Mus. 957

Manuscript. Arias for solo voice and continuo, and a duet, drawn largely from operas by Marc'Antonio Ziani, Antonio Giannettini and Alessandro Scarlatti, but also including an aria by Alessandro Melani; single unidentified Italian copyist, with pagination and index added by a second hand; late 1680s or later. The same scribes were also responsible for making Mus. 954, which in many respects is a partner volume. The majority of arias in Mus. 957 are drawn from the following four operas:

• Marc'Antonio Ziani, Alessandro Magno in Sidone (first performance: Venice, 1679).
• Antonio Giannettini, Irene e Costantino (first performance: Venice, 1681).
• Alessandro Scarlatti, Il Flavio (first performance: Naples, 1688).
• Alessandro Scarlatti, La Rosmene (first performance: Rome, 1686).

Table of titles and composers in modern form. Display form found in manuscript.

Oblong format, 270 x 110 mm. Physical structure: iii + 175 + i leaves. Foliated in late 17th-century ink, but with some leaves missed from the sequence; the present foliation is as follows: ff. 1-76, 76A, 77-99, 99A, 100-131, 131A, 132-60, [166-1 are absent], 167-76. Collation: made from gatherings of two quired bifolia (A4, B4, etc) except at the following places: (a) ff. 90-7 (= 2 quired bifiolia, ff. 90-91 and 96-7, enclosing two adjacent bifiolia, ff. 92-3 and 94-5); (b) 159-60 (= bifolium); (c) 175-6 (= bifolium). The quires were formerly numbered in ink on the top right-hand corner of their first pages; traces of these numbers are visible from f. 144r onwards. On the opening page (f. 1r) a large space has been left for the addition of an ornamental capital letter; thereafter small segments of blank stave precede each aria, on which further ornamental capitals could have been added. Some of the arias are copied across gatherings, but elsewhere pages of unused ruled staves occur at the ends of gatherings, as if marking the ends of layers; the unused pages occur at the following places: ff. 29v, 60v, 72v, 79v, 83v, 87r-v, 97v, 104v, 108r-v, 128v, 135r-v, and 143v. The hand that foliated the volume (and also Mus. 954) also added a contents list (on f. 176v and the recto of rear flyleaf [i]); but ff. 161-6 are absent from the foliation system, and there is no entry in the contents list for those leaves, implying that ff. 161-6 had been removed before the volume was indexed and bound. Late 17th-century binding of cream vellum; stubs of leather ties at the upper and lower edges and fore-edge; edges stippled in red and black. (The binding of the partner collection of arias, Mus. 954, is similar but not identical.) Bookplate 2 on inside upper cover. 19th-century shelfmark: E.1.22.

Provenance: from the Aldrich bequest, listed in Dowding at shelfmark Q4 as 'Italian Cantatas / in five Volumes with their Basses . . . by Cesti & Luighi'; this entry also covers Mus. 950, Mus. 956, Mus. 958 and Mus. 959. In Mus. 957 itself, the shelfmark 'Q. 4. Vol. 5' is writen on the first front flyleaf.

Microfilm: manuscript music, reel 54.

The inventory above incorporates information kindly supplied by Michael Talbot.