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Links

On this page you will find links to other early music fora and websites. Click on the link to visit their website. Are you a member ofan Early Music Forum or other Early Music Group? Have you come across a website that you think would interest BMEMF members?  If you'd like to see a link  here, please contact the Chairman, Sue Russell, by clicking here
North-West Early Music Forum: nwemf.org.uk
Eastern Early Music Forum: eemf.org.uk
North-Eastern Early Music Forum: neemf.org.uk
Thames Valley Early Music Forum: tvemf.org
Midlands Early Music Forum: memf.org.uk
Southern Early Music Forum: semf.org.uk
National Early Music Association: earlymusic.info
Early Music Forum of Scotland: emfscotland.org.uk
South-West Early Music Forum: swemf.org.uk

Downloadable music and online catalogues.
·         The IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library offers thousands of scans of public domain/copyright-free scores from many periods, plus MP3 recordings. There is also a users' forum and encouragement for composers to submit material.  IMSLP has merged with the Werner-Icking Archives, and is now a remarkable source for freely downloadable music of all periods.
·         The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL), part of Choral Wiki, is "the largest website devoted exclusively to free choral sheet music". The downloadable catalogue contains over 12,750 scores, with a good proportion of classical and pre-classical. There is a page of texts and translations.  Readers are welcome to contribute.
·         "Laymusic" - Laura Conrad's transcription site, with many freely downloadable pieces published under the imprint Serpent Publications. A good supply of renaissance music such as Ruffo, Janequin, Lapicida, Le Heurteur and the usual better-known names, in exquisite notation, usually without barlines.
·         The Mutopia Project  Out-of-copyright editions computer-set by volunteers, freely downloadable.
·         Hans Mons offers a small amount of early music, mainly renaissance, free to download, in nice pdf files.
·         Cipoo.net is another public domain choral music site with over 2,700 files and useful links to other sites.
·         Ottaviano Petrucci seems to be a collection of free scores assembled by Arnold den Teuling, containing polyphonic renaissance music, often arranged for harp or keyboard; Gregorian chant in modern notation; Bicinia from Obrecht to Mozart; and music "dating from baroque until yesterday".
·         TheViola da Gamba Society of America has a music page offering, among other things, the complete 5-part and 6-part fantasias of John Jenkins and excerpts from the Manchester Viol Book as freely downloadable PDF files.
·         Captain Tobias Hume’s "Musicall Humours" 1605, transcribed for free download.
·         Digital facsimiles of a huge amount of lute tablature.
·         Steve Hendrick's Music Collection - downloadable scores, mainly renaissance dance and song. Connected with the lively Society for Creative Anachronism ("an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating pre-17th-century European history")
·         Joseph Casazza has an un-named site with some renaissance dance music; 2-part transcriptions of Jean d'Estée's Premier livre de danseries and Casazza's own 4-part settings of tunes from Arbeau and the 'Old Measures'
·         Alain Naigeon's score collection - pdf files of renaissance pieces. (Also in 'Encore' format, for those who have this software.) Same site leads to his sound recordings of the same pieces.
·         http://www.lysator.liu.se/~tuben/scores/ Free sheet music by various 17th and 18th century composers, especially violin material including some rare Swedish, maintained by Johan Tufvesson.

·         Wayne Cripps's tablature page - lots of lute music in tablature, from medieval (Dufay) to baroque. Downloadable in high-quality pdf or eps formats.

·         Sheet Music Galore  "The immodest intention of this webpage is, in the course of time, to cover all recorder sheet music commercially available by e-commerce on the Internet". At Aug 2012 it claimed to have around 12,000 items.
·         The CMME Project "offers free online access to new, high-quality early music scores produced by today's leading experts", but is highly complex and not user-friendly. You can view transcriptions in several formats, with or without barlines, words, etc. Some scholarly commentary.  Downloading for practical use is still to come.
·         Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads Digitised copies of over 30,000 ballads in several major collections. Intended for research purposes; fees required for performance or reprinting.
·         The British Library catalogue can be searched online. They say "Anyone can search the catalogue free of charge. You can also order copies of parts of many items and pay by credit card." Some flaws in the cataloguing have been mentioned by Neemf member Martyn Hodgson, who says that their loan collection of modern music editions, including many facsimile editions of early publications, held at Boston Spa rather than in London, is not online and that finding out what is available is not easy.
·         Early English Books Online (EEBO): virtual facsimile - downloadable page images in pdf form, plus a transcription of the text where relevant. This big, multi-partner academic project claims to contain "digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700".  Access is limited. The list of participating institutions includes universities of Leeds, Newcastle and York - anyone with library membership in those universities can download the images.

Sites devoted to a single instrument family.
·         A dulcian page
·         A recorders page
·         A historical flutes page
·         A harpsichord page
·         A crumhorn page
·         Viola da Gamba Society
·         Viola da Gamba Society of America
·         Société Française de Viole
·         Lute Society
·         The Renaissance Cittern Site  Plans, pictures, history etc.
·         Ultimate Guide to Classical Guitars and Lutes  Good links for historical fretted instruments.
·         A rebec project - Paul Butler's introduction to the history and construction of the rebec followed by an account of making one. Bibliography.
·         The medieval viol - another page by Paul Butler, many images and much discussion of this instrument.

Playable files to download.

These files should play automatically on your computer. Quality varies.
·         Alexa's Own MIDI Archive contains self-made midi files of Lassus, Moneverdi, Merulo, etc. Computer-generated but quite listenable.
·         Virtual Wilbye Consort and Virtual Byrd Choir have madrigals by Wilbye, Ward, etc. and church music by Byrd, Victoria, etc. These are streaming RealAudio files (the sites tell you how to get players if you don't have them), all made by the one person multi-tracking.
·         Alain Naigeon's sound files Renaissance pieces multi-tracked by a good recorder player in RealAudio format. The same site has his scores.
·         Early and Renaissance Music on Guitar - free MP3s, nicely played by Jon Sayles, who will send you the notation if requested.

Miscellaneous useful web-sites.
·         The Early Music Pioneers Archive (TEMPAR) is a blog which explores the lives, work and influence of important but largely forgotten pioneering figures of the early music revival movement
·         Cecilia is an on-line guide to music collections in archives, libraries and museums in the UK and Ireland. Put in your town or postcode and you can find your nearest collections. Searchable by composer, date, institution, tradition, etc; covers many kinds of music, Western and non-Western.
·         The Silvis Woodshed is intended to help singers learn their pieces. Midi files of quite a few pieces. Links to possibly-useful tools near the end of the page.
·         Music Workshop Guide lists adult amateur music workshops and summer schools across the world, with an early music and recorder section. Organised by category, by date or by country.
·         Music Teachers UK - Many useful resources for music teachers and some for the rest of us, including a free online journal whose well-informed CD reviews include occasional early music, also downloadable manuscript paper templates.
·         Early Music magazine, with archives, soundclips, etc.
·         Early Music Network - "Our goal is to connect all early music Web Sites around the world and become a primary resource for early music on the Net."
·         David Kettlewell's New Renaissance site contains all sorts of material, including a practical guide to renaissance harmony and how to improvise.

·         Here of a Sunday Morning (HOASM) is the website for a US early music program that goes out on Sunday mornings; this companion website is the reference section for the program, featuring excellent historical summaries of musical developments over many periods, extremely well organised. You can listen to the current program and some of the earlier programs on-line.
·         AncientFM is a commercial-free internet radio presenting medieval and renaissance (not baroque) performances, uninterrupted by any talking. Point your browser at this site, click on WinAmp or iTunes, and it should start playing. Click on playlist to see what's actually playing.

Small publishers and stockists.
·         Acadia Early Music Resources - a site run by Acadia University, Canada -- not a commercial publisher, but they produce some facsimiles that you can inspect online.
·         Ancient Groove Music: editions of sacred choral music, with "the highest standards of music engraving, academic rigour and performability".  Some free sheet music.  Also a few books, including what looks a fine reprint of Thomas Morley's Plaine and Easy Introduction, and some essays.
·         Artaria Editions specialises in rare Viennese eighteenth-century and early nineteenth repertoire - Beck, Dussek, Hofmann, and Wanhal - and works with Naxos so that you can read the same score the recording artists used.
·         Brian Jordan  (Access limited) Specialises in early music books and sheet music. Now has released a useful series of consort music, each volume containing several pieces at a very reasonable price.
·         Cantiones Press provides "attractive and authoritative editions of Renaissance choral music".
·         Cheap Trills publish 'reasonable editions of rare music' for small groups of recorders or viols, a small but interesting list. This is an American site and they don't mention postage costs.
·         CD Sheet Music supply CDs containing pdf files of music.  Not specifically Early Music but Bach is well represented. Order online, pay postage from the US.
·         Chiltern Recorder Consort Series & Musica Domestica: mainly recorder arrangements (some for recorders or viols) in varying numbers of parts, from 2 to 15, covering renaissance, baroque, and 18th-20th century music. Hand written by Alex Ayre. Several pieces from The Triumphs of Oriana. Note Alex Ayre died in 2009. His arrangements can still be bought from Recorder Music Mail
·         Corda Music (includes Golden Phoenix publications) -- music for classical guitar, for strings and for early instruments
·         Dovehouse Editions - series for Baroque chamber music, Italian renaissance consort music, and viola da gamba. Their website is 'temporarily' part of The Recorder Shop's website.

·         Edition Baroque is a new small publisher from Bremen. Catalog available in English or German (everything else German-only); mainly baroque music from minor but interesting composers.
·         Edition Güntersberg - solo viol music, mainly German, of 17th and 18th centuries: bilingual German/English website. (Careful with this one: the name is Güntersberg, with a ü, but the website  is www.guentersberg.de with the umlaut written out as ue)
·         Edition Michael Procter offers renaissance choral music, with a long list of composers.  The 'renaissance' is interpreted generously, as both the Eton choirbook and Georg Muffat (1654) appear. Prices in euros.
·         Edition Walhall seem to have a fair-sized list with quite a bit of early music, including some little-known names (Christoph Sätzl, d. 1655; Sulpita Cesis, b, 1577; Chiara Margarita Cozzalani, 1602-1677).
·         Green Man Press - performing editions of works for voices with and without obbligato instruments. Good value.
·         Hawthorns Music - early music, music for recorder and music for organ; also, less predictably, blackwork embroidery patterns for early music motifs. You can listen to the scores in midi from the catalogue.
·         Jacks, Pipes and Hammers - "for all your early music, viola da gamba and recorder sheet music". A very inclusive stock, with plenty of foreign material - they say they can get anything.
·         London Pro Musica has a huge list ("one of the largest collections of early music in practical editions in the world" they say), mainly secular music approx 1450-1650, in cheap and very practical editions.
·         Lute Society publishes and supplies lute music
·         Mapa Mundi - renaissance including Guerrero. Combined with Vanderbeek & Imrie Ltd. 16th century Latin church music and contemporary music.
·         Mostly Music Renaissance vocal music in practical editions: Byrd, Tallis, Lassus, etc, plus madrigals by Wilbye, Bateson, etc. Also study booklets on various topics, aimed at A level music students.
·         Music By The Score supplies second-hand and out-of-print sheet music, with an easy-to-use online, searchable catalogue.
·         Musiekhandel Saul B. Groen Amsterdam-based specialists in mail order for early music and books
·         OMI - Old Manuscripts & Incunabula describes itself as "the leading source of facsimile editions of music and art." Although OMI mainly distibutes other facsimile editions it does offer a few of its own, ranging from the Eton Choirbook to Mahler's 7th.
·         Oriana Music - madrigal editions with individual parts for players, lyra viol music, beginners' editions of viol music. Bahngasse 11, 3420 Kritzendorf, Austria. No website as yet (Aug 2012); email johanna.richard@utanet.at for a catalogue
·         Oriel Library - low-cost music for voices viols and recorders
·         Ostinato  German publisher, website in German only; mixed list of early and modern, emphasis on vocal music
·         Practicall Musicke Editions offer pieces mainly from the English consort period, for viols and in some cases recorders, including Andrew Kerr's reconstructions of six Byrd pavans and galliards. No website, but a catalogue can be emailed on request from mauricejrogers@tiscali.co.uk
·         PRB Music instrumental and vocal music from the Baroque and Classical eras, as well as original contemporary works for early and modern instruments, and voices.
·         Prima la musica Urtext performing editions of Baroque and Early Classical music, "from solo motets to opera, from trio sonatas to symphonies.
·         Recorder Music Mail - many useful links for recorder players including a page listing printed catalogues supplied on request
·         Rondo Publishing music for historical, modern and contemporary string instruments, also recorders; chamber music, teaching editions, consorts, and distributor for Passemezzo (facsimiles and 'fine editions') and The Notehouse People (music for young children).
·         Saraband Music publish modern playing editions of early music, indexed by instrument. (Beware - 'viol music' is separate from 'bowed strings'.)
·         Seicento publish their own early music editions and also supply other publishers' editions and facsimiles. Lute, viol, violin, consort music, keyboard, recorder, flute, guitar, theorbo, etc. German-based, but they accept mail order from their extensive on-line catalogue
·         Tree Edition publish a good deal of lute music, mostly renaissance and baroque but some modern too. German-based.
·         Turtels & Twins Press offer "Reniassance [sic] & Baroque Performance Editions", mostly for lute. E.g. Very Easy English Lute Music, Popular Elizabethan Lute Music etc, including The Euphonious Lute containing original lute music in renaissance style by the publisher, Matthew Weinman. Other musicians might also be interested in the Renaissance Fake Book. In jazz, a fake book contains melody, chords and words for a song, or just melody and chords for a dance tune. This renaissance version contains 121 tunes such as: "The Maids In Constrite - Maydes are Simple Some men Say - The Merry old woman - Monsiers Alamaine - The Morris - The Most Sacred Queen Elizabeth Her Galliard - Mr. Dowlands Midnight - Mris Nichols Almain". Also a book of renaissance grounds over which to improvise.
·         York Early Music Press - Choral and vocal works pre-1800, though primarily 1550-1700 scholarly performing editions with performance practice information, etc. Scores available for licensed photocopying. Linked to University of York Music Dept and York Early Music Festival.

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