Louise Hung plays Orlando Gibbons' Galiardo Fantasia of Foure Parts from 'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613. Audio production by Matthew Antal.

'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613 probably as part of the celebrations for a royal wedding. MIO's Artistic Director John Edwards talks to keyboardist Louise Hung about pitch and temperament - how early keyboards were not tuned the same way a modern piano is. We then hear Louise Hung perform Gibbons' Fantazia in Four Parts.

Louise Hung plays John Bull's Pavana and Orlando Gibbons' Galiardo and The Queenes Command from 'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613. Audio production by Matthew Antal.

'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613 probably as part of the celebrations for a royal wedding. MIO's Artistic Director John Edwards talks to Prof. Deanne Williams about the plays by Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher and others, and masque performances during the run up to the marriage of Frederick, Count Palatine and Elizabeth Stuart. We then hear Louise Hung perform music by Bull and Gibbons from the book.

Louise Hung plays William Byrd's Earl of Salisbury’s Pavan and Galiardo Secundo from 'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613. Audio production by Matthew Antal.

'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613. As the chief counsellor in the last years of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign and the first years of James I’s, Robert Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury was at the centre of a web of political patronage, artistic patronage, and a web of spies that seems to have included musicians. John Edwards and Louise Hung talk about Salisbury’s patronage of the arts, especially the art of music, his musical instrument collection and his collection of musicians. At the end of the chat you’ll hear Louise play William Byrd’s Pavana Earl of Salisbury and Galiardo secundo from Parthenia. Further reading: Patronage, Culture and Power: The Early Cecils ed. Pauline Croft and John Dowland by Diana Poulton.

Louise Hung plays William Byrd's Preludium and Galiardo Mrs. Mary Brownlo from 'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613. Audio production by Matthew Antal. Virginal made by Matthew Redsell after an instrument by Johannes Perticis in the Royal Ontario Museum.

'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613. MIO's Artistic Director John Edwards talks to harpsichordist Louise Hung about the terminology of plucked string keyboard instruments in the Elizabethan and Jacobean period, how they make their sound, the association of the virginals with young women in our period and the techniques and fingering which they used and which Louise deploys to get the characteristic sprightly articulation in Mary Brownlow’s Galliard and the spectacular passage work in the prelude by Byrd, both of which you’ll hear at the end of our chat.