Rachel Fane's May Masque with Deanne Williams, Ruby Bones and Alison Findlay

Rachel Fane's May Masque with Deanne Williams, Ruby Bones and Alison Findlay

Over the same weekend in the spring of 2025 Alison Findlay, Professor at Lancaster University and Ruby Bones both directed separate productions of Lady Rachel Fane's May Masque of 1627. Professor Deanne Williams of York University and author of Shakespeare and the Performance of Girlhood and Girl Culture brought Alison and Ruby together to discuss their productions and the remarkable young author and playwright, Lady Rachel Fane.  This podcast was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and York University.

Parthenia: Music for Virginals Ep. 4: Louise Hung on Tuning and Temperament, Gibbons' Fantasia of Foure Parts

'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613 probably as part of the celebrations for a royal wedding. MIO's Artistic Director John Edwards talks to keyboardist Louise Hung about pitch and temperament - how early keyboards were not tuned the same way a modern piano is. We then hear Louise Hung perform Gibbons' Fantazia in Foure Parts. This episode was originally released on the Musicians In Ordinary's podcast feed.

Parthenia: Music for Virginals Ep. 3: Prof. Deanne Williams and Bull's Pavan and Gibbons' Galiardo and The Queen's Command

'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613 probably as part of the celebrations for a royal wedding. MIO's Artistic Director John Edwards talks to Prof. Deanne Williams about the plays by Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher and others, and masque performances during the run up to the marriage of Frederick, Count Palatine and Elizabeth Stuart. We then hear Louise Hung perform music by Bull and Gibbons from the book.  This episode was originally released on the Musicians In Ordinary's podcast feed.

Parthenia: Music for Virginals Ep. 2: Louise Hung and John Edwards on the Earl of Salisbury and Byrd's Earl of Salisbury's Pavan and Galiardo Secundo

'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613. As the chief counsellor in the last years of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign and the first years of James I’s, Robert Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury was at the centre of a web of political patronage, artistic patronage, and a web of spies that seems to have included musicians. John Edwards and Louise Hung talk about Salisbury’s patronage of the arts, especially the art of music, his musical instrument collection and his collection of musicians. At the end of the chat you’ll hear Louise play William Byrd’s Pavana Earl of Salisbury and Galiardo secundo from Parthenia. Further reading: Patronage, Culture and Power: The Early Cecils ed. Pauline Croft and John Dowland by Diana Poulton. This episode was originally released on the Musicians In Ordinary's podcast feed.

Parthenia: Music for Virginals Ep. 1 Louise Hung and Byrd's Preludium and Galliardo Mary Brown

'Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (in England at least), composed by three famous masters: William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons' was probably printed in 1613. MIO's Artistic Director John Edwards talks to harpsichordist Louise Hung about the terminology of plucked string keyboard instruments in the Elizabethan and Jacobean period, how they make their sound, the association of the virginals with young women in our period and the techniques and fingering which they used and which Louise deploys to get the characteristic sprightly articulation in Mary Brownlow’s Galliard and the spectacular passage work in the prelude by Byrd, both of which you’ll hear at the end of our chat. This episode was originally released on the Musicians In Ordinary's podcast feed.