Masters & Students

David Clark Little, on the 'Virginal'

Diferencias sobre el canto llano del Cabellero					Antonio de Cabezon (1510-1566)

Rowland (Lord Willobies Welcome Home)						William Byrd (1543-1623)

La Volta													Thomas Morley (1557-1602)/William Byrd (1543-1623)

Worster Braules											Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656)
			
Canzona Quarta (book 2 from 1637)							Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643)
			
Suite V1 in C Major (Livre de 1656)							Johann-Jakob Froberger (1616-1667)
        LAMENTO -  COURANT -  SARABANDE - GIGUE
			
Aria Quarta (from the Hexachordum Apollinis)					Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
			
Prelude & Fugue #7 in Eb Major (Well-tempered Clavier book 2)	Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
			
Sonata #8 in C Major										Carlos Seixas (1704-1742)
        [Allegro] -  Adagio - Minuet    

Sonata K 13 In G Major: Presto								Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
			
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Program duration: 60 minutes including short talks about the music, composer, and instrument.
The histories of the composers on the program reveal master-student relationships, as we trace the keyboard style evolution over 200 years in Spain, England, Italy, Germany, Portugal, and back to Spain again! 'Virginal' is an old term for a string-plucking keyboard instrument, or harpsichord, with a rectangular shape, called such because, like a virgin, it soothes with a sweet and gentle voice, according to a Czech physician and minor cleric called Paulus Paulirinus. The virginal played today was built by Lynette Tsiang in 1976, after the Italian builder Francesco Poggio (d. 1634). It is a polygonal or 5-sided instrument with one set of brass strings and 52 keys. It is tuned lower than present-day concert pitch (A is at 415 Hz) with the Vallotti Tuning System commonly used for keyboard instruments during the Baroque.

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