A Tudor Suite

Tudor Suite was commisioned by the Harper Ensemble for a CD recording in 2000 and combines arrangements of keyboard, instrumental and choral music of the period.

A Galliards Gygge by Byrd and the anonymous Watkins Ale & The Irish Dumpe come from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, a remarkable collection of 297 keyboard pieces of the early 17th century kept in the Fitzwilliam Library in Cambridge.

The central movement ‘Pastyme With Good Companye’ is an arrangement of music by King Henry VIII, incorporating ‘Whereto shuld I expresse’ and two of his instrumental pieces. This movement began life in 1991 as an orchestral piece for a gala concert in Hampton Court Palace with the Philharmonia and The Wallace Collection. On that occasion the minstrel’s gallery was used for echo effects and these are maintained in this arrangement.

The remaining movements are arrangements of the finest examples of Tudor choral music. The Silver Swan is one of the most beautiful of the madrigals (the melody played here on a flugelhorn) and O Nata Lux de Lumine, which with its false relations and ‘English cadence’, is a simple but moving motet so typical of the work of Tallis.