Mus. 1177

Manuscript. Keyboard book, copied in Oxford in the 1670s and 80s. The earliest layer (items 1-10 in the inventory below) was copied by Edward Lowe probably in the early 1670s. (This is one of the many music manuscripts at Christ Church copied by Edward Lowe.) The remaining contents were then added by Richard Goodson Sr in the 1670s and 1680s. (This is one of many music manuscripts at Christ Church copied partly or wholly by Richard Goodson Sr.) Mus. 1177 is a partner volume to Mus. 1176, which uses the same paper-stock and rastration, and was also copied by Lowe and Goodson Sr.

The contents of Mus. 1177 are arranged in two sequences, one at each end of the volume. Items 1-37 (Lowe, then Goodson) are copied at what is now designated as the front of the volume, and were assigned numbers in the early 20th century by York Powell; in the inventory below, these numbers are cited in the second column. Items 38-58 (Goodson) were copied probably in the 1680s at what is now designated as the rear with the volume inverted, and are not numbered in the manuscript itself.

For a transcription of the contents of Mus. 1177 (omitting item 43), see Late-Seventeenth-Century English Keyboard Music, ed. Candace Bailey, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 81 (Madison WI, 1997), a copy of which is kept at Christ Church at shelfmark ZY.4.4 (J). In the inventory below, this edition is cited as 'RRMBE 81'.

Table of titles and composers in modern form. Display form found in manuscript.
The first column gives the modern numbering of the pieces; the second shows numbering used by the copyist(s).

Upright format, 335 x 217 mm. 41 leaves; collation not ascertained because of the tightness of the binding. Foliation is in modern pencil. A leaf has been excised between ff. 35 and 36, and is now represented by a stub. There are cancel slips pasted to ff. 3v and 4v. Unused staves on ff. 1r, 5v, 17r, 25r, 32v-33r, 34v-35r, 36v and 41v. The original wrappers of limp vellum have been removed, and are now bound at the front of the volume. (These wrappers have been extensively annotated by Richard Goodson Jr; for details, see below.) Now within an early 20th-century binding of tooled brown leather over boards. 19th-century shelfmark: K.1.18. Formerly Mus. 1057. There are annotations by York Powell on the inside lower original wrapper; York Powell was also responsible for numbering many of the pieces (in ink, numbers circled), and for the partial list of contents now bound after f. 31. A manuscript inventory of contents by Howard Ferguson, dated '22.11.[19]63', is pasted to the inside upper cover; this has been annotated by later researchers.

Provenance: from the Goodson bequest. Probably the volume listed in Malchair 1787 (f. 4) as 'Preludes. Allemands et caet. of little use'. The outside upper vellum wrapper is faintly annotated 'Richard Goodson' [Sr]; the torn signature 'Richard Goo[dson Sr]' is also written on f. 1r, preceded by the initials 'E. M' (? = Emmanuel Miles; regarding Miles, see the entry for Mus. 92). Annotations by Richard Goodson Jr: (1) on outside original upper wrapper: 'Mem - / Feb 21 / Mr Palmer / had borowed the / folio Book of / Lessons and Overturs / of my Fathers / written & others[.] [? = Mus. 3 (ff. 39-70)] R Goodson [Jr]'. (For information about 'Mr [Ralph] Palmer', see Shay and Thompson, Purcell Manuscripts, p. 266.) (2) On outside original lower wrapper: 'Mrs Knight by / Lent Mr Blacket of Snt Johns / the schore book of / Harmonia Sacra [= Mus. 794] / Aug 28th 173[?] / Likewise George / carried to Mr Durham / the Schore of I waited / patiently Dr C[ro]fts / a book folio coverd / wth brown Leather [= Mus. 622]'.

Microfilm: manuscript music, reel 38.

Select bibliography:

• Late-Seventeenth-Century English Keyboard Music, ed. Candace Bailey, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 81 (Madison WI, 1997) = edition of contents. A copy of this is kept at Christ Church at shelfmark ZY.4.4 (J). This includes (as Plates 1-2) facsimiles of Mus. 1177, ff. 1v and 36r.
• John Blow, Complete Harpsichord Music, ed. Robert Klakowich, Musica Britannica, 73 (London, 1998).
• Robert Shay and Robert Thompson, Purcell Manuscripts: The Principal Musical Sources (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 282-5. This includes (at p. 286) a facsimile of Mus. 1177, f. 24v.
• Candace Bailey, 'Keyboard Music in the Hands of Edward Lowe and Richard Goodson I: Oxford, Christ Church Mus. 1176 and Mus. 1177', Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, 32 (1999 [published 2001]), pp. 119-35.
• Candace Bailey, Seventeenth-Century British Keyboard Sources (Warren, MI, 2003), esp. pp. 104-6.