Introduction to the Online Catalogue
John Milsom
Contents of this page:
(1) Overview of music source materials at Christ Church.
(2) A brief history of the core 'Music' collection.
(3) Materials that are included in (and excluded from) the Online Catalogue.
(4) How the Online Catalogue relates to older catalogues of the Christ Church music collections.
(5) Search hints for users of the Online Catalogue.
(6) Links to pages with further information.
(1) Overview of music source materials at Christ Church
Christ Church holds an internationally important collection of
music source materials. Its principal riches lie in two fields:
manuscripts of English and Italian music before 1700; and printed
music before 1700. There are also extensive holdings of manuscripts
reflecting music-making in Oxford in general, and Christ Church
in particular, during the period c.1660-1740; and numerous printed
books relating to the practice, theory and history of music before
1750. The essence of the collection is captured in the following
remark by the pioneering music historian Dr Charles Burney, writing
in 1789: 'For masses, motets, madrigals, and anthems of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, the collection is the most complete
of any that I have had an opportunity of consulting'. At that
time, not even the library of the British Museum could match
it.
Christ Church acquired these materials principally through two
acts of bequest in the 18th century; the donors were Henry Aldrich
(1648-1710) and Richard Goodson Jr (1688-1741). Their collections
were amalgamated in the later 18th-century, and today are still
shelved in the wooden presses custom built to accommodate them.
(An image of one of the 18th-century presses can be viewed here.)
In addition to the items donated by Aldrich and Goodson, Christ
Church Library has accumulated a wide array of items relevant
to the musician and musicologist, including liturgical books,
music theory, ballads, libretti, and a wealth of historic travel
literature in which mention is made of music-making in countries
and regions around the world. It also now houses the manuscripts
and printed music used by the choir and organists of Christ Church
Cathedral before the 19th century. Some of these items have now
been merged with the Aldrich-Goodson materials within the 18th-century
presses; others are shelved elsewhere in Christ Church Library.
***PLEASE NOTE*** The Online Catalogue always shows the correct
way of citing call-numbers or shelfmarks for items at Christ
Church, and should be followed when citing specific items.
Items within these presses are arranged by size, not by content,
and manuscripts are freely intermixed with printed material,
and are numbered sequentially, preceded by the prefix 'Mus.'
Thus the manuscript shelved as Mus. 2 should correctly be cited
only as 'Mus. 2'; expansions such as 'MS Mus. 2' or 'Mus. MS
2' are incorrect.
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2) A brief history of the core 'Music' collection
Largely because of the unique presence of a cathedral within
its precincts, Christ Church has long been a focus for music-making.
However, very little music in the current library collections
can be traced back to the college's origins in the 1520s, or
indeed to the first century of its existence, and the extensive
holdings of 16th- and early 17th-century English music appear
largely to have been imported from elsewhere. In particular,
the Aldrich bequest contained many items acquired directly or
indirectly from the library of the Hatton family. Some of the
Goodson music, too, can be traced back to earlier owners, principally
members of other Oxford colleges.
The term 'collector' can probably be applied without hesitation
to the three men whose music-books form the core of the current
collection: Henry Aldrich, and the two organists both named
Richard Goodson (father, c.1655-1718, and son, 1688-1741). All
three men, however, were also proficient performers and promoters
of music, and their personal libraries reflect that fact. Aldrich,
a fellow of Christ Church and later its head (Dean both of the
academic college and the cathedral), must be classed as an amateur,
but his interest in music was profound, wide-ranging, and influential
not only on music-making in the cathedral but also on informal
music meetings held both within Christ Church and Oxford at large.
Aldrich's bequest therefore falls essentially into two overlapping
parts: first, the impressive array of music he acquired through
his collecting instincts; second, materials that shed light
on his performing and composing activities, including many items
that were copied by members of Christ Church Cathedral choir
(its organists and lay clerks) and by Aldrich himself. There
are autograph manuscripts at Christ Church by leading composers
of the day, such as Matthew Locke, John Blow and Henry Purcell,
that testify to a network of contacts linking Aldrich and other
Christ Church musicians with the London musical scene in the
second half of the 17th century.
The Goodsons were more obviously performers than collectors.
However, both men in succession held the position of professor
of music at Oxford University - a post defined at that time
more with performance in mind than with the academic study of
music - and their personal libraries contained some material
that is clearly unrelated to their day-to-day activities as performing
musicians. Goodson Sr, a direct contemporary of Aldrich's, was
a composer; autograph scores and drafts feature prominently
in his part of the bequest. Goodson Jr, who was closer in age
to Handel, appears to have composed little, and to have been
the least interesting musician of the three; his principal importance
is as preserver of his father's effects, and a donor. Both of
the Goodsons taught music to the cathedral choristers, and to
amateur musicians within Oxford; some of their teaching materials
survive within the collection.
Since the acquisition of the Aldrich and Goodson bequests, the
Christ Church 'Music' collection has remained relatively stable;
little new material has been acquired, and little has gone astray.
The survival of what appears to be an unbroken succession of
historic shelf-lists and catalogues, the earliest of which dates
from 1717, makes it possible not only to trace the provenance
history of most items within the collection, but also to name
(and, in a few cases, to locate the current whereabouts of) those
few items that are now missing. Since the mid 18th century,
there have been a few notable purchases, and a few further donations
or expansions (including the selection of largely 18th-century
manuscript and printed music transferred from Christ Church Cathedral).
These accretions, however, amount probably to no more than fifteen
per cent of the current 'Music' collection. The rest comes from
Aldrich and the Goodsons.
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(3) Materials that are included in (and excluded from) the
Online Catalogue
The following categories of material are included in the Online
Catalogue:
- All manuscripts and printed items that include music notation.
- Works devoted to (or including aspects of) music theory.
- General lexicographical, historical and theoretical works that
contain important sections on music.
- Libretti, ballads, and other texts intended for sung performance.
- Historic travel literature in which mention is made of music-making
in countries and regions around the world.
- Sermons and courtesy books that deal centrally or in passing
with musical topics.
- Music fragments preserved in bindings.
- All materials falling into the above categories that form part
of collections gifted to Christ Church since 1900, or on permanent
deposit at Christ Church. These include the Allestree library,
the Gibbs collection, the Hussey deposit, and the Okes deposit.
The following categories of material are not included
in the Online Catalogue:
- Non-notated liturgical books, and books of private devotion (for
instance, primers).
- Documents kept in the college archives (relating, for instance,
to musicians with Christ Church connections, and to the maintenance
and personnel of the cathedral choir). Enquiries about these
should be directed to the following address: archives@christ-church.oxford.ac.uk.
- Christ Church manuscripts on permanent deposit at the Bodleian
Library, Oxford.
- Collections formerly deposited at Christ Church, and now housed
elsewhere (for instance, the Evelyn collection).
- 19th- and 20th-century printed music formerly in use by Christ
Church Cathedral choir, and now deposited in the Library.
- Pictorial depictions of musicians and music-making in prints,
drawings and paintings curated by the college's Picture Gallery.
- Musical instruments either owned by the college, or represented
within its precincts (for instance, the plaster swags depicting
instruments in the Upper Library).
The Online Catalogue gives complete coverage of all the Library's
printed and manuscript holdings of music source-material.
Printed items can be searched by title, author/composer,
printer/publisher, date, place of publication, and keyword.
In addition, information is given about the physical appearance
and provenance history of every printed item shelved within the
core 'Music' sequence (i.e. with a call-number opening with 'Mus.').
For printed items shelved outside the 'Music' sequence, physical
descriptions are given only when the Christ Church copy is of
special interest - for instance, on account of its rarity,
its provenance, or the annotations that have been made to it.
Online entries are now available for all the music manuscripts
at Christ Church. Some of these entries are not yet fully comprehensive,
and will be expanded in the future. Searches of manuscript material
can be made by composer, title, keyword or shelfmark.
Visitors' comments about catalogue entries for both printed and
manuscript material are welcome; please use the email link provided
at the foot of the web page. Any relevant new information supplied
by readers will, where appropriate (and with acknowledgement),
be entered on to the Online Catalogue itself.
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(4) How the Online Catalogue relates to older catalogues of
the Christ Church music collections
For printed material, the Online Catalogue supersedes
the following:
- Aloys Hiff, Catalogue of printed music published prior to
1801 now in the Library of Christ Church, Oxford (London,
1919).
- Reference to Christ Church copies listed in The British Union-Catalogue
of early music, printed before the year 1801, ed. Edith Schnapper
(London, 1957).
- Reference to Christ Church copies listed in the various series
of Répertoire international des sources musicales
(RISM). For certain categories of material (including music
theory, and historic travel literature in which music is mentioned),
RISM often does not record the presence of copies at Christ Church.
For manuscript music, the Online Catalogue supersedes
the following:
- Godfrey E. P. Arkwright, Catalogue of [manuscript] music in
the Library of Christ Church Oxford, Part I: 'Works of ascertained
authorship' (Oxford, 1915).
Two other catalogues of manuscript music usefully supplement
the Online Catalogue:
- Godfrey E. P. Arkwright, Catalogue of [manuscript] music in
the Library of Christ Church Oxford, Part II: 'MS. works
of unknown authorship, (i) Vocal' (Oxford, 1923). This provides
incipits (in music notation, and in score) for unattributed vocal
works. Where attributions have subsequently been discovered
or proposed, the Online Catalogue will supply them. At present
it does not, however, provide notated incipits for unidentified
works.
- Godfrey E. P. Arkwright, Catalogue of [manuscript] music in
the Library of Christ Church Oxford, Part III: a 'thematic
list of anonymous music without words', completed in 1935 but
never published. This provides incipits (in music notation,
and in score) for unattributed instrumental music and untexted
vocal works. The current whereabouts of Arkwright's original
manuscript of this catalogue is unknown; a photographic reproduction
of it is held at Christ Church (2 vols., without shelfmark),
and may be consulted in the Library on request. (No microfilm
of this work is currently available.) Where attributions have
subsequently been discovered or proposed, the Online Catalogue
will supply them.
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(5) Search hints for users of the Online Catalogue
For the following section, we recommend that you have two Web
browsers open side by side, one to read the instructions below,
the other to conduct Catalogue searches.
- QUESTION: How can I get an overview of what the core 'Music'
collection contains?
ANSWER: The Online Catalogue makes
this possible for the first time. Use the 'Browse' link at the
top of this page and select 'Shelfmark' (+ Browse). This includes
a list of items with 'Mus.' call-numbers, each with a thumbnail
description, and a link to a web-page giving further details.
The list of items is numerical, and runs from Mus. 1 to Mus.
1294. If a small 'camera logo' is displayed beside an item in
the list, this indicates that the catalogue entry includes one
or more images of the item in question. There is also a dialogue
box; enter a Mus. number (+ Browse) and the relevant section
of the list will be displayed.
- QUESTION: How can I see what else from the Library has been
included in the Online Catalogue?
ANSWER: Again, use the
'Browse' link at the top of this page, and select either 'Title'
or 'Composer or author'. This allows you to browse through all
the printed material covered by the Online Catalogue (including
items shelved within the core 'Music' collection). Follow the
links for a display of the full bibliographical entry. A dialogue
box allows you to pinpoint an opening word or alphabetic letter,
but it will not perform keyword searches.
- QUESTION: Is any manuscript music shelved outside the
core 'Music' collection?
ANSWER: Almost none; the most
interesting items have been incorporated into the 'Mus.' sequence.
A list of the exceptions (including the Okes fragment on deposit
at Christ Church) will be provided at a later date.
- QUESTION: If I want to search for music by a specific composer,
how do I do it?
ANSWER: You have several options. The
least refined method is to enter one or more keywords into the
'Quick search' dialogue box at the top of the page (+ Return).
This will display every work by that composer that appears in
a manuscript, and every printed item of which s/he
is the sole author. It will also display any other mention made
of that composer within the Online Catalogue. For some composers,
the search will yield manageable results; good examples would
be 'Victoria' or 'Daniel Purcell'. For others however - such
as 'Byrd' or 'Henry Purcell' - the yield will be enormous,
and we recommend searching with greater refinement, using the
'Search' link at the top of this page.
- QUESTION: How does the 'Search' facility work?
ANSWER:
Select the 'Search' link at the top of this page; dialogue
boxes will be displayed. In the 'Search' box, select (for instance)
'composer/author names'. In the 'for' box, select (for instance)
'printed books'. In the dialogue boxes below, enter 'Byrd' or
'Henry Purcell'; and select the command 'Search'. Follow the
links (if any are displayed) for further details of the item.
This procedure allows you to search more selectively - in
this case, for printed music by Byrd and Henry Purcell. With
different selections, you could search (for instance) for any
item printed in Venice in 1611, or any manuscript work with the
word 'heart' in its title.
- QUESTION: Can I use wildcards in the search?
ANSWER: Yes.
For instance, a search for '157*' would yield results for any
item printed in the 1570s; 'B*rd*' would yield results for 'Byrd',
'Bird', and any Latinized form of the name.
- QUESTION: How does the Online Catalogue cope with variant spellings
of composers' names and the titles of works?
ANSWER: For
the names of composers/authors, and the titles of manuscript
works, the Online Catalogue allows you to search either by modern
spelling, or by spelling as it appears in the item itself. The
titles of printed items are mostly indexed both in their
original form and in modern spelling. The main exceptions currently
are French and Latin titles. You can often make good use of
the wildcard facility to retrieve titles in a variety of languages.
For example, a search for 'mot*et*' would pick up 'motet', 'motets',
'mottetti' and 'motettorum'.
- QUESTION: For multi-authored printed works (such as a book of
madrigals in which several composers are represented), does the
Online Catalogue list all the composers?
ANSWER: No, since
this might raise questions about the authority of attribution
within the print itself - a subject beyond the scope of this
catalogue. Exceptionally, when only two composers have contributed
to a print and are named on the titlepage, the Online Catalogue
lists them both; an example is the Tallis/Byrd Cantiones
sacrae (1575).
- QUESTION: Can I search by printer/publisher, and place of publication?
ANSWER: Yes, although our records may sometimes include
variant spellings of printers' and publishers' names, and Latinized
place-names. In the case of music printers, we have always supplied
modern-spelling alternatives; thus a search for 'Thomas East'
would yield results for books in which the name is given as 'Est'
or 'Este'. For other types of publication, however, our records
sometimes include only information as supplied on the book's
titlepage.
- QUESTION: Can I search printed items by their STC/ESTC numbers,
or by RISM A or B1 numbers?
ANSWER: Not yet, but we hope
to introduce that facility in the future.
- QUESTION: How can I locate specific types of item, for example
ballads, libretti, or the travel literature?
ANSWER: For
some types of item, a keyword search in the 'Quick search' dialogue
box will yield results (for instance, 'ballad' or 'libretto'),
although this may not retrieve every relevant item within the
collection. For liturgical books, a wildcard may be helpful,
in order to catch Latin titles (for instance, 'gradual*', 'hymn*').
For certain categories of item, a search by shelfmark may be
useful, since similar items are often (although not always) shelved
in close proximity. For instance, to locate much of the travel
literature, select the 'Search' link; set the 'Search' box to
'shelfmarks'; set the 'for' box to 'printed books'; and type
'Arch. Inf.' into the top dialogue box. For a good selection
of liturgical books, use the same procedure and type 'Gibbs'.
- QUESTION: For manuscript music, can I search by copyist/scribe?
ANSWER: Yes, although at present that search would yield
some additional and unwanted results. To locate (for instance)
autograph manuscripts by Henry Purcell, select the 'Search' link;
set the 'Search' box to 'all fields'; set the 'for' box to
'descriptions of items'; and type 'Henry Purcell' into the first
dialogue box. In the future, we hope to provide comprehensive
lists of copyists represented in the Christ Church collection
(including unidentified copyists), and we have already added
a number of these; the easiest way of gaining access to them
is by selecting 'News' from the banner at the top of this page,
and then following the links.
- QUESTION: Can I search for early owners or donors of individual
items?
ANSWER: Yes, but only for items in the core 'Music'
collection. To identify (for instance) items at Christ Church
that ultimately derive from New College, Oxford, select the 'Search'
link; set the 'Search' box to 'all fields'; set the 'for' box
to 'descriptions of items'; and type 'New College' in the dialogue
box. For some queries, however - such as 'Aldrich' and 'Goodson'
- this would yield almost unmanageable results. For that
reason, the Online Catalogue includes some dedicated pages about
provenance history.
- QUESTION: How is the Online Catalogue constructed?
ANSWER:
There are three databases, any or all of which may be invoked
by your search, depending upon its selectivity. The first database
is of printed items; the second itemizes the contents
of music manuscripts; the third contains physical descriptions
of specific books. Use the following links to view two sample
web-pages in which all three databases are invoked. (Data from
the printed and manuscript databases will be embedded
within a general description of the item.) (1) Mus. 794; (2) Mus. 544-53 (N.B. maximize your browser's window
for this!)
- QUESTION: How many of the databases are searched if I type a
keyword into the 'Quick search' dialogue box at the top of this
page?
ANSWER: All three databases, which is why a search
conducted that way will yield maximum (and sometimes unmanageable)
results. You will first be given a summary of the results of
each type, and the opportunity to sort them. To limit the search
to a specific database, use the 'Search' facility. In the first
form on that page, you can select the relevant database using
the second box. Further forms on that page allow more specific
searching of the databases of printed works and manuscript pieces.
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(6) Links to pages with further information
More links will be supplied at a later date.
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