This occasional research paper by Desmond Hunter reconsiders approaches to the performance of Byrd’s keyboard music based on a re-examination of the evidence in the sources, informed by the experience of playing and studying this music over many years. He also draws on research by other scholars and performers of Byrd’s keyboard music.

This documentary by Fugue State Films charts the development of organ-building in the Netherlands through the 500-year organ history of the Laurenskerk in Alkmaar, a church that includes both an organ from 1511 by Jan van Covelens as well as the world-famous 1646 van Hagerbeer instrument, updated in 1723 by Frans Caspar Schnitger.

Magnus Williamson recounts the archival and archeological detective work that has taken place at Lincoln Cathedral, in conjunction with the Byrd quatercentenary.  By bringing the building in line with post-Restoration practice in 1702, the Dean and Chapter also ended a spatial arrangement which had once generated the rich pre-Reformation tradtions of organs and voices in ‘alternatim’.  The characteristics of the building, and their musical implications, are probed in detail.

Andrew Parrott has assembled an extraordinary treasure trove of material which documents the myriad ways in which our recent ancestors engaged with music. This is book to lose yourself in for an evening, as well as a valuable collection of original source material for the specialist.

Organists Daniel Moult and Martin Schmeding provide an introduction to the issues surrounding the nature, history and performance practice of Bach’s organ works. They discuss the philosophical as well as musical arguments around how we should play Bach today, demonstrating on organs in Central Germany of Bach’s time.

In this film Franck and Performance Practice on the Organ, Joris Verdin demonstrates how to play Franck’s music in a historically informed manner.

Tom Bell uses W. T. Best’s editions of Bach to open a window into the world of a Victorian musician, and to explore nineteenth-century performance practice.