Selections from Terpsichore
About this Piece
Two publications by Germany’s Michael Praetorius (1571?–1621) provided much of the material used to jump-start the early music revival of the latter 20th century. Those of a certain age may well remember the recordings from the 1970s by David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London. While the Syntagma musicum (1614–1620, in three volumes) offered a wealth of information on the history of sacred and secular music, musical instruments, and performance practices, his Terpsichore (1612) is a collection of over 300 dance pieces, mostly of French origin, intended for instrumental performance. Instrumentation is not specified so it would have been open to any and all instruments at hand, including consorts of viols or winds and certainly organ and harpsichord. —Thomas Neenan