Mus. 1230

Manuscript. Organ-book containing accompaniments to anthems and service music, copied for use at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford; English, early 18th century, with later additions. The contents partly duplicate those of Mus. 1220-4, the principal set of partbooks in use at Christ Church Cathedral in the post-Restoration era. (For a full list of surviving music-books from Christ Church Cathedral from the Restoration to the early 19th century, follow this link.)

The contents of Mus. 1230 were copied principally by Richard Goodson Sr, in three layers: (1) items 1-39; (2) items 41-56; and (3) item 61. The last three folios of the first layer (pp. 76-81) are now missing. Item 53 refers to 'Mr Croft', and was therefore copied before 1713, the year in which Croft was awarded his doctorate. The text of item 54 refers to the 'Queen', placing copying before Queen Anne's death in 1714. Goodson Sr himself died in 1718. (This is one of the many music manuscripts at Christ Church copied by Richard Goodson Sr.) Blank pages in the volume were subsequently filled by Richard Goodson Jr (items 40, 57-8, 60, 61 (2nd Jubilate only) and 62), and by two unidentified hands (items 59 and 63).

The layers written by Goodson Sr were copied without composer ascriptions; attributions for these works were subsequently added by later hands. Some pieces bear cross-references to alternative copies of the same pieces in other Christ Church organ-books.

Notes on individual pieces:

• item 26: see also the score of the vocal parts in Mus. 783. No copy of this work is known to survive in Henry Aldrich's own hand, and it appears to have been attributed to him only posthumously.
• item 39: opening page only; thereafter, three leaves (= pages 76-81) are missing. The index at the front of the volume indicates that the missing pages contained an unidentified 'Sanctus', and 'How long' by Benjamin Rogers.

Oblong format, 295 x 240 mm. Originally at least 82 folios. Of these, ff. [1-60] were paginated '1-118' by the copyists, beginning at f. [1v] with p. 1; the remaining pagination is largely in modern pencil. Collation: originally 20 fascicles, of which fascicles 3-20 were numbered in the bottom left-hand corners of the opening and closing pages. Fascicles [1-2] comprise 12 leaves in total (pp. 1-23); their collation is unclear. Thereafter the collation was regular in fours (i.e. fascicles 3-19 each comprised 2 nested bifolios, = 4 folios), beginning at p. 24. Gathering 9 now lacks its last two leaves (pp. 76-9), and gathering 10 lacks its first leaf (pp. 80-81). The first leaf of gathering 17 is also missing; removed before pagination took place, it occupied the position between current pp. 127 and 128. Gathering 20 now comprises only two leaves (pp. 158-61), and may lack its last two leaves. Unused ruled staves on f. [1r] and pp. 129-30. 18th-century binding of rough brown leather over boards, blind-tooled. Index pasted to the inside upper cover by an unidentified 18th-century hand, with later additions in pencil (including one by Basil Harwood, dated 1893). Upper and lower outside covers annotated with the number '7', referring to the sequence of organ-books used at Christ Church Cathedral.

Provenance: transferred from Christ Church Cathedral, probably in the early 20th century.

Bibliography:

• Robert Shay, '"Naturalizing" Palestrina and Carissimi in Late Seventeenth-Century Oxford: Henry Aldrich and his Recompositions', Music and Letters, 77 (1996), 368-400 (at p. 375, fn. 36).
• Robert Shay (ed.), Henry Aldrich: Selected Anthems and Motet Recompositions, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 85 (Madison, 1998).