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Future releases
MO 0210 Chiara Margarita Cozzolani
- 1650 Motets
John Bull (1562-1628)
Complete Works for
Keyboard.
MO 0301
Bull: Works for Keyboard 1
MO 0404
Bull: Works for Keyboard 2
MO 0510
Bull: Works for Keyboard 3
MO 0609
Bull: Works for Keyboard 4

Dr.
John Bull is a somewhat enigmatic figure in English musical history. Born in
Hereford during the reign of Elizabeth I, Bull became an organist of the
queen’s Chapel Royal and retained this post during the early
years of James I’s reign. His compositional output was almost entirely
devoted to the harpsichord (or virginals, as it was known in England) and
the organ. A convert to Catholicism, he fled England in 1613 for Antwerp,
where he joined a community of exiled English Catholic musicians, including
Peter Philips, and ultimately became organist of the cathedral in Antwerp,
where he died in 1628. Bull’s music includes elaborate fantasias, pavans and
galliards and many settings based on plainsong, notably his fine set of
pieces works designated In Nomine. His keyboard variations require
incredible virtuosic skill, especially the monumental set of thirty
variations based on the tune Walsingham, which was still considered
to be unplayable in England more than a hundred years after they were
written. Harpsichordists Peter Watchorn and Mahan Esfahani will collaborate
in this series, using a variety of fine harpsichords and organs: the first
ever to present the entire keyboard output of this great but neglected
master.
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