My research centres on English music of the Baroque period. My specialisms are:
- music for ‘violin band’ (an ensemble similar to a string orchestra) in Restoration London
- the birth of the orchestra
- the music of Matthew Locke
- the orchestral works of Handel.
My research grew directly out of questions raised by performance but has expanded beyond the 17th century to explore the compositional process and social narratives.
In 2011, I was invited by Professor Donald Burrows to join the council of the Handel Institute and I am now actively engaged in Handel research.
Research funding awards
- 2002–2004: Wingate Scholar
- 2005–2009: PhD Studentship at the Open University
Current research
‘Handel’s compositional process in the creation of the Grand Concertos, op.6’
Chapter in collection of essays dedicated to Donald Burrows, edited by David Vickers (Boydell, in press)
Handel’s creative process has been the subject of much discussion in recent years. The notion that the composer’s approach to composition was usually linear and ‘improvisatory’, while grounded in the compositional practices of Handel’s day and his reputation as a master of spontaneous improvisation, has been challenged – by David Hurley among others – on the basis of evidence within the autograph sources. While previous scholarship has focused on the oratorios, in this essay I examine and compare the various sources that relate to the creation of the 12 ‘Grand Concertos’ that were later published as Handel’s Op.6, works which are now considered to represent ‘one of the marvels of eighteenth-century instrumental music’ (Burrows).
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This essay represents the first comprehensive survey in English of the manuscript and printed sources of Handel’s Op.6. In addition to summarising existing scholarship, it offers new insights into Handel’s compositional process, illuminating how these exceptional art-works achieved their final published state.
‘Matthew Locke: Consort Music’
Co-editor with John Cunningham of volume in Musica Britannica series (Stainer & Bell, in preparation)
Between 2001 and 2004, I made an edition of Matthew Locke’s violin-band music (with funding from the Wingate Trust, 2003–04). This remarkable music by England’s leading composer of the 1660s and 70s comprises instrumental music for the theatre, for court balls and table music (played when the King dined in public).
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Forthcoming publications
- Handel: Hercules, HWV 60: editor of volume for the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe
- Restoration theatre music in the manuscripts of the Filmer collection: accepted for publication in Early Music