5003 – The Battell

from ‘My Ladye Nevells Book of Virginal Music’

William Byrd

Arranged by Roger Harvey

Difficulty: Hard

Price: £27.50

Programme notes:

1. The Soldiers Summons
2. The March of the Footemen
3. The March of the Horsemen
4. The Trumpets
5. The Bagpipe and the Drone
6. The Flute and the Drum
7. The March to the Fight
8. The Retreat
9. The Burying of the Dead
10. The Galliard for the Victory
11. The March after the Battle (Earl of Oxford’s March)

Battle music had, during the 16th Century, become something of a novelty vogue: Jannequin was probably the first to attempt it in imitative choral music and Scheidt and Andrea Gabrieli had written examples for instrumental forces. This attempt by William Byrd was originally for the keyboard.

The typical features of these pieces were an extremely simple harmonic background and increasingly virtuosic flourishes. William Byrd extended his version into a suite containing various characteristic movements which depict the arrival at the battlefield, an eve of battle meditation, the battle itself, complete with retreat, burial and victory dance. The final item in the suite is the piece better known as 'The Earl of Oxford’s March’.

While the harmonic and melodic language are simple to the point of naivety, the very early attempt at programme music is, nevertheless, a captivating set of cameos which, overall, show considerable inventiveness in the use of simple musical ideas to convey a sense of the almost charmingly civilised Renaissance battle scene.

Performance notes:

Trumpet 1 requires a piccolo. This player also needs a tambourine and a small drum (tambour) with a hard stick.

Trumpet 2 requires a flugel

Horn requires a medium sized tambour and soft stick.

The trumpets should sit at the outside of the semicircle so that they can move easily to extra stands placed to either side of the platform. ‘The Trumpets’ and ‘The Flute and the Drum’ should be played from these positions.

He movements should follow each other as closely as possible. In some cases they should be Segue, with the percussion instrument providing a link to allow other players to switch instruments or move.