English sacred music JEFFREYS GEORGE

Classique

Description :

Publication of the complete English sacred music of George Jeffreys (c.1610–1685) opens a window on the achievement of one of the few pre-Commonwealth composers wholeheartedly committed to the contemporary Italianate stile nuovo. Besides a quantity of sacred works in Latin, there are 26 surviving English anthems and devotional pieces, plus three settings from the Communion Service, an impressive output for someone employed for most of his life primarily as a steward to the Hatton family. Though only one of his works was published in his lifetime, Jeffreys’s compositions are preserved in several autograph manuscripts that are the basis of this edition.