| Fitzwilliam Virginal Book |
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| english music | |
| renaissance music | |
| compositions for harpsichord | |
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Once called Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book, a title that has been abandoned because it has been determined that she never owned it, the manuscript was given no title by its author. It is believed to be the manuscript collection of an amateur keyboard player of the very early 17th Century named Francis Tregian, who copied the entire collection while imprisoned between 1609 and 1619 in connection with his Catholic sympathies. There is no authorship attribution in the book itself. Until Parthenia was printed in about 1612, there was no music published as such in England at this time, and like the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, most of the collections of keyboard music were compiled by performers: other examples include Will Forster's Virginal Book; Clement Matchett's Virginal Book; {Link without Title} Tisdale's Virginal Book. It includes music dating from approximately ; "Pakington's Pownde" and "The Irishe Dumpe" (anonymous); "The Ghost" and "The Earle of Oxford's Marche," by William Byrd; "Worster Braules" by Thomas Tomkins , and the famous "Lachrymae Pavan" by John Dowland , as arranged by Giles Farnaby. The book was not published at the time of its writing, instead remaining a manuscript in private hands. In 1899, Breitkopf And Hartell published a newly engraved edition with critical commentary. Since copyright on this edition has now lapsed, it has been reprinted by Dover and other publishers specializing in reprinting of out-of-copyright editions, and is available inexpensively. A microfilm facsimile of the manuscript is included in ''The music collections of the Cambridge libraries,'' Woodbridge, Conn. : Research Publications, 1991. SOURCES
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