Anonymous: Duke of Norfolk (Paul’s Steeple)

Anonymous? So who’s the guy in the picture?

John Playford (1623-1686/7) was a publisher and a music theorist. (We like music theorists at this site.) He was also a war correspondent and royalist during the English Civil Wars. That turned out to be the losing side, for a time. It was during that time in 1651 that Playford published his best known book, The English Dancing Master. It included lots of popular tunes of the time and instructions on the dances that went with them. Just the thing for the Puritan-dominated Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell!

The tune you hear on the video, “Duke of Norfolk,” was included in Playford’s later work The Division Violin (1684). The “divisions” were variations or elaborations played over a “ground,” or repeated bass pattern. In this version, the guitar establishes the ground at the beginning and the divisions are played on the recorder. The divisions are written out, but the notation is otherwise sparse, leaving the performers room for improvisation.