The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book

This landmark set gathers all seven volumes of Pieter-Jan Belder’s exhaustive exploration of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book in recordings spanning the current decade.

This landmark set gathers all seven volumes of Pieter-Jan Belder’s exhaustive exploration of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book in recordings spanning the current decade.

The Fitzwilliam Virginal book is one of the primary sources of keyboard music. The book, which is now housed in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, hails from the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods in England. + This release features excerpts from the Fitzwilliam Virginal book from composers including Giovanni Picchi, Orlando Gibbons, John Bull, William Bird, and more. + Dutch conductor, organist, and harpsichordist Ton Koopman performs the works on this album. He was knighted in 2003, receiving the Order of the Netherlands Lion, and is currently a professor at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.

All the music in this programme comes from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and most of it was collected by its founder, Richard, Seventh Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion (1745 – 1816). A polymath, lover of music, amateur composer and harpsichordist, musically active from about 1760 until his death, Fitzwilliam created a legacy of exceptional importance to English musical culture.

Renbourn's last solo album for the next six years overlaps with his Pentangle work, featuring Terry Cox playing hand drums and glockenspiel, with future John Renbourn band member Tony Roberts and violinist Dave Swarbrick. The repertory consists of medieval and early classical pieces, interspersed with the expected folk material…

Essential: a masterpiece of progressive folk music
Renbourn's last solo album for the next six years overlaps with his Pentangle work, featuring Terry Cox playing hand drums and glockenspiel, with future John Renbourn band member Tony Roberts and violinist Dave Swarbrick.

John Renbourn - The Lady And The Unicorn (1970). The Lady and the Unicorn is the 1970 solo album by British folk musician John Renbourn. Featuring Terry Cox playing hand drums and glockenspiel, with future John Renbourn band member Tony Roberts and violinist Dave Swarbrick. The repertory consists of medieval and early classical pieces, interspersed with the expected folk material - keyboard works from the Fitzwilliam virginal book (transcribed for guitar) stand alongside traditional tunes such as "Scarborough Fair," which turns up as part of an 11-minute track that also incorporates "My Johnny Was a Shoemaker," with Swarbrick at the top of his form on violin. The album is entirely instrumental, but as with other Renbourn releases, one hardly misses the vocals…