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• Fayrfax, Robert + Lloyd, John: Instrumental Pieces

Fayrfax, Robert + Lloyd, John: Instrumental Pieces

from the Henry VIII manuscript for 4 instruments.

These unusual abstract pieces come from the Henry VIII manuscript (British Library, MS Add. 31922), though the second of the two Fayrfax pieces has a more complicated origin. In the Musica Britannica edition of the Henry VIII collection, they are described as “puzzle canons”, a perfectly descriptive term which, however, I have not adopted, as it has not gained any currency outside England.
Robert Fayrfax (1464-1521) is one of the few English composers of his generation whose music survives in any quantity. Several masses have survived, as well as motets, and a few secular pieces of a distinctively ornate nature. Although rather short, the two abstract pieces printed here contain some of that distinctive, almost improvisatory counterpoint that characterises the music of the best English church composers of this time. John Lloyd (c.1475-1523) was a priest and singer in the Chapel Royal. Apart from the two pieces printed here, only a mass and antiphon have survived: these also make use of puzzle devices.
In this edition the original note values have been halved: this has produced a rather “white” note picture, but I feel this represents the distinctive rhythmic qualities of this music better than would one with small note values and frequent beams. Editorial accidentals are shown in the usual way, that is printed small above the stave, applying to the one note only.