My research background in music

As well as teaching the piano, I have a research background in music. My doctorate is in early Tudor church music (or, more specifically, pre-compositional mathematical structures in Mass settings by two of the leading composers of the period).

The desire to put this wonderful, but still neglected, music into its intended context led me into liturgical research, creating full reconstructions of mediaeval Latin Masses. This involves not just the music, which was originally all in plainsong (chant), but also all the ritual and actions that were a major element in celebrating a full Mass.

My first project in this field was preparing all the plainsong and ritual for the Requiem Mass in Portsmouth Cathedral in 1984 for the burial of the remains of one of the sailors from the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s famous flagship that sank in 1545. Since then, I have reconstructed Masses for live performance at the Birmingham Early Music Festival and the quincentenary of Loughborough Grammar School. I have also prepared editions for recordings by the Taverner Choir, including a Mass for Trinity Sunday, and music by Thomas Tallis. I believe these recordings are no longer available, but can now be downloaded from the Internet.

More recently, I have moved into the field of theological research, and I am in the process of completing a book provisionally entitled Unravelling the Christmas Story. This has been a fascinating and, at times, surprising – even unnerving – voyage of discovery. I started with the belief that the two nativity stories in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke could be convincingly reconciled, but in a more sophisticated manner than the typical nativity play. However, I soon realized that they are completely independent and irreconcilable. Neither attempts to convey historical fact; rather, both were intended to present the birth of Jesus in symbolic terms, resulting in very different stories.

Once I have found a publisher for this book, I am hoping to prepare a comprehensive edition of scale fingering patterns for publication, to make them more widely available.