I was asked to put back my video with fragments of the " My Lady Nevells Ground". I made a new recording, this time complete, on clavichord.
better quality: http://www.vimeo.com/1250895
The clavichord was very popular in Germany and other northern countries, during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. But there must have been plenty of them in England too. We have this remark by Mattheson (Critica Musica, 1722):
When it is said that clavichords are to be found nowhere but in Germany, and then, that a clavichord has been heard in England in the home of a German organist, then [one must conclude that] there must be clavichords in England, at least among the Germans there (of which there are quite a few now). There are people living here in Hamburg who each year send as many clavichords as they can make to England, Spain, Holland, etc. So where are
these clavichords?
The term Virginal music is in a way misleading. All kind of keyboard music is meant.
My Ladye Nevells Booke is a compilation of 42 pieces for keyboard. Together with the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, one of the most important collections of keyboard music of the English renaissance. Copied by John Baldwin, one of the most famous musical scribes and calligraphers of the day, the pieces seem to have been selected, organized and even edited and corrected by Byrd himself.
Ernst stolz clavichord 06-08 (Nl.)