Mus. 1113

Manuscript. Keyboard book containing works of Italian and English origin, copied by an unidentified English scribe probably in the 1620s. The opening layer of largely Italian repertory (items 1-55) appears to be of Roman origin; it is followed by a layer of English repertory, beginning at item 56. A few pieces are designated as being for use on specific instruments (organ, virginals, etc).

The identity of the copyist of Mus. 1113 remains a subject of debate. Some authorities have favoured William Ellis (1620-c.1679; organist of St John's College, Oxford from 1639 to 1646), using arguments that proceed from the fact that the covers of Mus. 1113 are stamped with the initials 'W.E.', and that item 16 in the inventory below bears the same initials. Dates of copying as late as the 1650s have been proposed; see most recently Bailey 2001 (in Bibliography below). Other authorities have questioned these conclusions, partly on the grounds that the repertory of Mus. 1113 implies a copying date closer to 1620, partly because the scribal characteristics in Mus. 1113 do not match those of other manuscripts thought to have been copied by Ellis. At present, the most comprehensive study of Ellis's hand is to be found in Robert Thompson, 'A Further Look at the Consort Music Manuscripts in Archbishop Marsh's Library, Dublin', Chelys, 24 (1995), 3-18 (where Ellis is to be equated with Copyist 'Q'). This asserts that Ellis was responsible for copying the keyboard book Mus. 1236, the partbook set Mus. 468-72, and various manuscripts in other collections. If this is indeed the case, then the likelihood of his involvement with Mus. 1113 recedes sharply, since the hands are so dissimilar.

One possibility is that Mus. 1113 was copied by a musician of William Ellis's family who shared his initials; it may then have passed into William Ellis's possession. Most unusually, both Mus. 1113 and Mus. 1236 reached Christ Church not through the bequests of Aldrich or Goodson, but rather as part of the library of Archbishop William Wake (1657-1737), which otherwise contained very little music. When and where Wake obtained these two keyboard books is unrecorded; nor is it known if Wake himself was a keyboard player; but the fact that he was resident in Oxford in 1673-82, during which period William Ellis died, may point to his having acquired the books at that time.

Some of the pieces in Mus. 1113 were subsequently recopied as the opening layer of Mus. 1003, a keyboard book that later passed to Henry Bowman and other Oxford-based musicians. It is unknown whether the transfer of repertory was made during Ellis's lifetime or after his death. Either way, however, it is pure chance that Mus. 1003 and Mus. 1113 have ended up together in the Christ Church music collection, since Mus. 1113 was donated by Wake, and Mus. 1003 was donated either by Goodson or (less likely) Aldrich.

The contents of Mus. 1113 were numbered in a single sequence by the copyist. Since some of the short pieces appear to have been entered on staves previously left blank, it seems likely that the numbering system was applied only after copying of the music had largely been completed. Two unnumbered pieces (items 61 and 112) may therefore be late additions.

• Items 1-21, 23-7 and 29-37: incipits and concordances for these anonymous pieces, which are probably of Roman origin, are given in Cox (see Bibliography below), Appendix B (p. 368 ff), Anonymous 1-35.
• In Italian manuscript sources, item 21 occurs as part of a longer work attributed to Giovanni Battista Ferrini, a fact that has sometimes entered into discussions of the date of copying of Mus. 1113. As others have pointed out, however, Ferrini's name may have become attached to music that is not wholly by him. If so, then the ascription has no implications for the date of Mus. 1113 itself.
• Items 22, 28 and 38-5 derive from Girolamo Frescobaldi's Toccate e partite d'intavolatura di cimbalo (Rome, 1616 and later editions). References to 'Pidoux iii' are to Girolamo Frescobaldi, Organ and Keyboard Works, iii: The First Book of Toccatas, Partitas etc. 1637, ed. Pierre Pidoux (Kassel etc., 1949)/page(s).
• Items attributed to 'B.C.' (Benjamin Cosyn?) are edited in Memed (see Bibliography below).
• Items for which modern editions are available in the series Music britannica ('MB') are cited by the titles allocated to them in those editions.
• The opening of item 76 is based on the opening of John Coprario's Fantasia a3, VdGS 5 (Charteris no. 11), but thereafter is musically independent.

Oblong format, 215 x 165 mm. 132 leaves, the majority of which have been paginated by the copyist. Collation:

• A8 (of which A1 was formerly pasted to the inside upper cover but is now detached; A2-A4r are unpaginated; and A4v-8v = pp. 1-9) / B8 (pp. 10-25) / C8 (26-41) / D8 (42-57) / E8 (58-73) / F8 (74-89) / G8 (90-105) / H1 (106-7; this leaf may have been excised from gathering R below) / I8 (108-23) / J8 (124-39) / K8 (140-55) / L8 (156-71) / M8 (172-87) / N8 (188-203) / O8 (204-19) / P8 (220-35) / Q4 (236-43) / R8 (of which R1-3 = pp. 244-9; R4 is excised and may be the leaf now at pp. 106-7; R5-6 = pp. 250-3; R7 is unpaginated; R8 is pasted to the inside lower cover). Staves were ruled only on the pages with pagination; all others were originally left blank.

Provenance: from the library of Archbishop William Wake (1657-1737), which was donated to Christ Church at his death.

Microfilm: manuscript music, reel 37.

Select bibliography:

• Geoffrey Cox, Organ Music in Restoration England: A Study of Sources, Styles, and Influences (New York and London), 1989, pp. 141-3.
• Orhan Memed, Seventeenth-Century English Keyboard Music: Benjamin Cosyn (New York and London, 1993), pp. 90-101.
• Candace Bailey, 'William Ellis and the Transmission of Continental Keyboard Music in Restoration England, Journal of Musicological Research, 20 (2001), pp. 211-42.