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6 - Afterthoughts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2019

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Summary

One must know the original music and words.

—Szumowska, Well-Known Piano Solos

We have reviewed, through a series of snapshots, the repertoire of arrangements played on the harpsichord or other keyboards from the age of the virginalists to the death of Handel. Although the histories of keyboard music tend to bypass this large repertoire, arrangements were central to amateur keyboard playing, and brought into the home new versions of popular ballad or dance tunes, arias, and other stage music. In seventeenth-century personal and teaching manuscripts such keyboard arrangements were copied and recopied; editions of Playford's Musick's Hand-maid (1663–78, 1689) are likewise filled with keyboard settings of non-keyboard pieces. Although these simple arrangements abound, they make up only part of the story. Among the virginalists, more challenging intabulations, recompositions, and sets of variations based on well-known tunes gave professional or advanced players a way of demonstrating their prowess within the confines of the familiar. In the early eighteenth century, the story is much the same. William Babell played his own virtuosic arrangements of arias in public and published them in The Ladys Entertainment (books 3 and 4) and in his collection of Suits, whose movements were drawn from contemporary operatic productions. Just before the turn of the century John Walsh had begun to publish The Harpsichord Master, which provided simple arrangements for amateurs in fifteen volumes (1697–1734), and The Ladys Banquet (books 1 and 2), whose contents were also much indebted to music composed for the stage and arranged for the keyboard. Such arrangements were quickly copied into manuscripts, often directly from the prints, such as “Reading's Book of Lessons” (Mp BRm710.5Rf31, dated 1728) and “Ms. Alice Maud her Musick book” (Tyson, early 1730s).

The Amateur Player, the Collector, and John Walsh Junior

During the 1730s the balance between arrangements for amateurs and more challenging ones for virtuosos seems to have shifted toward the amateur side. The virginalists and William Babell had been central contributors of virtuoso arrangements, but it's likely that amateurs made up a larger and more typical market for this derived repertoire. How should we understand Walsh's growing focus on amateurs? For one thing, more and more original keyboard music was available in print for those who desired more of a challenge, reducing the need for arrangements suited to advanced players.

Type
Chapter
Information
Songs without Words
Keyboard Arrangements of Vocal Music in England, 1560–1760
, pp. 189 - 198
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2016

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  • Afterthoughts
  • Sandra Mangsen
  • Book: Songs without Words
  • Online publication: 17 July 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781782048350.008
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  • Afterthoughts
  • Sandra Mangsen
  • Book: Songs without Words
  • Online publication: 17 July 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781782048350.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Afterthoughts
  • Sandra Mangsen
  • Book: Songs without Words
  • Online publication: 17 July 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781782048350.008
Available formats
×