Future releases

John Bull: Complete Works for Keyboard

Peter Watchorn, harpsichord

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.