The historic building is holding an event in a couple of weekends time, and I've agreed to provide the music for it. I'll be playing until well into the evening, so I'm currently building on my repertoire. I'm planning to play music by William Byrd.
I already play lots of his small-scale pieces as well as a couple of larger ones. At the moment I'm learning pairs of pavans and galliards. There is something architectural about them. The pavans particularly are spacious and serene. The galliards are too, to a certain extent, but they necessarily move a bit faster. I can't help feeling that Byrd uses the formal structures solely to articulate his music, in much the same way as classical composers were to use the minuet & trio. I'm not sure how Byrd would have seen it, or if the idea had even occurred to him. For the event I'm thinking along the lines of of regularly spaced pavans and galliards, connected by a sequence of smaller pieces. I'm looking forward to it now.
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