The Consort Organ and its Role in Seventeenth-Century Ensemble Music

This book presents the first detailed study of the English consort organ, interrogating a wide range of primary source material to provide valuable insights into the role of the instrument and its players in seventeenth-century English consort and vocal music.

From the refined confines of the royal court to the lively entertainments of the post-Restoration music-houses, in aristocratic households, universities, and royal Catholic chapels, the consort organ found itself employed in a colourful range of instrumental and vocal repertoire involving the leading musicians of its day. The book traces the story of the English secular organ during the Jacobean and Stuart periods, contrasting its role with that of the contemporary church organ and placing its usage in the context of wider European trends in chamber and devotional music. Alongside chapters focussing on the instrument’s organology and varied playing contexts, a wide range of manuscript sources is used to illustrate in detail performance practices relating to the organ’s use in the string consort and devotional vocal repertoires, thereby providing valuable insights into the approaches taken by secular organists of the time in interpreting musical texts at the keyboard.

The book contains much information relevant to scholars and musicians working in the fields of instrumental ensemble music, English choral and vocal music, and historically informed performance practice, as well as to readers interested in European keyboard music, early modern musicology, and the social history of music.