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I created all the midi files on this page using Noteworthy Composer. The originals were mainly for keyboard, or in open score. Little has been changed in arranging them. I recently upgraded my sound card from Sound Blaster 16 to Sound Blaster Live! The balance between parts, and the instrumental timbres differ markedly with these sound cards. Consequently I have begun adding a second version of each midi. You might wish to experiment to see which sounds better on your sound card. Click the title of the piece (in blue) for the Sound Blaster 16 version, or the word SBLive! for the Sound Blaster Live version. Additional notes:
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| J S Bach |
Béla Bartók |
William Byrd |
John Dowland |
Giles Farnaby |
Claudio Monteverdi |
| Erik Satie |
Ludwig Senfl |
Tielman Susato |
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J S Bach 1685-1750 Back to top |
J S Bach was such a prolific composer, that a copyist, it is said, would require a lifetime just to write his music out! And equally astonishing, there is not a dud work amongst this enormous output. While Bach's great reputation, is based on more substantial works than the miniatures found here, these pieces do give a little "taste" of his style. Sources: |
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Ludwig Senfl circa 1490-1543 |
The Swiss, Ludwig Senfl is little known now. He was once a much admired court composer. Martin Luther was a particular "fan"; maybe because Senfl's output included many community songs. This piece sounds splendid in its original form: unaccompanied voices imitating bells. |
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Erik Satie 1866-1925 |
Although Eric Satie's music is rarely heard in public (other than when filched by advertisers), he had much influence on the famous French composers Debussy and Ravel. Satie's strove to write simple, direct, unaffected music. |
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Giles Farnaby circa 1563-1640 Back to top |
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Giles Farnaby is considered a "minor" composer of the Elizabethan period. I find his music particularly fresh and inventive and engaging. These keyboard pieces (all from "The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book") seemed to suit a brass ensemble. |
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William Byrd 1543-1623 |
William Byrd was the most famous English composer of his time. He was the writer of noble masses and other large scale works. These pieces show he could also write with flair and pizazz in the 'pop' style of the day. The Earl of Oxford's March is particularly inventive. (And judging by the fingering needed to play some of the parts, there must have been some virtuosos in the Earl's band.) |
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Claudio Monteverdi 1567-1643 Back to top |
Monteverdi was a genius; to be ranked alongside Bach and Beethoven. His Vespers of 1610, for example, are amongst the greatest works in Western art. Like most good composers he could write music for a range of performing talents, so his music was very popular and much played. Check out the syncopations in the Damigella Tutta Bella. |
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Béla Bartók 1881-1945 Back to top |
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Tough... dissonant... intellectual. Words often used to describe the music of Béla Bartók. I think his was one of the more powerful and uncompromising minds to be turned to music, yet these pieces - mostly for children - show he had a light touch too. Bartók was writing at a time when "national identity" was a preoccupation. His studies of eastern European peasant music provided him with inspiration for creating a sound world not heard before in classical music. (A good example is the spikiest" number here; the 6th Dance in Bulgarian Rhythmn). Sources: Ten Easy Pieces for Piano, First Term at the Piano, For Children, Romanian Folkdances, Mikrokosmos Book 6 |
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John Dowland 1562-1626 Back to top |
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Dowland was a composer of great flair and talent, and very popular. The titles of these pieces show patrons were eager to acquire works by him. It seems he only wrote miniatures like these.
One of his pieces, Lachrimae Antiquae created phenomenal interest at the time, such was the complexity of the part writing, and the extraordinary, almost excrutiating sounds that occur in places due to clashing major/minor scales. The Earle of Essex Galiard demonstrates a rhythmic device used by most renaissance composers: that of alternating ¦123456¦ with ¦123456¦. Ie. two groups of three against three groups of two. |
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Tielman Susato circa 1500-1561 Back to top |
Tielman Susato was a composer, arranger and music publisher. In 1551, in Antwerp, he published The Dansereye, a collection of his open score settings of some popular dances and songs of that time, and earlier. Groups of amateur musicians would gather with such scores to make music together, using whatever instruments they could play that fitted the parts. Instruments such as recorders and lutes... and crumhorns, shawms, racketts, curtals and sackbutts! These midis show the range of music presented in The Dansereye. From the grand, martial La Bataille, to the simple, but poignant Bitte Rue, and the energetic Das Ganze. Note: the ornamentation I added to the top part of the Branle is based on a performance by David Munrow in his album ???? |
This page was last updated February 19, 2002