Mus. 979-83

*** This is an INTERIM entry; further details will be posted at a later date. This partbook set is currently unavailable to readers on account of the fragility of the bindings. A programme of conservation is planned for the near future. ***

Manuscript and printed material, bound together. Five partbooks from a set originally of six (the Tenor partbook is missing), copied and formerly owned by John Baldwin, a singing-man at St George's Chapel, Windsor; English, c.1575-81, with later additions. This set is one of the most important surviving sources of Tudor church music and Elizabethan motets. It is also famous for Baldwin's fine penmanship, executed on sheets with printed staves. The set appears to have been conceived from the start as a mixed volume of manuscript and printed music, since Baldwin avoided making manuscript copies of the pieces available in the printed section. For a general discussion of the history and codicological structure of the set, see the article by Roger Bray listed in the Bibliography below. For a discussion of the printed music paper on which Baldwin copied the music, see the article by Fenlon & Milsom. For further sample images of pages from the set, see Mateer, pp. 148 and 154.

In the manuscript section, the volumes are unfoliated. Baldwin himself numbered the contents as '1-169'; the only inconsistencies occur in items 167-9, where different partbooks contain different pieces. In the inventory of manuscript contents below, column 2 shows Baldwin's own numberings; column 1 diverges from this in its numbering of the closing items, where a rationalized system is used. Baldwin's form of representing a composer's name often varies from partbook to partbook; in the inventory below, the version shown in column 3 (when displayed in the form of the MSS) reproduces his fullest and/or most modern variant, but excludes Baldwin's additional comments (which largely refer to composers' institutional affilitiations). Titles of works (when displayed in the form of the MSS) are derived from incipits as they appear in Mus. 979, except in pieces where the opening text-phrase is sung only by other voices, in which case the highest-sounding participating voice is followed.

The partbook titles (stamped on the upper covers) are as follows: Mus. 979: Superius; Mus. 980: Discantus; Mus. 981: Contratenor; Mus. 982: Sextapars; Mus. 983: Bassus. The Sextapars volume (Mus. 982) contains the following items: 120 (as an insert, written on parchment and pasted at the front of the volume), 62 ('Esurientes' section only), 68, 93-163, 167a (duo), and168a (duo).

Printed contents (bound at the rear of the partbooks):

Mus. 979-83 Byrd, William, 1542 or 3-1623 Tallis, Thomas, ca. 1505-1585 Cantiones, quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur, quinque et sex partium, autoribus Thoma Tallisio & Guilielmo Birdo Anglis, serenissimae Regineae Maiestati à privato sacello generosis, & organistis. London: Excudebat Thomas Vautrollerius, 1575 RISM B/I 15753 ; STC (2nd ed.), 23666 ; ESTC S118138 Mus. 979: Superius; Mus. 980: Discantus; Mus. 981: Contra tenor; Mus. 982: Sexta pars; Mus. 983: Bassus. Lacks: Tenor. See other copies of this work.

Manuscript contents (bound at the front of the partbooks):

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).

Oblong format, c. 205 x 150 mm. The music has been copied on sheets previously printed with black staves, of a type issued by Tallis and Byrd under the conditions of their 1575 royal patent; for details, see Fenlon & Milsom. Collation and watermarks: details will be posted at a later date. An index of contents was begun by Baldwin at the front of Mus. 983; it was subsequently completed by Havergal, and has since been annotated by other hands. Late 16th-century covers of brown leather over boards. Upper and lower covers: gold-tooled with fillets and small ornaments, enclosing a central ornamental panel flanked by the initials 'I. B.' (= John Baldwin), which itself is surmounted (upper covers only) by partbook names (as listed earlier). Stubs of green ribbon ties at the fore edges. Spines gold-tooled with small ornaments. Bookplate 2. 19th-century shelfmarks: F.1.18-22.

Provenance: from the Aldrich bequest, listed in Dowding at position M.2.6 as 'Latin Songs MS. / By W. Bird, Robt. Parsons, Shepperde & Taverner for 5 & 6 voices'. No mention is made of the number of partbooks, and it is unknown whether or not the Tenor partbook was already missing at this stage. Aldrich may have acquired this set together with Robert Dow's partbooks (Mus. 984-8), which are also of Windsor provenance.

Microfilm: manuscript music, reels 31-2.

Select bibliography:

• Roger Bray, 'The Part-Books Oxford, Christ Church MSS. 979-83: an Index and Commentary', Musica Disciplina, 25 (1971), 179-97.
• Iain Fenlon and John Milsom, '"Ruled Paper Imprinted": Music Paper and Patents in Sixteenth-Century England', Journal of the American Musicological Society, 37 (1984), 139-63.
• David Mateer, 'John Baldwin and Changing Concepts of Text Underlay', in English Choral Practice, 1400-1650, ed. John Morehen (Cambridge, 1995), 143-60.