Mus. 437

Manuscript. A fragmentary keyboard book in two repertorial layers; (1) secular works for domestic use; (2) organ accompaniments for anthems and service music; English, 1640s-80s. Layer 2 is associated with the chapel of St John's College, Oxford.

• Layer 1: idiomatic keyboard music for secular use, copied by 2 unidentified scribes probably in the 1640s. The contents of this layer are numbered as 1-19 in the inventory below; anonymous pieces are cited by numbers assigned to them in Virginia Brookes, British Keyboard Music to c.1660 (Oxford, 1996).
• Layer 2: organ accompaniments for anthems and service music, copied probably by a single unidentified scribe (with variations of scribal habit) in the 1660s and later, using pages left partly or wholly blank during the copying of Layer 1. The contents of this layer are numbered as 100-139 in the inventory below. Many of the works in Layer 2 are also found in a related organ-book: Oxford, St John's College, MS 315. This fact, together with the inclusion of works by musicians known to have been linked to St John's (Robert Lugge, William Ellis, Barnabas Isaac), strongly suggests that Layer 2 was either compiled for use at St John's, or includes music from its repertory. Layer 2 must have been copied after 1660, since it includes Henry Lawes's 'Zadok the priest' (item 106), which was composed for the coronation of Charles II.

Comments on individual pieces:

• Layer 1: item 15 lacks its opening owing to the removal of the preceding leaf.
• Layer 2, item 100: the list of anthems includes references to a few pieces that are no longer present in Mus. 437 itself. For further details, see Bunker Clark (in Bibliography below), p. 128.
• Layer 2, items 102, 107 and 138: according to Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxoniensis (Oxford, 1891), 'Barnabas Isaake' was 'organarius' of St John's College and 'Privilegiatus 14 July, 1682'.
• Layer 2, items 105, 111, 116-17 and 119: at least some of these fragments arise from the removal of adjacent leaves.
• Layer 2, item 119 (Preces and Responses): some of the music derives from the settings by Tallis and Byrd. The versions copied here are related to those in Edward Lowe's A short direction for the performance of cathedrall service (Oxford, 1661).
• Layer 2: item 125 is a second copy of item 104; item 136 is a second copy of item 110; and item 138 is a transposed second copy (?with organ introduction) of item 107.
• Layer 2: item 136 lacks its ending, and item 137 its opening, owing to the removal of leaf olim f. 75. Item 135, however, appears to be intact, notwithstanding the removal of f. olim 63.

Upright format, 315 x 205 mm. 52 surviving leaves; the following leaves are now missing: olim ff. 1-2, 8-9, 11-13, 15-16, 19-21, 23-34, 63, 75, and all after 77. Collation not researched because of the missing leaves and other disturbances to the quiring. Mid-late 17th-century binding of brown leather over boards, gold-tooled with fillets enclosing a central ornament, and with acorns at the corners of the panel of fillets. The volume was rebacked and the binding generally repaired in the early 20th century. No early bookplate. 19th-century shelfmark: I.5.47.

Provenance: not identifiable in any of the 18th-century catalogues of the Christ Church music collections, but presumable from either the Aldrich or Goodson bequest. Goodson provenance seems more likely, on grounds of the absence of any early bookplate or shelfmark.

Microfilm: manuscript music, reel 18.

Select bibliography:

• J. Bunker Clark, Transposition in Seventeenth Century English Organ Accompaniments and the Transposing Organ (Detroit, 1974), pp. 58-9 and 124-8.
• Candace Bailey, Seventeenth-Century British Keyboard Sources (Warren, MI, 2003), pp. 92-3.