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The Dow Partbooks

Composer: Various Composers (1580s)

Instrumentation: Viola da gamba

Author/editor/arranger:

Publisher: DIAMM Publications

Format: Facsimile

Product code: DIAMM002

Tags: viola da gamba

£256.80

A full-colour facsimile edition. DIAMM has published The Dow Partbooks in partnership with the Viola da Gamba Society (UK). Robert Dow’s partbooks, copied in Oxford around 1580, rank among the most beautiful of all Tudor music manuscripts, and are also an important and authoritative source for the works they contain. Conceived with both singers and instrumentalists in mind, they contain a varied repertory suitable for voices and viols, including Latin-texted motets, English-texted anthems and consort songs, and a selection of In nomines and textless chansons, scored mainly for five-voice texture. Featured composers include William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Robert White, Robert Parsons, Philip van Wilder and Alfonso Ferrabosco Sr. Dow was a trained calligrapher, and his exquisite penmanship, executed in black ink on printed red staves, is unusually accurate and easy to read.

The product images shown are for illustrative purposes only and may not be an exact representation of the product, e.g. an image of the full score may illustrate an instrumental part.