HERBERT HOWELLS (1892-1983): 13 selections from Howell’s Clavichord, LENNOX BERKELEY (1903-1989): Mr. Plikington’s Toye, For Vere, JOHN JEFFREYS (1927-2010): 4 Little English Dances in the Georgian Manner, GAVIN BRYARS (b.1943): After Handel’s “Vesper”.

Catalogue Number: 03R051
Label: Naxos
Reference: 8.573668
Format: CD
Price: $11.98
Description: Since 52 of the 72 minutes on this disc are devoted to Howells, we should remind you that this was the result of the composer's discovery of the sound of the clavichord and a life-long love of Tudor music. Howell's Clavichord was the second of two suites composed for that instrument and it came in two books of ten pieces each (1941 and 1961). Hyperion released a recording in 1994 of John McCabe playing these on a piano and in 2002, we offered a Centaur disc using a double manual lautenwerk (a lute-harpsichord strung with gut) whose delicate touch and flexibility are what this music was made for. Now here are a substantial selection of them played on a modern copy of a 1638 Ruckers Harpsichord with one piece - Goff’s Fireside - repeated on a muselar (a 17th-century Flemish virginal). Christopher D. Lewis (harpsichord).