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The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book
Compact Disc 2
John Bull 1562/3–1628
Volume 4 Compact Disc 1
68’27
Giles Farnaby c.1563–1640 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Farmers Pavan CCLXXXVII (MB 19) Galliarda CCLXIX (MB 20) Fantasia CCXXXVI (MB 3) Mal Sims CCLXXXI (MB 37) Pavana XXXIX Rob. Johnson, sett by Giles Farnabie (MB 14) Meridian Alman CCXCI (MB 24) A Maske CXCVIII (MB 31) Quodlings Delight CXIV (MB 42) Fantasia CCXXXII (MB 8) A Maske CCIX (MB 33) Wooddy-Cock CXLI (MB 40) Fantasia CCXXXVII (MB 12) Giles Farnabys Dreame CXCIV (MB 50) His Rest Galiard CXCV (MB 51) Farnabyes Conceit CCLXXIII (MB 52) His Humour CXCVI (MB 53) Fantasia CCXXXI (MB 6) Rosasolis CXLIII (MB 47) Lachrimae Pavan CCXC (MB 16) A Toye CCLXX (MB 28) A Maske CXCIX (MB 32) Tell mee Daphne CCLXXX (MB 43) Loth to Depart CCXXX (MB 41) For Two Virginals LV (MB 25)
64’38
5’41 1’37 4’00 1’33 4’27 1’40 2’31 2’37 6’18 1’40 6’16 3’59 1’21 0’50 0’52 1’29 3’12 2’29 7’05 1’10 1’30 1’25 3’23 1’09
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Pavana of my L.[ord] Lumley XLI (MB 129a) Galliarda to my L.[ord] Lumley’s Pavan XI (MB 129b) Praeludium CCX (MB 84) Fantasia CVIII (MB 10) Pavana CXXXVI (66a) Galliarda CXXXVII (66b) Pavana (Fantastic Pavan) XXXIV (MB 86a) Galiard to the Pavan XXXV (MB 86b) Prelude CXCII (MB 119) Ut re mi fa sol la LI (MB 17) St Thomas Wake XXXVI (MB 126) The Duke of Brunswicks Alman CXLII (MB 93) (MB 93) Pipers Galiard CLXXXII (MB 89a) Variatio Ejusdem CLXXXIII (MB 89b) The Quadran Pavan XXXI (MB 127a) Variation of the Quadran Pavan XXXII (MB 127b) Galiard to the Quadran Pavan XXXIII (MB 127)
4’13 2’21 0’42 4’29 4’21 1’58 6’40 1’50 0’51 5’43 3’27 1’32 2’16 2’58 6’59 8’10 5’56
Pieter-Jan Belder harpsichords Roman numbers refer to Tregian’s numbering. MB numbers refer to the Musica Britannica numbering.
with Gerhard Boogaard harpsichord
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Who wrote the Fitzwilliam Book? There is a beautiful handwritten manuscript in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge known as the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book – a ‘virginal’ being a small harpsichord. It is the largest collection of Elizabethan and Jacobean keyboard music, numbering nearly 300 pieces composed during the 50 years before keyboard music was first published in England in 1612. The book is tremendously important historically, not least for the range and variety of its pieces, dating from a period during which musical theory and notation were going through a great transition into their modern form. (For example, such things as bar lines and accidentals – sharps and flats – were being introduced.) We do not know for certain who wrote it but it seems probable that the creation of this treasured document, an enormous labour of love, was the by-product of a chain of remarkable events. Along with the rest of the collection housed in the museum that bears his name, the volume was donated by Richard 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam to the University of Cambridge in 1816. He had acquired it from Robert Bremner who had bought it for ten guineas in 1762 at the sale of the collection of J.C. Pepusch (1667–1752), the German-born composer best known for his musical contribution to The Beggar’s Opera. Pepusch was a scholar with an unusual interest (for the time) in earlier music and was a co-founder of The Academy of Ancient Music in 1710. The volume’s provenance before that is unknown. The manuscript has long been reputed to have been compiled by Francis Tregian the Younger, from Cornwall, while he was imprisoned in the Fleet prison for recusancy from about 1608 up to his death, supposed until recently to be in 1619.1 This incarceration could possibly have given him time enough to carry out such a task, but it raises the question of how he was able to cultivate the taste, knowledge and contacts in order to collect all the music for copying.
The Tregians There had been many important Cornish musicians before Tregian. The eminent composer William Cornyshe (1469–1523), whose ancestors would have been given that surname because they had come from Cornwall, was a great composer in the time of Henry VII and Henry VIII, and the most eminent of several musicians with the same name at that time. There was in fact another William Cornyshe (c.1430–c.1502) who may have been his father. It is not clear which works are by William senior and which by William junior. The composers Giles Farnaby (c.1563–1640) and his son
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Richard were also Cornish. Thomas Tomkins (1572–1656), though born in Wales, was said to be of Cornish stock (from Lostwithiel). The compositions of these three, along with those of Byrd, Dowland, Bull, Morley, Philips and others, feature in the Virginal Book. Tregian (pronounced Trudgian, which, in this alternative spelling, is also a Cornish surname) is a very interesting figure, and to this day many mysteries remain unsolved regarding how he operated. We know a great deal about his lineage, as he was the son of a much more famous father, Francis Tregian the Elder. Francis senior came from a rich, land-owning family. His father had married into the Arundell family, and Francis himself married a Stourton (Mary, daughter of Charles, the 8th Lord Stourton) which linked him to the Dudleys, the Howards and the Stanleys (the Earls of Derby). They owned several manors in Cornwall, including Golden, the family home in the parish of Probus. (‘Golden’ was a corruption of Wolvedon, sometimes spelled Volvedon, which had been the name of the branch of the family from whom it had been inherited.)2 The Tregians, then, were well connected and well off. Despite this, in the religious and political turmoil of the Tudor era they were vulnerable, because they held to the old Roman Catholic faith. The story of Francis senior’s recusancy and downfall is well documented. He harboured Cuthbert Mayne (later Saint Cuthbert Mayne, canonised in 1970), a Roman Catholic seminary priest, who had been at the English College in Douai during 1573–6, and who, in 1577, was arrested by Sir Richard Grenville (he of the warship Revenge and a Tennyson poem), convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered in the market square at Launceston. Francis’s own death sentence was remitted to a punishment which included the confiscation by the Crown of his Cornish lands and goods and perpetual imprisonment. He was kept in the Fleet prison from about 1580 to 1601, when he was paroled to Chelsea. He finally left England in 1606 and lived in Portugal, on a pension from the King of Spain, until his death in 1608. He was buried in Lisbon – standing upright to symbolise his struggle for his faith against Queen Elizabeth. Francis junior was born at Golden in 1573 or 1574, but on the conviction of his father in 1579 his family was evicted and moved to London. Francis was educated in France (at Eu, then Douai) and later worked in Rome as steward of Cardinal Allen, after whose death in 1594 Francis junior was described as ‘a talented and noble layman, knowledgeable in philosophy, music and Latin’.3 In 1594 he may have returned to England to attempt to reclaim his father’s Cornish estates, and in 1603 he was in Brussels. The earliest documented evidence of his return to England is dated
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December 1606.4 He got into debt buying back Golden from the wife of George Carey, later Lord Hunsdon (the Lord Chamberlain to whom the estates had been conveyed). It seems that it was this debt, aggravated by the penalties for recusancy, which led to his being imprisoned on the orders of King James.
The conundrum Did Tregian’s work while in prison include compiling and copying what was to become known as the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book? Did he have the time? The book is only one of four manuscripts (totalling around 2000 pieces across a wide range of composers and genres) which have been attributed to Francis Tregian. (The others are Egerton MS 3665 in the British Museum; New York Public library MS Drexel 4302; and some of Christ Church, Oxford, Music MSS 510–14.) Their choice of pieces reflects a broad and cultivated taste: many Catholic composers are represented, though not exclusively.5 Assuming that Francis Tregian was in prison for about eleven years he would have had to complete copying out a piece, on average, about every two days. But how would he have been able to select and collect the music? It now seems that Tregian couldn’t have been ‘inside’ all that time. If it was indeed debt for which he had been confined, rather than recusancy offences, he may well have been at liberty until later than thought. The date of the summons (for debt) was not until 27 July 1611 and, furthermore, there is much documentary evidence in the Courtney Library in Truro that he was regularly down in Cornwall during the period from then up to 1616, which would suggest that either the summons wasn’t carried out until after that date, or that Tregian was allowed time away from his jail, a practice which was permitted (at a price). So it seems Tregian had less time in prison to do the work than has been thought, but, on the other hand, more freedom to assemble the music. We now know that Tregian died in the Fleet in 1617,6 and that there were ‘many hundred volumes’ in his chamber.7 However, no inventory has ever been found in the document of Administration arranged for his unmarried sisters Catherine and Dorothy to take care of his estate. Tregian was buried in St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street, on 11 August 1617.8 Because of the gap in the provenance of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book prior to the 18th century, identification of Tregian as the author has never been firmly established, though it is generally accepted. Despite extensive study of the handwriting, paper, etc of the four manuscripts, uncertainty remains as to how much confidence there can be in the attributions. Nevertheless, the cultivated taste
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of a connoisseur and a great knowledge of contemporary music both in England and on the Continent would have been required to make these compilations – qualifications Tregian certainly possessed. The annotations in Italian are further circumstantial evidence, as Tregian had worked in Italy. Furthermore, he had mobility and was not confined to the Fleet prison for the whole of a decade or more. This makes it probable that he had the opportunity to pursue his musical interests, while still having many hours of confinement to undertake the marathon task of copying. Let us suppose that Tregian was in and out of prison between 1611 and 1617. Could he have averaged about one piece of copying a day to complete all four manuscripts? No better rival claimant or scriptorium group has emerged to supplant him, and he remains credited with the achievement of preserving the most significant extant body of late-Elizabethan and early-Jacobean music. If his father had not let Cuthbert Mayne into the house, British musical history might have been very different! Greg Holt www.gregholt.co.uk 1The
Grove Concise Dictionary: New Updated Edition (London, 1994). Joyce Taylor, compiler, Historical Notes (unpublished manuscript deposited in the Cornwall Family History Society, Truro, 1984), Set 2, The Parish of Probus, page 2. 3Ruby Reid Thompson, ‘Francis Tregian the Younger as Music Copyist: A Legend and an Alternative View’, Music & Letters, Vol. 82, No.1. (Feb. 2001), pp. 1–31, referring to Records of the English Catholics under the Penal Laws, ii: The Letters and Memorials of William Cardinal Allen (1532–1594), ed. Thomas Francis Knox (London, 1887), p. 376: ‘molto nobile, di 20 anni, secolare di ingenio felicissimo, dotto in filosofia, in musica, et nella lingua latina’. 4Royal Institution of Cornwall: HC/3/9 (1 December 1606). 5In his volumes in toto Tregian’s aim may have been to preserve European contemporary music most acceptable to a Catholic audience. Egerton 3665 has numerous madrigals by Italians as well as works by composers of Italian origin at the English court (the Ferraboscos and Bassanos). 6The National Archives, PROB 6/9, 134 (1 September 1617). This information was seen by Group Captain T.P.F. Trudgian at the Public Record Office in 1984 and placed by him in the Cornwall Family History Society, Truro, in 1992. 7Alexander Harris, The Economy of the Fleet, ed. Augustus Jessopp (London, 1879). 8Guildhall Library MS 6538. 2M.
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The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (Volume 4) John Bull and Giles Farnaby, who share pride of place in Volume 4 of this complete recording of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, seem to have very little in common, and it may therefore appear strange to connect them. Very little is known about Giles Farnaby. His father was Thomas Farnaby, ‘Citizen and Joyner of London’. He appears to have been a joiner himself as well, first as an apprentice in 1580 and in 1590 as a Feoffee (freeman) of the London Joiners Company, the guild for woodcraftsmen. He may have been also a virginal maker, but, if so, no instrument of his has survived. His musical education may have been quite haphazard, but nevertheless, on 7 July 1592, he was admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Music at Oxford University, on the very same day John Bull and Edward Gibbons entered. He obviously cannot have been a student in residence, since he was registered as a member of the London Joiners Company during his 12 years of studies. All this may lead to the assumption that Farnaby was in fact an amateur composer. As most of the composers presented in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book were Catholics, it seems surprising that Farnaby was a Protestant (in fact a Puritan). Francis Tregian, the most likely candidate as copyist of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, was a Catholic himself, who, as a recusant, ended up in serious legal trouble and, while sentenced, spent his time copying music by composers mainly of the Catholic conviction. It is even more striking to realise that if the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book had never been compiled, we wouldn’t know most of Farnaby’s keyboard music at all. His complete output of keyboard music is known solely via the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. Only a single piece is found in other sources but is usually attributed to other composers. John Bull, on the other hand, was a professional musician from an early age. More biographical information has survived, and, likewise, his musical output has been preserved in many sources other than the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. Bull was born in 1562 or 1563, probably in Radnorshire. He entered the choir of Hereford Cathedral in 1573 and as soon as 1574 joined the children of the Chapel Royal in London, where his music teachers included John Blitheman (who is also represented in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book). After his training as a singer and organist, he was appointed organist of Hereford Cathedral in 1582 and master of the choristers the following year. Meanwhile he studied music at Oxford University, where he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Music on 7 July 1592, the same day Farnaby was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Music.
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Bull was also active as an organ builder. In 1610 he travelled to Madrid to build an organ for the Austrian Archduke Albert, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands. On his way to Madrid, however, pirates robbed him of all his money. The organ was never finished. (In fact, this wasn’t the first time Bull was a victim of robbery: in 1592 he was held up in a highway robbery. Obviously it was quite dangerous to travel in those days.) In 1586 Bull was appointed organist of the Chapel Royal until his involuntarily leave in 1613. Bull obviously had a talent for getting himself into trouble. In 1597 he became a Reader at Gresham College. This appointment required him to obey the committee’s ordinances, lodge at Gresham House and give an inaugural lecture in the presence of the mayor, the aldermen, the Bishop of London and the master and warden of the Mercers’ Company. Fearful of losing his readership because his assigned rooms were still occupied by somebody else, he forced entry to the rooms by engaging a mason to help him break down a wall, which led to legal action against him (the outcome of the case is not known). In 1607 he fathered a child out of wedlock with Elisabeth Walter and consequently lost his position at Gresham College. In 1613 Bull left England, never to return, to escape persecution ‘for incontinence, fornication, adultery and other grievious crimes’. He settled in the Low Countries, where he consistently claimed he left England because of his Catholic faith. The Archbishop of Canterbury, however, had said of him that ‘the man hath more music than honesty and is as famous for marring of virginity as he is for fingering of organs and virginals’. Bull settled in Antwerp, where he became organist of the cathedral. He died there in 1628. During his time in the Low Countries Bull probably met Peter Philips (who was a refugee for religious reasons) and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck – he even composed a fantasia on a theme of Sweelinck. He was also active as an organ adviser: perhaps the most important organ for which Bull was consulted, and which still exists today, is the organ of the cathedral of ’s-Hertogenbosch. It seems likely Farnaby and Bull knew each other: maybe Bull even taught Farnaby, since there are similarities in style that are too obvious to be coincidental. The keyboard figurations in the fantasias and the variations especially are sometimes almost identical. This doesn’t mean that the two composers are not distinguishable. Overall, and maybe not surprisingly, Bull’s work seems to attain a higher level of formal design. On the other hand, Bull’s work can take on a rather intellectual, abstract character, an aspect that is foreign to compositions by Farnaby. It seems that Farnaby’s pieces have more of a common-sense musicality, if one may say so. Farnaby, for instance, hardly ever uses the bicinium
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principle – a feature derived from medieval times using keyboard figurations against a slow cantus firmus. Bull uses this device quite often, perhaps because he was an organist as well. This principle seems to work best in liturgical music such as in the In nomines, of which Bull composed several. Farnaby, probably as a result of his Protestant faith, never composed liturgical keyboard music. The use of the bicinium principle bears the risk of being quite dry and dull, a pitfall Bull is not always able to avoid. Farnaby, on the other hand, seems to struggle especially in the fantasia form to build up satisfactory intensity. When it comes to finishing a piece, now and then he makes use of quite banal keyboard figurations, which seem to work well for the hand but are without much musical substance. Actually Bull was charged with this very same criticism by Thomas Tomkins, who commented on works by his colleagues and predecessors in his list of ‘Lessons of worthe’. Especially when comparing, for instance, the works of Byrd and Bull, Byrd is praised as being ‘Excellent for Matter’ and Bull for writing extremely well for the hand. This ‘verdict’ was given on Bull’s Quadran Pavan and Galliard (included on these discs), when it was compared with Byrd’s Quadran Pavan and Galliard (on Volume 2 of this series, Brilliant Classics 94362). Tomkins renders a similar judgement on the Walsingham variations by the two composers, as well (Bull’s set is on Volume 1, Brilliant Classics 94303, Byrd’s on Volume 2). Farnaby seems at his best in his pavans and song variations. A fine example is the Wooddy-Cock variation set. Although Farnaby may have been an ‘amateur composer’, the piece definitely has substance and is at the same time excellent for the hand, demanding great dexterity. Pieter-Jan Belder
CD1: Keyboard works by Giles Farnaby The title of the Farmers Pavan [1] may refer to the composer John Farmer, another Protestant composer who, like Farnaby, contributed to the same collections of psalms, published in 1621 and 1633. Although traditionally pavans are followed by galliards, this is never the case with Farnaby. In fact the Galliarda [2] on this disc is the only galliard known by Farnaby. The Fantasia [3] may be an ‘intavolation’ of a vocal piece, perhaps by Farnaby himself. Mal Sims [4] is one of the few pieces also found in another source: a manuscript in the British Museum. The tune is also known by the Dutch title Malle Symen and was used by Sweelinck. The Pavana [5] is a rather moving piece based on a pavan for lute by Robert Johnson. The Meridian Alman [6] is also known from different manuscript sources where, however, it is often attributed to John Bull. A masque is a musical interlude in a play. Farnaby reworked several of these songs into virginal pieces. Some of them can be linked to certain plays but it is not always possible to pinpoint the original melodies. The tune of A Maske [10], though, seems to have been composed by Giovanni Coprario for Beaumont’s The Masque of the Inner Temple (1613). The tune of Quodlings Delight [8] is known in another source as the Goddesses… The Fantasia [9] is the longest of all Farnaby’s fantasias and is striking for its sombre theme, which is sometimes presented in a highly ornamented form and is even inverted later on. As in all fantasias by Farnaby, this piece finishes with a long toccata passage, which seems to have little to do with the original thematic material. Wooddy-Cock [11] is one of the longest and most attractive sets of variations by Farnaby. The similarities between some of its keyboard figurations and those in Bull’s Walsingham are striking. The text in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, however, requires some interpretation.
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The Fantasia [12] quotes the first line of Psalm 73 from the Genevan Psalter – a theme which reappears in works by composers as late as J.C.F. Fischer and J.S. Bach. Whether the similarity to the psalm melody be coincidental or not, Farnaby’s Puritan background makes it altogether likely he was familiar with the contents of the Psalter. I grouped together Giles Farnabys Dreame and the following three pieces [13]–[16] as a kind of suite. Farnabys Dream and His Rest clearly seem to belong together. These character pieces could have been intended as self-portraits. Bull and John Munday are among composers who also wrote several character pieces of this kind. Fantasia [17] has a short theme which is treated in quite a dense way: the themes are brought in when the previous entries haven’t yet been completely finished – the technique known as stretto. Rosasolis [18] is also attributed to John Bull in another source. Again, some of the figurations make the frequent mixing-up of the two composers understandable. Lachrimae Pavan [19] is one of the finest pieces by Farnaby, using Dowland’s famous song ‘Flow my tears’, an inspiration for many other composers. Another fine example of a Lachrimae Pavan is the transcription by Byrd, also in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (Volume 2). A Toye [20] is attributed to Thomas Tomkins in other sources. Tell mee Daphne [22] is a transcription of a famous folk tune. Loth to Depart [23] should of course be the last piece on this CD! The song was used in several plays as a farewell song of parting lovers. The next item, however, can also do very well as an encore piece… For Two Virginals [24] is in fact the first duet for two keyboards known to me: the second virginal elaborates on the alman played by the first virginal. It may be that the piece is meant to be a piece for an amateur student and a teacher. I decided to invite my amateur student Gerhard Boogaard to join me, because he is also the builder of the fine Ruckers copy I use on this disc. The second instrument was made by him as well and is used on Volume 2 of this series. 12
CD2: Keyboard works by John Bull The use of Lord Lumley’s name in the titles of the Pavan and Galliard [1] & [2] that open the second disc suggests a personal connection between Bull and Lumley. Lord Lumley died in 1609, and perhaps the piece is a kind of musical epitaph, like the later French tombeau. In fact it is one of Bull’s finest works. Several preludes [3] & [9] by Bull are found in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. They seem to be short toccatas composed for educational purposes. The Fantasia [4] is quite a cryptic piece. The two-part bicinium opening develops into a section with a repeated chromatic motif. The four-part final section feels like the relief after waking up from a bad dream. The Pavan and Galliard [5] & [6] are untitled, despite many pavans and galliards being given titles to characterise them or, as in Lumley’s pavan, to dedicate them to certain important persons. The absence of any title in no way diminishes the quality of the piece, which is outstanding. The fantasia Ut re mi fa sol la [10] is an experimental piece, in which the hexachord is used in all 12 tonalities. The piece modulates into distant keys, which indicates that it might have been an experiment in equal-tempered tuning. For this recording, I tuned the instrument in a circular temperament so that all tonalities can be used. The usual meantone temperament would result in painful and rather unbearable harmonies, which is unlikely to have been the purpose here. The piece might be a transcription of a fantasia for a consort of viols. Some of the pieces on this disc have already been recorded on Volume 1. One such is Pipers Galiard [13], part of a pavan and galliard set based on a piece by Dowland. The galliard is followed by a variation [14], which is probably the fastest piece in the entire Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. The variation would be incomplete without the original piece, hence the re-recording. The same procedure has been applied to the Fantastic Pavan and Galliard [7] & [8], of which the galliard has two versions. So the Fantastic Pavan – or rather I, myself – was offered a second chance here. 13
The Quadran Pavan and Galiard [15]–[17] is probably the longest piece in the entire Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. The pavan is doubled by the variation and is thus, at a total of 15 minutes, by far the longest pavan in the repertory. The galliard is divided into three sections, which are in fact three galliards in one. The basic principle of the Quadran Pavan and Galiard is a variation on a harmonic pattern. Sometimes the pattern is difficult to determine, but it is a masterpiece of variation. As said before, this piece was one of the pieces Thomas Tomkins considered ‘of worthe’ and ‘excellent for the hande’. Pieter-Jan Belder
Pieter-Jan Belder (born in 1966) studied recorder with Ricardo Kanji at the Royal Conservatorium of The Hague and harpsichord with Bob van Asperen at the Amsterdam Sweelinck Conservatorium. He graduated in 1990 and since then has developed a flourishing career as harpsichordist, clavichord player, organist, fortepianist and recorder player. He has appeared at many international festivals including the Utrecht Early Music Festival, Berlin Musikfest, Flanders Festival, Festival Potsdam Sanssouci, Bremen Musikfest and Leipzig Bachfest. He regularly plays solo recitals and is much in demand as a continuo player with such ensembles as the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Collegium Vocale Gent, Camerata Trajectina, Bach Collegium Japan, Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam, Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonie and Netherlands Bach Society, working with conductors including Frans Brüggen, Ton Koopman, Masaaki Suzuki, Jos van Veldhoven and Philippe Herreweghe. Belder has also Pieter-Jan Belder
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accompanied soloists such as Johannette Zomer, Nico van der Meel, Harry van der Kamp, Sigiswald Kuijken, Rémy Baudet and Wilbert Hazelzet. He conducts his own ensemble, Musica Amphion. In 1997 Pieter-Jan Belder was awarded third prize at the Hamburg NDR Music Prize harpsichord competition. In 2000 he was winner of the Leipzig Bach harpsichord competition. In 2005 he made his debut as a conductor at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and he has since regularly conducted performances with soloists such as Michael Chance and Sarah Connolly (Dido and Aeneas) and the choir Collegium Vocale Gent. He has made over 130 CD recordings, most of them solo and chamber music. In 1999 Belder began work on his integral recording of the Scarlatti keyboard sonatas, which was released in 2007. Since then he has recorded Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier along with the complete harpsichord works of Rameau. Recently Brilliant Classics released three volumes in a series of harpsichord music from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (of which this recording is the fourth) and a recording of the Kenner und Liebhaber series by C.P.E. Bach, recorded on the fortepiano and clavichord. Belder has also recorded orchestral and chamber music with Musica Amphion: Telemann’s Tafelmusik, the complete works of Corelli, Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, Bach’s Concertos for two, three and four harpsichords, and the complete chamber music of Purcell. Pieter-Jan Belder is currently working on recordings of works by Handel and Gaspard le Roux, a complete cycle of the music contained in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, and, with the Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam on the Etcetera label, music by J.S. Bach in the series ‘Bach in Context’. His new recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations will be released next year. www.pieterjanbelder.nl
Recording: 19–20 May 2014 (CD1), 16–17 April 2015 (CD2), Chapel of the Capuchin Monastery, Velp, The Netherlands Recording & editing: Arts Music Recording Cover image: The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Artist photo: Annelies van der Vegt Instruments: Cornelis Bom, 2003, Italian harpsichord after Giusti & Gerhard Boogaard, 2012, Flemish harpsichord after Ruckers (CD1); Titus Crijnen, 2014, Flemish harpsichord after Ruckers (1624) (CD2) & 2016 Brilliant Classics
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