Description
Since “Parthenia” (1612/13), ‘the first musicke that ever was printed for the virginalls’, as its own title-page declares, a devotee had ready access to high-quality English harpsichord music. A steady stream of publications followed as the century progressed. Later, volumes dedicated to single composers appeared of which the earliest were the Choice Collection[s] by Purcell (1696) and Blow (1698). Aside from miscellaneous pieces, often arrangements of ‘ayres’ and ‘theatre tunes’, the Suite was the principal form, with its standard sequence of alman, coranto and saraband, often introduced by a prelude. David Pollock’s aim with this CD was to offer a personal anthology of English harpsichord music, perhaps imagining himself as a contemporary of William Croft reviewing the previous one hundred and fifty years. David Pollock plays a double-manual harpsichord by Anne and Ian Tucker, Mistley, Essex, 1999, which is a copy of Andreas Ruckers (single-manual, 1636).