Abstract
Vinum et Musica presents new realisations of works by Robert Parsons and others from the Dow Partbooks (Christ Church, Oxford) directly from facsimiles of the original manuscript partbooks. In 2025 TONUS PEREGRINUS sang from the original artefacts in Christ College Library in Oxford which has been documented on film for release later in 2026. The album generates new knowledge about the compositional style of the 16th-century composers represented (Tallis, Byrd, Mundy, Parsons, White) and about the performance practice implications of the Dow Partbooks’ specific notational features. One work (by “Mr Tayler”) received its first known modern recording. The recordings (and related films) demonstrate that performing from 16th-century partbooks (without score) produces fundamentally different musical results from performing from modern score editions.