The Early Music Legend

If we live in another country we are likely to see life from a different angle. Sometimes the experience brings special insights into behaviour and all the arts that will throw fresh light on the patterns of human development as happened to Darwin, the anthropologist Evans-Pritchard, collectors of flora and fauna and even to collectors of folk song. When Maud Karpeles and Cecil Sharp explored the isolated mountain area of the Appalachians in America they discovered a source of folk song that had closer parallels with the England, Ireland and Scotland of the seventeenth-century than with the twentieth. This was their richest find. On another level, when the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss left France to take up the chair of sociology in the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil he came into contact with the Indian population of the interior. The direction of his life changed. He began to study primitive culture, especially their modes of thought and behaviour and was able to use these in

  Guest Blogger: Peter Dickinson   is a composer, writer and pianist and an Emeritus Professor of two universities – Keele and London. See   here   for more details. ‘My wife and I first met David and Gill Munrow in Cambridge in about 1965. It was summer and we were all in the garden at 54 Bateman Street, the home of Mary Potts, whose late husband was L. J. Potts, the literary critic and English don at Queens’ College. Mary Potts had a very special role in the early music revival which has not been acknowledged [other than in this  Semibrevity blog post ]. A mere mention of her more distinguished pupils, who included  Christopher Hogwood , Colin Tilney and Peter Williams, is enough to indicate that she ought to be better known now. She knew harpsichordists of international reputation such as Gustav Leonhardt, Raphael Puyana and Kenneth Gilbert. Her own performances were on a more modest scale but she played in and around Cambridge for over fifty years. At May Week concerts she was espe

The legendary British folk singer Shirley Collins once said of David Munrow that he was incandescent. “He had so much energy that you really did feel if you put your finger on him you would get an electric shock. “I've never met anybody like him for absolute focus, and this energy crackling out of him.” It was an opinion widely shared.....(ref/Elsewhere/2021/)

The following is a classic example of the Early Music Consort's work.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnGS0pR1wOk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xKLUxwcHyk&t=135s  (a clearer, and better copy of the first link) The link to Amazon has a copy of the back of the above record which has a bio of DM, and a pic..worth reading as it can be enlarged. The front cover likewise The actual "documentary"film in which the music is featured was La Course en Tete  which dealt with a noted French cycle champion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hnLjiTzejo&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1OQdJhmdVxv5lGXPtZ4jp2n2HxAwtTLTK6Bp2uiShTmfPt5F3iwsGvbl8 Title: Renaissance Suite Artist: David Munrow; The Early Music Consort Of London Format: Vinyl Record. 12" LP 33rpm, No. Discs: 1 Label: Golden Hour, Cat No: GH 629, Year: 1976 Tracks:- Side One [1] Triumph - Intradas VI & VII from Hassler's "Lustgarten" for Cornetts, Sackbuts, Recorders,

  Conception & research: Pierre-F. Roberge For comments, additions and corrections mccomb@medieval.org ( continuing this discography for PFR ) Last update: 11/30/2012 This is an " under construction " and for now a quite complete discography of David Munrow. BIOGRAPHY (This biography is based closely on an excerpt of James Durant's text appearing on the back cover of the Angel edition of Munrow's Renaissance suite , with corrections from Gillian Munrow, and minor editing.) David Munrow's passion for early music and musical instruments commenced in 1960 when he was 18. Teaching in Peru under the British Council Overseas Voluntary Scheme, he became interested in South American folk music and took back to England with him Bolivian flutes, Peruvian pipes, and dozens of other obscure instruments. The following year he entered Cambridge as an English major. There a crumhorn hanging off a friend's wall aroused his interest and led him to delve deeply in

The following comes from a book by Albert Davis ("Dave") Munrow entitled Pure and Applied Gymnastics (1955). The photos from it came via someone calling themselves Sarah. They are believed to be the three members of the Munrow family. At the top ofcourse, the young person on the left is believed to be David Munrow. The following pics of the same woman are probably his mother Hilda who used to teach dance, and at the bottom Albert Davis ("Dave") Munrow who was a well-known, and respected PE instructor. Incidently, one of my contacts claimed that he was always worried whenever his son went rock climbing!!  I may try, or not to get some better reproductions of the images presented.RS