Under the direction of Sir RICHARD RUNCIMAN TERRY
My Ladye Nevells Booke (William Byrd) played by RUDOLPH DOLMETSCH
(harpsichord)
The Marche before the Battell The Battell
The Galliarde for the Victorie
' It is safe to say that as a nation-even up to the present-we have no conception of what the whole world of music owes to William Byrd. His vocal compositions (Masses, Motets and Madrigals) are receiving a certain amount of belated recognition, but the statement that he was the pioneer of European keyboard music is--even in England-received with polite incredulity by all save a few students.
'Stripped of the " special pleading " of ill-equipped advocates, the fact remains that England has been an unmusical nation since the Restoration -unmusical in the sense that the art of music is no longer a necessity in her national life. " The Englishman likes music, but can get along perfectly well without it", is a saying which infuriates English highbrows and academics alike, but their irate description of it as a silly phrase is an unconscious tribute to its truth. People do not get angry at " silly " things.
' It was John Dunstable (an Englishman) who first gave form, structure and coherence to European choral music. It was William Byrd who first brought these qualities to European keyboard music. It was Byrd and his successors who gave Europe the " In nomine "-the earliest example of coherent music for strings. (No examples of the " In nomine " are to be found in any other European country.)
' Surely these three facts are subjects for national pride. It is encouraging to find that an increasing number of British citizens are beginning to be interested in these facts. Once you get a person interested in " the story " of anything, he is in a fair way to become interested in the thing itself.' R. R. T.
(An article on Lady Nevells Booke appears on page 12)