The Song Called Trumpets - Score and parts
Sheet Music

SSAATT/AATTBB recorders or 6 instruments

SKU: MM.LPMEM13

Composed by Parsons. Recorder Sextets etc., String Quartets, Quintets etc. English Instrumental Music. Score and Parts. Published by Magnamusic Distributors Inc (MM.LPMEM13).

Printed after British Library, Add. MS 31390. This piece is unlike most English consort pieces in a number of respects: it is laid out for three pairs of overlapping parts (another example is the Byrd 6-part pavan and galliard). Interestingly the actual compass of each part is really quite small. This may suggest the use of wind instruments, something that in a paradoxical way is supported by the relatively low notated pitch. My feeling is that this was written for wind players (cornetts, shawms and sackbuts), who according to mid-sixteenth-century practice, were used to reading their music up a fifth. We have accordingly provided an alternative set of parts at this high pitch, which we hope wind players will find useful (it is also very suitable for violins). BT.

About English Instrumental Music

c. 1600. Some of the English music of this period is suitable only for viols but there's plenty written in a style that makes sense on all kinds of instruments. That is what is produced in this series. Available as score and parts.