Music at the Court of Henry VIII
Music at the Court of Henry VIII
Part book Project
PROJECT
I have joyfully been transcribing all of the pieces (all 109 of them) from the Henry the VIII part book. A book that we think was actually created by and for Henry Guildford. He was a close confident of Henry as a young king. He was also Controller of the Household, which mean’t that, among other duties, he was responsible for the music at court. Both private and public. As such it is thought that he had this book created for his library. He was also a personal favourite of the King which could go some way to explain the abundance of pieces from the royal pen.
There are 109 pieces in total and I have transcribed them into choir versions where words are indicated, and also versions for other instruments. These other instruments are, sadly, not things such as Crumhorns as you might expect but, owing to my limited access to sound samples of earlier instruments, using conventional instruments, for which I apologise. Though I hope that with the music and parts provided some people might be inspired to try these excellent pieces out on earlier instruments.
With this in mind I have grouped the pieces in two different ways. Firstly as they appear in the Musica Britannica book XVIII “Music in the Court of Henry VIII” in groups of 10.
All the pieces
And secondly in instrumental groups.
Choir Brass Wind Strings Recorders
Please let me know if you do play these pieces and maybe you could let me have and audio or video of your version. Enjoy.
Here is the link to you tube videos of all of the pieces.