Faculty Alumnus Orhan Memed Publishes Musica Britannica Volume on the Works of Benjamin Cosyn
Musica Britannica have published a volume of the complete keyboard works of Benjamin Cosyn, edited by alumnus Orhan Memed (Magdalen College, 1987). Benjamin Cosyn was the subject of Orhan's DPhil thesis at Oxford, which was completed in 1991 and published in the Garland series "Outstanding Dissertations in music from British Universities" in 1993.
The addition of Benjamin Cosyn to Musica Britannica's unrivalled collection of Tudor and Jacobean works for keyboard significantly enlarges our view of music-making in seventeenth-century England. A contemporary of Tomkins, and as long-lived, he wrote organ voluntaries, plainsong settings, pavans, galliards, grounds and secular song variations, plus alman-coranto-saraband suites of the type that were to characterise the Commonwealth and Restoration. Scholars have long been indebted to Cosyn as collector and copyist of pieces by Bull, Gibbons and others. Though owing much to Bull and Gibbons in particular, his own compositions show an individual spirit and bravura that suggest a formidable virtuosity and distinctive creative voice. MB107 includes items by Cosyn from the 'Cosyn' Virginal Book, his versions of pieces by Byrd and Bull from the same collection, works from other sources, and works unattributed or of likely authorship.
For more information about the publication, please visit the Stainer & Bell website. For more information about Orhad, please visit his website.
