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› Byrd: Have with you to Walsinghame
Product Details
Price: $17.95
Composer:
Byrd, William
Arranger:
Taylor, David
Product Code: EN059
Instrumentation:
Brass Quintet
Byrd: Have with you to Walsinghame
A set of 22 lively variations plus coda by William Byrd (1543-1623) on the popular Elizabethan tune Have with you to Walsingham, which is used as a cantus firmus. These variations - originally for a keyboard instrument - appear in both of the two major extant collections of Virginalist repertoire - My Ladye Nevells Booke and the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, as numbers 31 and 68 respectively. The second of these sources also contains a fiendish set of variations on the same tune by John Bull. Tempo and dynamic markings are editorial.
It is important to note that, although the original ornamentation has been retained, the meaning of the symbols used has changed in the intervening centuries. There are two different ornaments used in Virginalist writing - respectively a single and a double stroke through the note-stem. These are identical to the modern symbols for subdivision of a note, but should not be confused with them. The single stroke is the simplest, though less common of the two - it implies a diatonic run-up to the note of two grace notes. The double stroke is a more flexible sign - it may be taken to be a mordent or reverse mordent, and may be extended to a number of repetitions if desired. However, it is perfectly permissible to omit any of these ornaments; indeed, the insertion of every single one marked by Byrd might not suit the taste of a modern listener, and the original performance practice was surely not overly fussy about such matters.
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