146-82.The British Library holds one of the most significant collections of manuscripts written in Middle English. Neighbour on his 70th Birthday, edited by Chris Banks, Arthur Searle, and Malcolm Turner (London: The British Library, 1993), pp. John Milsom: ‘The Nonsuch Music Library’ in Sundry Sorts of Music Books: Essays on the British Library Collections Presented to O. Judith Blezzard: ‘The Lumley Books: A Collection of Tudor Church Music’, The Musical Times, vol.112, no. Warren: ‘Music at Nonesuch’, The Musical Quarterly, vol. Warren: ‘The Music of Royal Appendix 12-16’, Music & Letters, vol. Of the other digitised material to have been recently published, there are also various treatises including some of those from the collection of John Hawkins (Add MS 4920 Add MS 4922) more sources of 16th- and 17th-century music – including keyboard pieces by Frescobaldi ( Add MS 40080), tunes and dances arranged for lute ( Egerton MS 2046) violin and bass music by William Lawes ( Add MS 17798) and, continuing the royal theme, a book of instrumental fantasias by Giovanni Coperario/John Cooper, music master to the children of James I ( Add MS 23779).Ĭharles W. It is perhaps worth pointing out that, slightly confusingly, this Royal library is a separate one to the Royal Music Library that was given to the British Museum in 1957, having been on loan for several decades before that (see for more information). 44r.Īfter Lord Lumley’s death in 1609 his collection entered the Royal library (see for more information), which eventually became part of the British Museum’s collections when it was presented to the nation by George II in 1757. Instrumental parts for an ‘Allemand d’amour’, at the back of a triplex part book. 1533-1609), also owned the six sets of partbooks now available online, as we can see from the ownership marks inside. The last owner’s name mentioned above, John (Lord) Lumley (c.
#British library manuscripts online archive#
Images and more detailed information about these can also be found on the DIAMM website (Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music). These six sets of partbooks (Royal Appendix MS 12-16 Royal Appendix MS 17-22 Royal Appendix MS 23-25 Royal Appendix MS 26-30 Royal Appendix MS 31-35 and Royal Appendix MS 49-54) join other partbooks of a similar period, such as those known by the names of previous owners: ‘Hamond’ (Add MS 30480-4), ‘Gyffard’ (Add MS 17802-5) and ‘Lumley’ (Royal Appendix MS 74-76). The most recent images to have be published on Digitised Manuscripts include a number of vocal partbooks that formed part of the Tudor Partbooks project.
Top image: The table of contents from the virginal book of Elizabeth Rogers, dated February 27 1656. These include some key 16th- and 17th-century sources of keyboard music, such as the Mulliner book ( Add MS 30513), the ‘Cosyn’ ( R.M.23.l.4) and ‘Forster’ ( R.M.24.d.3) virginal books, as well as that of Elizabeth Rogers ( Add MS 10337).
There are also many other early sources for instrumental and vocal music to explore, digitised either as part of research projects or for preservation purposes. Over the years we have digitised high-profile treasures such as music manuscripts from the Stefan Zweig collection, 97 volumes of Handel autographs, and many by other famous names such as Mozart, Beethoven and Bach.
#British library manuscripts online download#
The following is by Chris Scobie (Lead Curator, Music Manuscripts) and was originally published on the Music Blog of the British Library ( Creative Commons Attribution Licence):įollowing our recent blog post about newly digitised material from the Royal Music Library, we thought it might be useful to provide an updated list of all the digitised music manuscripts now available online, which you can download via this link: Download British-library-digitised-music-manuscripts-online September 2021