The Early Music Legend

The following comes from the Independent.. In his enjoyable list of "lost" programmes, Chris Maume calls Pied Piper from the 1970s an "early music programme for children" ("Turn on, tune in...", 7 August). Although, as a musician my husband, David Munrow, specialised in early music, over the years his programme covered a different music-related topic each week. It was aimed at youngsters (teachers used it in class), but many of the audience were adults. The painting that won the poster competition to advertise the programme has pride of place in my kitchen.Gillian Munrow Amersham, Buckinghamshire  http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/iiosi-letters-emails-amp-online-postings-14-august-2011-2337151.html It would be nice if GM could contribute to this site anything interesting, and amusing about DM, and the Early Music Consort? I suppose this would be asking too much...? Maybe she might like to send a photo of the poster which advertized Pied Piper fo...

The Hurdy Gurdy (2) David Munrow with Gillian Munrow on the hurdy gurdy  8.5" x 11" (cropped), ink and watercolor on paper, 2012 ....I have a fairly large collection of medieval and early renaissance music and I felt it had to be represented this year. I chose a track from the double record set Instruments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance by The Early Music Consort of London that I've played quite a few times this past year. The Consort's leader David Munrow is a remarkable chapter in the history of recorded old music. He was a scholar, a gifted, mostly self taught musician, wrote several books, and recorded over 50 albums in a very short career (Munrow committed suicide in 1976 at the age of 33.) Music from the middle ages barely has any musical notation so the performers of such early music rely on written accounts of performances, previous recordings of the material, associations with similar, later, and better documented music, but most of all...