Comparison recordings of music by Philips:
Rafael
Puyana, harpsichord. Mercury Living Presence [ADD] 434 364-2
Colin
Tilney, harpsichord. Argo LP ZRG 675 [OP]
Paul
Nicholson, harpsichord. Hyperion CDA 66734
Peter Philips was born to a catholic family in
Protestant England and went to Rome
at the age of 22 to study Italian music. He entered the service
of Lord Thomas Paget three years later. He traveled extensively,
eventually marrying and had settled in Belgium by 1591. Some years after
his wife and child had died, he was ordained a Catholic priest
in 1609. Nineteen of his surviving 32 works are in the Fitzwilliam
Virginal Book, others in Musica Britannica. Seven
of the works on this disk are intabulazione, or floridly
figured keyboard arrangements of vocal music by Italian composers.
All Philips’ music is characterized by a deeply mystical,
reflective, introspective mood, and the sound of this recording
is perfectly suited to this, recording the harpsichord - a
single 8 foot register with a very sweet and resonant tone
- very close as though the listener were the one playing.
Elizabeth Farr’s performances are excellent, that is to say,
she plays these pieces pretty much as I would play them.*
The temperament is equal or very close to it, and the overall
sound is richly sensual.
Philips’ most popular piece is the Pavan and
Galiarda Dolorosa from the Fitzwilliam Book which has
been recorded by Rafael Puyana and Colin Tilney among others.
Their performances are a little more dramatic and extroverted
than Elizabeth Farr’s, or would be if she included that piece
on this disc, which she doesn’t; so all this music will be
new to most collectors. The style of Philips’ original works
is typical of the polymodalism of other Elizabethan keyboard
composers, and in his writing out the embellishments his works
form valuable records of performance practices of the period.
Colin Tilney’s anthology recording on Argo** utilized
a bell-like instrument with a deliciously unequal temperament
and Tilney’s temperament is, like most of the men, a little
more extroverted than Farr. Paul Nicholson on Hyperion plays
a somewhat different program, including the famous Pavan,
and is also a well played, good sounding disk. Overall though
I prefer this Elizabeth Farr disc for the pieces she plays.
Paul Shoemaker
see also Review
by Glyn Pursglove
*except she gets all the notes right.
**Tilney has made many recordings and I have not
been able to determine if the anthology with the same program
available for a time on Musica Viva is actually the same recording
as this Argo disk.
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Elizabeth Farr (harpsichord, 1658 by Jerome de Zentis, Rome, restored by Keith Hill). 
