Pre-Reformation Organ Music in England

Extract

The word ‘pre-Reformation’ is almost sufficiently sweeping and spacious to provoke hasty calculations about the true bulk and vastness of the unseen part, the submerged part of the English musical iceberg. As a nation, we are certainly insular; the greater part of our traditions lies beneath the surface; and we often refer in terms of icy contempt to the noble efforts of our musical forefathers, who were intent upon outstripping their continental rivals. Writers on early organ music are frequently out of sympathy with, and consequently unkind to, our English composers. Gabrieli and Titelouze are lauded to the loft, if not to the skies; while the works of our hempen homespuns—Allwood, Burton, Coxsun, Farrant, Kyrton, Preston, Redford, Rhys, Shelbye, Shepherd, Strowger, Tallis, Taverner, Thorne, and Wynslate—are passed over with scarcely a mention. The reason is not hard to seek.