simian, ‘CAD modelling and 3D printing for musical instrument research: the Renaissance cornett as a case study’, Early Music, 42 (2014), pp. 537–44.

Schlick, Arnolt, Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Organisten (Mainz: 1511).

Smart, Peter, A short treatise of altars, altar-furniture, altar-cringing, and musick of all the quire, singing-men and choristers, when the holy Communion was administered in the cathedrall church of Durham (London: 1643).

Virgiliano, Aurelio, Il Dolcimelo d’Aurelio Virgiliano dove si contengono variati, passaggi, e diminutioni cosi per voce, come per tutte sorte d’instrumenti musicali; con loro accordi, e modi de sonare (c. 1600).

Bicknell, Stephen, The History of the English organ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Clark, J. Bunker, Transposition in Seventeenth Century English Organ Accompaniments and the Transposing Organ (Detroit: Information Coordinators, Inc., 1974).

Crosby, Brian, ‘The Choral Foundation of Durham Cathedral, c.1350–c.1650’ (doctoral thesis, Durham University, 1993).

Dalla Casa, Girolamo, Il vero modo di diminuir… (Venice: Gardano, 1584).

Goetze, Martin, and Dominic Gwynn, ‘A convenyance of a pair of organs, Holy Trinity Church, Coventry, 1526’, BIOS Journal, 9 (1985), pp. 40–41.

Gwynn, Dominic, ‘The Early English Organ Project’, Organ building, 2 (2002), pp. 70–77.

———, ‘A New Pre-Reformation Organ for the Church of St Teilo’, in Late Medieval Liturgies Enacted: The experience of worship in cathedral and parish church, ed. by Sally Harper, P. S. Barnwell and Magnus Williamson (London: Routledge, 2017).

Harper, Sally, P. S. Barnwell, and Magnus Williamson, eds., Late Medieval Liturgies Enacted: The experience of worship in cathedral and parish church (London: Routledge, 2017).

Haynes, Bruce, A History of Performing Pitch (Oxford: Scarecrow Press, 2002).

Herissone, Rebecca, Music theory in seventeenth-century England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

Hookes, Nicholas, AMANDA, A SACRIFICE To an Unknown GODESSE, OR, A Free-will Offering Of a loving Heart to a Sweet-Heart (London: Humphrey Tuckey, 1653).

Johnstone, Andrew, ‘“As It Was in the Beginning”: Organ and Choir Pitch in Early Anglican Church Music’, Early Music, 31 (2003), pp. 507–25.

Krummel, Donald William, ‘Venetian Baroque music in a London bookshop: Martin’s catalogues 1633–50’, in Music and Bibliography: essays in honour of Alec Hyatt King, ed. by Oliver Neighbour (London: Bingley, 1980), pp. 1–27.

Parrott, Andrew, ‘Falsetto Beliefs: The ‘Countertenor’ Cross-Examined.’, in Composers' Intentions?: Lost Traditions of Musical Performance (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2015), pp. 46–121.

Payne, Ian, The provision and practice of sacred music at Cambridge colleges and selected cathedrals, c.1547—c.1646 : a comparative study of the archival evidence (New York, London: Garland, 1993).

Savan, Jamie, ‘Unlocking the Mysteries of the Venetian Cornett: ad imitar piu la voce humana’, Historic Brass Society Journal, 28 (2016), pp. 31–55.

———, ‘Revoicing a ‘choice eunuch’: The cornett and historical models of vocality’, Early Music, 46 (2018), pp. 561–78.

Acknowledgments:

I am grateful to Jamie Savan, Dominic Gwynn, Christopher Dingle, Graham Sadler, and Caroline Ritchie for reading drafts of this exposition and the critical edition it accompanies. I would also like to thank Oliver Webber, Sue Addison, Robin Bigwood, and Tim Gander for their contributions to the recording session, and for helping bring this research off the page.

Tip

Tip