Christopher Kite virginal built by James White in 1656
The compass of the virginal is four and a half octaves from GG to c3, with the then standard short octave tuning in the bass.
in 1980 and was regulated and tuned for this recording by Eric Dodson in mean-tone temperament, with E flat reset as D sharp for the Purcell pieces.
Released 1983 by Hyperíon Records Ltd, A66067
Recorded in The Bishopsgate Institute, London, on 28, 29 November 1981
Recording Engineer Mark Sutton
Sleeve Design Ferry Shannon
Executive Producers Edward Perry, Rosemary Weinstein (Keeper of
the Tudor and Stuart Department, Museum of London)
Produced in association with The Museum of London

The sleeve illustration shows a mid-17th century pinewood room, dated 1638/55, from Poyle Park, Tongham, Surrey, reconstructed at The Museum of London. The ceiling, oil on plaster. is by an anonymous London painter, 1676/7. and was taken from 15 Buckingham Street, Strand. London.
Photographed by John Edwards and reproduced by courtesy of The Board of Governors, The Museum of London.

I have cut away some disturbing noises of the mechanical construction of the instrument while cleaning up the vinyl from clicks.

00:00 Peter Philips Pavan (1580) 3’23
03:28 William Byrd Callino Casturame 2’08
5:38 William Byrd The Earl of Salisbury Pavan and 7:24 Galliard 3’04
08:48 Martin Peerson The Primrose 1’12
10:03 Martin Peerson The fall of the leaf 1’50
11:54 Orlando Gibbons The Queen’s Command 1’30
Anne Cromwell’s Virginal Book 1638 5’50
13:29 The Building of St Paul’s
14:26 Frogges Galliard
16:19 The New Nightingale
17:42 The Milk Maid

19:20 Thomas Tomkins A sad pavan for these distracted times 3’02
22:25 Thomas Tomkins Worster Brawls 1’20

Side 2
Elisabeth Roger’s Virginal Book 1656 7’36
23:47 Almaygne and 24:57 Corrant (Thomas Strengthfield)
26:00 Nanns Maske
26:38 Almaygne
27:17 Corrant
28:27 An Irish Toy
29:11 Glory of ye North
29:48 Maske

John Blow Suite No. 4 in C 4’48
31:25 Almand
32:43 Corant
34:22 Saraband
35:30 Gavott

Henry Purcell Suite No. 4 in a minor 6’46
36:14 Prelude
37:00 Almand
39:56 Corante
41:32 Saraband

43:00 Henry Purcell A new ground 2’18
45:19 Henry Purcell Trumpet tune called the Cibell 1’32
46:53 Henry Purcell Ground in Gamut 1’57
48:49 Henry Purcell Round O 1’35

THE INSTRUMENT
Keyboard music occupied an important place in family life in England in the
seventeenth century, but there are few instruments surviving intact to the present day. The Museum of London’s Cromwellian virginal is not only rare and valuable in its own right, but also especially representative of its period. In outward appearance it is severely Puritan, resembling a shallow oaken coffer with hinges and hasps of iron and a domed lid. On opening this lid, however, a much more ‘extravagant scheme of decoration meets the eye. The inside of the cover is painted in tempera with a lively hunting scene; the
soundboard is adorned with birds, flowers and a butterfly; and surrounding the keyboard and all along the front of the instrument are panels of embossed gold paper framed by polished wood mouldings. The keyboard itself has plain boxwood naturals, but the sharps are inlaid with slips of black and white. Some decorum is restored by the picture of a plain-featured lady in a pink
dress with long sleeves and a plain deep collar, who is playing a lute, which occupies the octagonal medallion directly above the keyboard in the centre of the front panel.
The jackrail bears the inscription ‘Jacobus White fecit, 1656.’ James White was a member of a well-known family of London virginal makers, and worked in Old Jewry. It was in fact towards the end of 1656, the year he made this instrument, that he was admitted to the Joiners’ Company. The compass of the virginal is four and a half octaves from GG to c3, with the then standard shortoctave tuning in the bass.
Fortunately, the disapproval of the Puritan extremists of music in churches does not seem to have extended to domestic music-making. In his diary entry for 2 September 1666, the time of the Great Fire, Samuel Pepys ‘noted that ‘hardly one lighter or boat in three (on the river) that had the goods of a house in, but there was a pair of Virginalls in it.’ Perhaps this instrument was one of them. It has been restored by the John Feldberg workshop, Sevepoaks, Kent, in 1980 and was regulated and tuned for this recording by Eric Dodson in mean-tone temperament, with E flat reset as D sharp for the Purcell pieces.