Bantock, Granville

Granville Bantock – Old English Suite

(b. London, 7 August 1868 – d. London, 16 October 1946)

Old English Suite

Fantasia (Orlando Gibbons) p.1
Lachrymae Pavan (John Dowland) p.13
The King’s Hunt (John Bull) p.19
Quodling’s Delight (Giles Farnaby) p.33
Sellinger’s Round (William Byrd) p.38

Preface
Granville Bantock wrote some of the largest-scale orchestral and choral works in the British repertoire, and explored non-ropean cultures, but he was also a practical musician, introducing many to the world of music for the first time, and – as here – to music they had probably never heard before. This is a suite of keyboard works and songs by five of the masters of Elizabethan and Jacobean music, arranged for small orchestra by one of the later masters of orchestration. It was written in 1909 and first performed in Birmingham (where Bantock was Professor of Music) at the time of the Triennial Festival in October.

In 1909 this music was much less well known than it is today; contemporary musicians were only beginning to explore the riches of early music. …

Read full preface > HERE