6 Selections From The Dublin Virginal Manuscript (c. 1570)

I first heard the DVM on a recording by the late Joseph Payne, on the Krewerd organ (1531) in the Netherlands. This organ has been sampled by hauptwerk.nl.

The Dublin Virginal Manuscript is an important anthology of keyboard music kept in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, where it has been since the 17th century.

The name "Dublin Virginal Manuscript" is modern, and there is no mention of any specific instrument for which the music was intended.

The manuscript is undated and its 30 pieces are without titles apart from one, ascribed to a "Mastyre Taylere". All but four of the pieces are arrangements of popular song and dance tunes found in other, mainly continental sources. From these, together with stylistic evidence, the manuscript can be dated to circa 1570.

The Dublin Virginal Manuscript is important in the history of English keyboard music because of its date, being one of only five English secular keyboard sources that predate William Byrd's My Ladye Nevells Booke of 1591. It is also the second-oldest surviving English source (after the Mulliner Book) of early Almain tunes, of which it contains four. The Dublin Virginal Manuscript also represents an important step in the development of secular English keyboard music from around 1530 to its golden age in the late 16th century, with examples of developing counterpoint in some pieces. (from Wikipedia)

0:00 1. Pavan (5)

1:48 2. Galliard to the Pavan before (6)

2:36 3. Tintelore d'Angleterre, alias The Earl of Essex Measure (11)

3:18 4. Branle Hoboken (12)

4:26 5. Almande Guerre alias 'Was not good
King Solomon (13)

5:09 6. Dance (14)