Composer: John Blitheman, John Blow, William Boyce, William Croft, Giles Farnaby, Christopher Gibbons, Henry Purcell, John Redford, William Walond
Performer: Joseph Payne
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Naxos
Catalogue: 8550718
Release: 1993
Size: 294 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. anon.: The Mulliner Book: Galliard
02. Newman: The Mulliner Book: A Fancye
03. anon.: The Mulliner Book: La Bounette; La doune cella
04. Redford: Lucis Creator optime, “O Lux with a meane”
05. anon.: The Mulliner Book: Exultet cellum laudibus with a meane
anon.: The Mulliner Book
06. Chrise qui lux
07. Lucem tuam
08. Christe qui lux with a meane
09. Sermone blando angelus
10. Eterne rerum conditor
11. lam lucis orto sidere
12. Blitheman: Te Deum
13. Newman: The Mulliner Book: Pavan
14. Farnaby: Fantasy
15. Farnaby: Bonny Sweete Robin
16. anon.: The Old Spagnoletta
17. anon.: Trumpet Voluntary in D major
18. Purcell: Voluntary in G major, Z720
19. anon.: Verse in G major
20. Boyce: Voluntary I
21. Gibbons: Voluntary in A minor
22. Croft: Organ Voluntary in D minor
anon.: From the Dancing Master
23. Greensleeves and Yellow Lace
24. The Constant Lover
25. The British Toper
26. The Happy Clown
27. Salley’s Fancy
28. The Maiden’s Blush
29. London’s Glory
30. Walond: Introduction and Voluntary in G major
Blow: Suite in C major
31. Prelude
32. Courante
33. Fugue
34. Croft: Organ Voluntary in D minor
The first volume of Joseph Payne’s survey of early English organ music is divided between late Renaissance pieces (both sacred and secular), most of which were compiled in the Mulliner Book by 1560, and Baroque works with a continental flavor written after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. To illuminate these dramatically different styles and periods, Payne plays two modern organs located in Massachusetts that were built to specifications that give a fair approximation of the older English organ sound and character. The organ at St. Paul’s Church, Brookline, has bright reed and flute stops that lend an intimate quality to the short Mulliner pieces. Yet the instrument’s registration is broad enough for Payne to render Giles Farnaby’s Fantasy with splendid colors. The Baroque works are served well by the organ at the Annisquam Village Church, Cape Ann, which has the wide assortment of stops necessary for Payne’s varied tonal palette. This rich registration is most apparent in the Voluntaries by Purcell, Boyce, and Croft, and the character pieces taken from the anonymous collection The Dancing Master. Also outstanding is Payne’s jubilant performance of John Blow’s Suite in C. The recorded sound is fine, with only occasional clicking of the Annisquam organ’s mechanisms.