Organ music of the Tudor period

While Elizabethan music for keyboard instruments by composers such as Byrd, Gibbons, Farnaby and Bull has found its way into the concert repertoire, the extensive corpus of surviving organ music from the Tudor period, composed around 1520-1560, has hardly ever been heard. With two volumes Early Tudor Organ Music the editors John Caldwell (*1938) and Danis Stevens had already made the essential sources for this - primarily MS 29996 held in the British Library - available for practical use in 1966 in a pioneering achievement. Almost 60 years later, a magnificent two-volume new edition of this repertoire has now been published, again edited by Caldwell, which meets the latest scholarly standards and the current state of scholarship in every respect.

It is exclusively liturgical music, which was performed in connection with the Sarum Use practised form of Gregorian chant, but also with polyphonic "faburdens" (some of which are printed in the appendix) or "composed" vocal movements alternatim: Versettas for hymns, antiphons, for the Te Deum or the Magnificat as well as for the Ordinary of the Mass. An extensive preface provides a wealth of information on performance practice, Tudor organ building, the composers (the best known, alongside many Anonymi, are probably Thomas Tallis, Thomas Preston and John Redford) as well as editorial and source-critical questions.

The more than 100 pieces - each introduced by detailed critical reports, explanations and indications of the vocal models - provide an insight into a world of sound that at first seems somewhat strange, characterized by a strict setting and fascinating rhythmic complexity. If you would like to find out more about the tonal realization, you will find a number of new recordings online (including on the few instruments of this period that have been reconstructed to date) as well as liturgical and musicological "re-enactments" of church services from this period, e.g. as part of the "Experience of Worship" research project at Bangor University.

Conclusion: Anyone wishing to study this largely unknown repertoire in depth will find here a publication that meets the highest standards and whose high price is justified by the extraordinarily careful preparation of the two volumes.

Early Tudor Organ Music, Vol. 1 and 2, ed. by John Caldwell, (Early English Church Music Vol. 65/66), EECM65/EECM66, 246/210. p., £ 100/85, Stainer & Bell, London 2024