Fantazia of Foure Parts (XVII) by Orlando Gibbons was published in Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls, the first printed collection of music for keyboard in England published in probably 1611. British musicologist Thurston Dart claims that “of the first issue of Parthenia only a single copy is known to exist; formerly in the collection of Dr Rimbault and now in the Huntington Library, San Marino California” in the notes of his 1962 second, revised edition (Source 3) based on the third of the “Harrow Replicas” (published in 1942 by Chiswick Press, London), a facsimile of the first issue of Parthenia.
Dr. Edward Rimbault, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, edited the Parthenia, which was republished in 1847 by the Musical Antiquarian Society (Source 2). In his introduction, Rimbault states that “subsequent impressions (always from the original plates) appeared in 1635, 1650, and 1659” but Dart, in his introduction says that “Other issues allegedly dated 1635, 1659, and 1689 appear to be no more than ghosts, created from misreadings of figures or titles, for no copies bearing these dates can be traced in the principal libraries of the world.” Immediately, I was wary about these two sources, because of the mismatch of the information given by the two. Rimbault did include a page of the Fantazia of Foure Parts in his introduction but does not state from which copper engraving it was from. Because Dart says that Rimbault does own the only single copy of the first printed collection of Parthenia, it is not unreasonable to assume that the picture is that of the 1611 publication but I am hesitant to state assuredly that it is from such source. This picture however, will serve as my first source and will be used as the “first edition” source of this piece.
The music in Source 1 is written in F clef on six staves. Margaret Henrietta Glyn in the preface of her 1924 edition (Source 4) states that “it’s reading [does not] embody the style of the best period of virginal music… Its litter of ornaments is absurd.” However, she complains that “there is nothing good to say of [Rimbault’s] edition... The omission of all the ornaments without comment, the destruction of character by altering accidentals to suit the times, the mistakes and misreadings…” Rimbault’s edition is based on comparison with contents from several MS Virginal Books of greater antiquity than the earliest printed copy, notably Queen Elizabeth’s Virginal Book in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; the Virginal Book of the Earl of Leicester; and the famous Virginal Book of Lady Neville; both of which latter are in his library.. Several important corrections have been made in the present edition by the comparison with the earlier copies. This would explain the missing ornamentations that both Glyn and Dart decide to put in in their editions although the interpretations of such ornaments “remain a matter of some dispute”. Dart suggests that in performance, they are best omitted altogether and that “ornamentation signs often seem to be used for no other purpose than to draw attention to an accented note- to point an unusual harmony or to bring out some of the many cross-rhythms that add such a sparkle to the music”.
Other than a brief mention of Rimbault when introducing the history of the piece, Dalt does not reference Rimbault at all when making editorial decisions. Rimbault’s edition does have consistent inconsistencies; for example, on numerous occasions there are naturals marked when there should have been sharps marked. Rimbault divides the bars up into the standard 4/4 barring- this practice leads to mistakes especially since the barring in source 1 is much longer and signs are carried through onto the other notes in the bar. When comparing Dalt’s edition with Rimbault’s, besides the occasional sign disagreement and missing notes, these two editions are remarkably similar. One glaring editorial decision Dalt makes is that he adds his own time signatures, which he interchanges quite freely. There are also some instances where Dalt’s notation and ties are also different and when compared to source 1 and source 4, were found to be added editorial marks.
When comparing Dalt’s edition to that of Glyn’s, the inconsistencies found in Rimbault’s editions were made obvious as Dalt’s and Glyn’s editions matched up quite nicely. With the inconsistencies between these three sources, I looked back at the original and it appears that Rimbault sometimes omits or misreads certain notes. Out of these three completed editions (source 1 is not complete and difficult to sight-read), I plan to use Margaret Glyn’s 1924 edition because of its faithfulness to the original score with no additional edits. Looking for information on Margaret Henrietta Glyn online, I am surprised to find that there are no biographies of her- she doesn’t even have her own Wikipedia page like Rimbault or Dalt do. Any search yields her book results which are pretty impressive: The Rhythmic Conception of Music, 1907, Elizabethan Virginal Music and Its Composers, 1934, Theory of Musical Evolution, 1934, and an English translation of Wagner’s Parisal Libretto.
I believe that Glyn’s edition is most unbiased and most reliable out of all 3 readable editions but I am unsure of how relevant it is to the composer’s wishes. When I am learning the piece, I am going to follow the score on Glyn’s edition but will also keep in mind the differences as shown in Rimbault’s edition. Period performance wise, I think Rimbault’s edition is not to be overlooked because of such inconsistencies. I have marked the discrepancies but have not compared the two in practice.