The Earl Of Salisbury's Pavane: A Song History

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The Earl of Salisbury's Pavane belongs to the keyboard music of the English composer William Byrd, who wrote it in A minor as a compact seventeen-bar pavan followed by two galliards.[1] In its first printing the second galliard carries the heading "Mistress Mary Brownlo," a label that later authorities on Byrd's keyboard works regard as a mistake.[1] Byrd's separate galliard of that name appears in the same volume, which also includes a pavan and galliard by Orlando Gibbons under the Salisbury name.[2]

Full-length portrait of a young princess in an embroidered gown with a lace ruff and jewelled headdress.

Robert Peake the Elder, Princess Elizabeth (1596–1662), Later Queen of Bohemia, oil on canvas, ca. 1606. Princess Elizabeth, one of the two dedicatees of Parthenia, the anthology in which the pavane was first printed; the portrait has no connection to the music itself.

The set was first published in Parthenia, an anthology of virginal pieces by Byrd, John Bull and Gibbons whose title page proclaims it "the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls."[3] The book bears no year and was long assumed to date from 1611, but it was dedicated to Frederick, Elector Palatine, and his betrothed, Princess Elizabeth; Anthony Rooley connects its appearance with their wedding, and its first publication is dated between December 1612 and April 1613.[2][3] The couple married at Whitehall Palace on Valentine's Day, 1613.[4] William Hole was the book's engraver, and John Clarke reissued the collection in London in 1651 and again in 1655.[2]

Today the pavan travels well beyond the keyboard, with freely available versions for brass ensembles and for groups of four instruments, along with settings of the second galliard for pairs of lutes or guitars.[1] Ellen Pratt arranges it for three dulcimers, two in DAD tuning and one in DAC, in Ensemble Arrangements For The Mountain Dulcimer, Volume 1, a 73-page book of classical ensemble pieces at a moderate level of difficulty, published by Ellen Pratt.[5]

Our book that contains the song "The Earl Of Salisbury's Pavane"

Sources

  1. IMSLP: "The Earl of Salisbury Pavan and 2 Galliards (Byrd, William)".
  2. IMSLP: "Parthenia (Various)".
  3. MusicWeb International: "Parthenia" (Recording of the Month review).
  4. The National Archives (UK) Blog: "Royal weddings in history: a Stuart Valentine".
  5. Ellen Pratt: "Ensemble Arrangements For The Mountain Dulcimer, Volume 1".
  6. Image: Robert Peake the Elder, Princess Elizabeth (1596–1662), Later Queen of Bohemia, oil on canvas, ca. 1606. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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