Complete Keyboard Music, and: Complete Harpsichord Music (review)

Peter Philips. Complete Keyboard Music. Transcribed and edited by David J. Smith. (Musica Britannica, 75.) London: Published for the Musica Britannica Trust by Stainer and Bell, 1999. [Pref. in Eng., Fr., and Ger., p. xvii-xix; introd., p. xxi-xxvii; editorial method, p. xxviii-xxix; acknowledgments, p. xxx; facsims., p. xxxi-xxxv; score, 185 p.; list of sources, p. 187-91; textual commentary, p. 192-201; texts and trans., p. 202-4. Cloth. ISMN M-2202-1960-93; ISBN 0-85249-851-9. £78.]

John Blow. Complete Harpsichord Music. Edited by Robert Klakowich. (Musica Britannica, 73.) London: Published for the Musica Britannica Trust by Stainer and Bell, 1998. [Pref. in Eng., Fr., and Ger., p. xix-xxi; introd., p. xxiii-xxvii; the sources, p. xxviii; notes on performance, p. xxix-xxxiv; editorial notes, p. xxxv-xxxix; acknowledgments, p. xli; facsims., p. xlii-xlvii; score, 112 p.; incipits of spurious works, p. 113; list of sources, p. 114-20; textual commentary, p. 121-39; Klakowich/Shaw conversion table, p. 140. Cloth. ISMN M-2202-1942-9; ISBN 0-85249-849-7. £69.50.]

David J. Smith's edition of the keyboard music of Peter Philips (1561-1628) completes the publication in Musica Britannica of the composers whose music figures prominently in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum Mus. MS 168). It forms an engaging measure for determining which composers the series ought to include. Musica Britannica represents "an authoritative national collection of British music" (p. [vi]). Yet Philips's place in this series is questionable, for while Philips was indeed English—a chorister at St. Paul's Cathedral and apparently a pupil of William Byrd—he left England in 1582, never to return. In fact, practically all of Philips's keyboard music was composed after he left England (only one work can be definitively dated before 1582), and a good bit of it dates from his years in Antwerp (1590-97). Many of Philips's surviving works are intabulations of madrigals, especially those published by Pierre Phalèse. When considered together, these factors could cause us to question just how British Philips's music really is. Yet he was born and trained in England, and several of his compositions do appear in one of the most significant English manuscripts of the period—thus making his inclusion in Musica Britannica essential. Furthermore, the works themselves are arguably connected stylistically with the so-called virginalist school, even if the models for them are not of British origin.

The edition contains all of the keyboard music attributed to Philips in various sources (the one unascribed piece appears in the middle of a group of pieces by the composer). Few of Philips's extant works were originally conceived as keyboard pieces—they are either vocal intabulations or arrangements of the composer's ensemble music. Very little of his liturgical organ music has survived, leading Smith to presume that Philips improvised most of the repertory needed for performance in church. Smith does not include anonymous works that modern editors and scholars have attributed to Philips (thus adhering exactly to the list of attributions given by Virginia Brookes in British Keyboard Music to c. 1660: Sources and Thematic Index [Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996]) and provides an adequate explanation of his rationale for omitting each piece.

One of the most impressive aspects of the edition is the inclusion of the vocal pieces upon which Philips based his intabulations (with translations appended at the end of the volume). The original work is printed on the left page with the corresponding keyboard version on the facing page of each opening, and the exact alignment of the layout allows for an excellent opportunity to compare the two. (Smith also includes a list of the printed sources of the vocal music used by Philips and provides some analysis of each vocal model in the textual commentary.) Performers, on the other hand, may find the need for more page turns somewhat of...