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Priscilla Bunbury's Virginal Book is a musical commonplace book compiled in the late 1630s by two young women from an affluent Cheshire family. It is important more for its fingering indications than for the quality of the music it contains.
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Priscilla Bunbury's Virginal Book is a musical commonplace book compiled in the late 1630s by two young women from an affluent Cheshire family. It is important more for its fingering indications than for the quality of the music it contains.
The manuscript is an upright volume measuring 11.5 inches by 8 inches in a tooled leather binding. The front cover bears the words PRISCILLA BVNBURY in tooled lettering, and the back cover the initials PB. It contains thirty two-pages pre-ruled with six-line staves. There are thirty-five neatly written pieces of music, but the first and last pages, together with the pieces they bore, are missing. Apart from the music, there is a medicinal recipe and other scribblings. At least two different hands can be discerned. As of 2001, the manuscript was in a private collection in England.
The first owner of the book was Priscilla Bunbury (1615–1682), daughter of Sir Henry Bunbury of Little Stanney in Cheshire and his second wife Martha. The second owner was also a Priscilla Bunbury (c. 1675 – after 1707), daughter of Sir Thomas Bunbury, a grandson of Sir Henry and his first wife, and goddaughter of the first Priscilla.
Five pieces are attributed to Robert Hall, of whom nothing is known. Five are by Orlando Gibbons, and three by Randall Jewett, a member of the choir at Chester Cathedral and brother of the better-known Randolph Jewett, possibly a pupil of Orlando Gibbons. The entire "Battle" sequence by William Byrd is included as one piece (also found in My Ladye Nevells Booke). Twenty one of the pieces are not attributed.
Pieces 1-28, corresponding to the hand of the first Priscilla Bunbury, contain full fingering indications. As far as the right hand is concerned, these follow the modern system, with the thumb numbered "1" and the little finger "5". The system is however reversed for the left hand, where the little finger is numbered "1" and the thumb "5". It is evident that the author favoured the use of the third finger for the right hand and the third finger and thumb for the left hand on "strong" notes.
Thomas Robinson was an English Renaissance composer and music teacher, who flourished around 1600. He taught and wrote music for lute, cittern, orpharion, bandora, viol, and voice.
The virginals is a keyboard instrument of the harpsichord family. It was popular in Europe during the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods.
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 this manuscript collection to Cambridge University in 1816. It is now housed in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. The word virginals does not necessarily denote any specific instrument and might refer to anything with a keyboard.
Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls was, as the title states, the first printed collection of music for keyboard in England. 'Virginals' was a generic word at the time that covered all plucked keyboard instruments – the harpsichord, muselaar and virginals, but most of the pieces are also suited for the clavichord and chamber organ. Though the date is uncertain, it was probably published around 1612. The 21 pieces included are ascribed to William Byrd, John Bull, and Orlando Gibbons, in three sections.
My Ladye Nevells Booke 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 Renaissance keyboard music.
The Mulliner Book 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 modulator organorum (organist) of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He is believed to have previously resided in London, where John Heywood inscribed the title page of the manuscript Sum liber thomas mullineri / iohanne heywoode teste. A later annotation on the same page states that: T. Mulliner was Master of St Pauls school, but this has so far proved unsupportable. The provenance of the MS is unknown before it appears in the library of John Stafford Smith in 1776. After passing through the hands of Edward Francis Rimbault the MS was given to the British Museum in 1877 by William Hayman Cummings.
Elizabeth Rogers' Virginal Book is a musical commonplace book compiled in the mid-seventeenth century by a person or persons so far unidentified. Of all the so-called English "virginal books" this is the only one to mention the name of the instrument in the title, the others being so-called at a far later date.
The English Virginalist School usually refers to the English keyboard composers of the late Tudor and early Jacobean periods. The term virginalist does not appear to have been applied earlier than the 19th century. Although the virginals was among the most popular keyboard instruments of this period, there is no evidence that the composers wrote exclusively for this instrument, and their music is equally suited to the harpsichord, the clavichord or the chamber organ.
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.
Anne Cromwell's Virginal Book is a manuscript keyboard compilation dated 1638. Whilst the importance of the music it contains is not high, it reveals the sort of keyboard music that was being played in the home at this time.
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.
Walsingham was a popular Elizabethan ballad tune. There are various versions of the lyrics, which relate to a pilgrimage site, suppressed during the English Reformation.
"Will Yow Walke the Woods soe Wylde" is the title of a song from the Tudor era, popularly believed to have been a favourite of Henry VIII. The complete text of the song has not survived, but contained the short refrain:
"The Carman's Whistle" is a song of the Tudor era. The title refers to the occupation of "carman". Carmen were known for their habit of whistling, which according to William Chappell was effective in the management of horses. Risqué lyrics have survived including a version entitled "The Courteous Carman and the Amorous maid: Or, The Carman's Whistle".
The Huntes upp is a sixteenth century ballad attributed to William Gray.
The Susanne van Soldt Manuscript is a keyboard anthology dated 1599 consisting of 33 pieces copied by or for a young Flemish or Dutch girl living in London. Its importance lies mostly in the fact that it is the only known source of early Dutch keyboard music prior to Sweelinck.
Elizabeth Bacon was an English aristocrat. She is presumed to have been the Lady Neville of My Ladye Nevells Booke, an important manuscript of keyboard music by William Byrd, which was compiled in 1591. She was the daughter of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Nicholas Bacon, by his first wife, Jane Ferneley. She was, successively, the wife of Sir Robert D'Oylie, the courtier Sir Henry Neville, and the judge Sir William Peryam.
Parthenia Inviolata, or Mayden-Musicke for the Virginalls and Bass-Viol is the second book of keyboard music printed in England, containing twenty pieces scored for virginal and bass viol.
The Forrest-Heyther partbooks are a set of six manuscript partbooks copied in England in the sixteenth century. They are an important source of polyphonic Mass Ordinary settings by composers from the reign of Henry VIII, including John Taverner and Robert Fayrfax.