Francis Pigott… uh, who?
September 11th, 2010
Back with a new recording! I’ve been getting back to some of my favourite music – obscure Restoration English! This has to be some of the least-known harpsichord repertoire there is, and yet, I love it! Some of it’s pretty terrible, of course, but there are so many fantastically quirky and fun pieces hidden away!
This composer seems even more obscure than most – not many published composers don’t even have a wikipedia article, but Francis Pigott is one! His ‘set’ (i.e. suite) in C was published in A Choice Collection of Ayres for the Harpsichord or Spinett alongside pieces by Blow, Croft, and Clarke, (and John Barrett, but he’s another unknown, at least to me!)
There are 7 movements: Prelude, Almand, Corant, Sarabrand, Jigg, March and Minuet, but since they’re so short, I collected them together into one mp3 file.
I also positioned the microphone a little bit differently this time – right up at the ceiling, so about 3 metres away from the bentside and maybe 2.5 metres up. (good thing my ceiling is high!) I think it’s a bit more natural sounding, but it’s tough to get a really good sound in a relatively small space. I’ll keep working at it!
[audio:https://jono.redowl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/2010-09-11-pigott.mp3]MP3 Download
