Search - William Cornysh, Richard Davy, Walter Lambe :: The Pillars of Eternity: Eton Choirbook Volume III

The Eton choirbook (Eton College MS. 178), the leading source of late fifteenth-century English music, is a splendid production with fine illuminated initial letters and an attractive use of red ink for coloration and the text of solo sections. It is unique among manuscripts of its period in still being preserved in its original home. The Eton choirbook is by far the most important of the few English sources surviving from the period: in fact it is unquestionably one of the greatest monuments of English music in any age. Although there are serious losses from the manuscript, the remains are sufficient to give a good picture of the large-scale votive antiphon and the alternatim Magnificat in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. Without them we should know nothing of the work of that truly great composer John Browne, have no complete composition by Richard Davy, and only two pieces by Walter Lambe.