ABOUT LYREBIRD MUSIC
Lyrebird Music was formed under the mistaken impression that the French publishing hourse, Éditions de l’Oiseau-Lyre, which was placed in the hands of the University of Melbourne in about 2013, had ceased to operate. This was frustrating since the publisher produced some good editions of French baroque music, even if they are, today, dated in terms of presentation and scholarship.
A snippy letter from the board of Éditions de l’Oiseau-Lyre informed the founder of Lyrebird Music that they had not ceased to publish but were, instead, concentrating on a non-eurocentric catalogue. I am happy to stand corrected. It has also been demanded in pseudo-legalise wording that Lyrebird Music informs any who might be in the slightest bit interested that the two entities named in the paragraph are independent of each other and that our editions are not the same. Given the positive response to our broad range of publications, I am happy for there to be no connexion at all, apart from the fact that we have a few publications in common. Our philosophy was to fill the void in the market by replacing many of their editions with newly edited works. The first planned publication was the charming Pieces de clavessin of Gaspard Le Roux, a much-overlooked source of French harpsichord music of which the only modern edition had been out of print since the 1960s. This, though was soon taken over by the Norwegian publishing company Cantando Musikkforlag, as were two subsequent volumes that dealt with Le Roux’s harpsichord duets and trio arrangements. Several other volumes followed quickly but, after a change in the company’s direction, editor Jon Baxendale applied for the rights to his editions to be returned as was left with nine complete volumes and three more in preparation.
The only way forward was to put his trust into the hands of another publisher or to continue with his original plan to publish the music himself. Unashamedly calling the new company Lyrebird, the editions have quickly established themselves for their quality and erudite prefaces which centre on performance practice. This includes:
- The complete organ and harpsichord music of Louis Marchand and Louis-Nicolas Clérambault.
- Georg Muffat’s Apparatus musico-organisticus.
- François Couperin’s Pièces d’orgue, which has been acclaimed by scholars and musicans worldwide.
- The harpsichord pieces of Gaspard Le Roux alongside arrangements of his music for performance on two harpsichords.
- The only edition of Nicolas de Grigny’s organ music that uses the 1699 and the 1711 imprints as primary source material.
- The first edition of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book since it was first published in 1899, work which was undertaken with the eminent English music scholar, Francis Knights.
- A new edition of My Ladye Nevells Booke, the first since the 1920s.
- A performing edition of the 1742 Bach Art of Fugue and Thomas Billington’s arrangements of Corelli concertos.
- The only edition of Anne Dawson, her book (1716), containing transcriptions of Vivaldi and Albinoni concertos, other transcriptions and occasional pieces.
- A new release of César Franck: Intégrale de l’œuvre de l’orgue, edited by Richard Brasier, in four volumes, published June 2022.
- A new edition of the complete harpsichord music of Louis Couperin, published in September 2022.
- The first-ever edition of Will Forster’s Virginal Book.
Those wishing to submit should read the rubric on the appropriate page and are welcome to make contact.