Thomas Roseingrave

Extract

I feel that my presence here requires a double apology for I can claim to be neither an authority on eighteenth century music nor a pianist. My interest in eighteenth century music is mainly a practical one and my only claim to your attention is that I have in certain transcriptions and arrangements both for the concert hall and the theatre succeeded, I hope, in popularising certain old music which might otherwise have remained familiar only to the scholar. As a pianist my limitations are even more marked and I can hardly hope to demonstrate that, as a writer for the keyboard, Roseingrave was second only to Domenico Scarlatti. Roseingrave's most striking work, however, lies not so much in his brilliant toccata-like movements as in his more introspective and experimental voluntaries and I hope that later on I may be able to give at least some slight account of these fascinating and original works.