Byrd, William: My Ladye Nevells Booke

- The first complete edition of My Ladye Nevells Booke for nearly 100 years.
- Retains original notation style, time signatures and mensural notation
- Detailed preface containing information on the composer, the manuscript, performance and instruments
- Full critical commentary
- Colour hardback cover with a matt finish 

Edited by Jon Baxendale and Francis Knights

My Ladye Nevells Booke was copied in 1591 for Lady Elizabeth Nevell of Berkshire, where her second husband had been returned as a Member of Parliament five times. Its copyist was John Baldwin, a singing man of St. George’s Chapel Windsor. We do not know why it was copied, yet it is an exceptional volume not only for its calligraphy, which must be the most beautiful of its period, but also its contents they are exclusively by the ‘father of English music’, William Byrd. The manuscript has not been edited as a single volume for nearly a century and the old edition has long been in need of replacement. Editors Jon Baxendale and Francis Knights have re-examined the score, its contents and notation. Using the same approach taken for their acclaimed Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, they have recreated the manuscript as closely as possible in an endeavour to engage players with the type of keyboard notation that was commonly known in the sixteenth century.