Austin Symphonic Band Performing The Earle of Oxford’s Marche from William Byrd Suite скачать в хорошем качестве

Austin Symphonic Band Performing The Earle of Oxford’s Marche from William Byrd Suite

Austin Symphonic Band. February 1, 2020 concert at the Luis “Chico” Portillo Performing Arts Center in Austin TX. ASB performing The Earle of Oxford’s Marche from William Byrd Suite by William Byrd (arr. Gordon Jacob). Assistant Director Bill Haehnel conducting. Concert title: "Classics Old & New". Audio recording by On Site Digital, Randy Bryant owner. From the program notes written by David Cross: The Earle of Oxford’s Marche from William Byrd Suite (1923) William Byrd (1540-1623) Arr. by Gordon Jacob Among close to three hundred pieces contained in the most famous keyboard manuscript of the English Renaissance, now known as The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, is William Byrd’s The Earle of Oxford March. The Oxford March has become well known to present-day early music enthusiasts, and apparently was well known at the beginning of its life as well. The most beautiful and best-preserved surviving manuscript of keyboard music from the period, My Ladye Nevells Book of 1591, includes it under the title “The March Before the Battell,” where it precedes and sets the mood for a group of nine individual sections called “The Battle.” William Byrd is considered the greatest composer of the English Renaissance, and perhaps of the entire Renaissance. Also a fine singer and keyboard performer, Byrd was eager to rise in the world, and in this he was aided by influential patrons, including Queen Elizabeth and the Earle of Oxford. He was a devout Catholic, and was officially named as a “recusant” a number of times, but nonetheless continually escaped any serious consequences for openly professing his religion. Byrd was born in London some time between October 1539 and the end of September 1540, one of the seven children of Thomas and Margery Byrd. By 1572, he was employed full-time as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, the group of about 24 male singers and organists charged with providing church music for the royal household, who remained with the Queen as part of her entourage as she traveled from palace to palace. Byrd was a protégé of the noted composer Thomas Tallis, with whom he shared royal patronage, beginning in 1575 with an exclusive 21-year patent for printing music, and continuing with shared authorship of a book of sacred songs dedicated to the Queen. Byrd composed more than 500 works for diverse instruments and voices, ranging from short simple pieces to large works of great complexity. The subject of the music himself, Edward de Vere, the 17th Earle of Oxford (1550–1604), was an English peer and courtier of the Elizabethan era. De Vere was heir to the second oldest earldom in the kingdom, a court favorite for a time, a sought-after patron of the arts, and noted by his contemporaries as a lyric poet and court playwright, but his volatile temperament precluded him from attaining any courtly or governmental responsibility and contributed to the dissipation of his estate. Since the 1920s he has been among the most popular alternative candidates proposed for the authorship of Shakespeare’s works. After the death of his father in 1562, de Vere became a ward of Queen Elizabeth and was sent to live in the household of her principal advisor, Sir William Cecil. He married Cecil’s daughter, Anne, with whom he had five children. Yet he was estranged from her for five years after he refused to acknowledge her first child as his. De Vere was a champion jouster and traveled widely throughout Italy and France. He was among the first to compose love poetry at the Elizabethan court and was praised as a playwright, though none of his plays is known to have survived. A stream of dedications praised de Vere for his generous patronage of literary, religious, musical, and medical works, and he patronized both adult and boy acting companies, as well as musicians, tumblers, acrobats, and performing animals. He fell out of favor with the Queen in the early 1580s and was exiled from court after impregnating one of her maids of honor, Anne Vavasour, which instigated violent street brawls between de Vere’s retainers and her uncles. De Vere was reconciled to the Queen in 1583, but all opportunities for advancement had been lost. He died in 1604, having spent the entirety of his inherited estates. (Program note by Sally Mosher)