Music : Matthew Holmes, bass viol parts

Music

In the 1960s, Ian Harwood established that nine music manuscripts in Cambridge University Library were all copied by Matthew Holmes, who is recorded as the Precentor at Christ Church in Oxford from 1588, a post with responsibility for instructing the choristers in singing and playing musical instruments (see Harwood (1963, 1964). In 1597, Holmes moved to London to take up the same job at Westminster Abbey, which he held until his death in 1621. Four of the manuscripts, with the shelf marks <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-DD-00002-00011/1'>MS Dd.2.11</a>, <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-DD-00005-00078-00003/1'>MS Dd.5.78(3)</a>, <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-DD-00009-00033/1'>MS Dd.9.33</a> and <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-NN-00006-00036/1'>MS Nn.6.36</a>, form an overlapping chronological series largely devoted to tablature for the solo renaissance lute (MS Dd.2.11 is also a major source of tablature for solo bandora - over half of the music known for the instrument - and MS Nn.6.36 also includes music for lyra viol and keyboard). Facsimiles of all four of these manuscripts of lute solos are already available in the Cambridge Digital Library. A fifth manuscript of the nine that Holmes copied, with the shelf mark Dd.4.23, comprises 86 pieces for solo chromatic cittern copied c.1595 and is the largest and most important surviving source of English music for this instrument (see <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='http://www.cittern.theaterofmusic.com'>The Renaissance Cittern site</a>). The remaining four manuscripts copied by Holmes probably when he was in Oxford are separately bound volumes containing consort parts, bearing the shelf marks MS Dd.3.18, MS Dd.5.20, <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-DD-00005-00021/1'>MS Dd.5.21</a> and MS Dd.14.24 and containing mixed consort parts for lute, bass viol, recorder and cittern, respectively. These are four of the six instruments of the mixed, or English, consort (lute, cittern, bandora, flute or recorder, treble viol and bass viol). One of the four manuscripts - Dd.5.20, containing bass viol parts - is reproduced here. The recorder part book (MS Dd.5.21) is online and the other two part books will be added to the Digital Library in the future.Although they are housed together at Cambridge University Library and all copied in Holmes' hand, it is likely that not all the four are from the same set of consort part books. Two of the books match exactly in size and dimensions (275 x 210 mm) and were bound together at some stage, although they are currently bound separately. The verso of the first folio of each bears the related inscriptions 'The Base Vyall P[ar]te' in MS Dd.5.20 and 'The Recorder P[ar]te' in MS Dd.5.21, followed by a short list of the same ten items from amongst the contents of both (plus an eleventh item added to the list in Dd.5.21). These similarities suggest that Dd.5.20 and Dd.5.21 are from the same set of consort parts, despite the fact that only a proportion of the contents are present in both part books and the parts that are common to both are not in the same sequence.The <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(2);return false;'>front pastedown</a> of Dd.5.20 bears an engraved book-plate known to have been commissioned to commemorate the gift by George I of Bishop John Moore's library to the University of Cambridge in 1715. However, the bookplate has been added to MS Dd.5.20 in error and there is no reason to think that this or any other of the Holmes' manuscripts came from Moore’s library - the error confirmed because the class-mark on the book plate written in ink in an eighteenth-century hand has been altered from 'Dd-5-26' to 'Dd-5-20' and the correct volume Dd.5.26 is a manuscript herbal that did indeed originate from Moore's library.MS Dd.5.20 is made up of two distinct sections, the first comprising folios 1-14, into which mixed consort parts are copied. The second section occupies ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(27);return false;'>15-50</a> and contains music for viola da gamba (preceded by one item for viola da gamba copied on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(101);return false;'>11r</a> of the first section), as well as lyra viol music. The two sections are further distinguished by pages of different size (295 x 210 mm and 206 x 146 mm, respectively), neither with a title page nor any inscriptions. For reasons not now known, the second section is currently bound between ff. 8 and 9 of the first section but has been moved to the end of the first section after f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(108);return false;'>14v</a> in the sequence of online images here. The entire contents of the two sections were copied by Holmes at different times, exept for two bass parts: 'Lachrimæ' on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(22);return false;'>6v</a> and 'Doc: James Pauim' [sic] on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(23);return false;'>7r</a>, both written in a Gothic script with lozenge-shaped note-heads and possibly in the hand of Richard Reade, the composer of the second of the two items.The first section of Dd.5.20 (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(11);return false;'>1-14</a>) includes 91 mixed consort parts for bass viol in mensural notation with a bass clef, except two are for other instruments: 'The Recorder Part Grimstone' on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(25);return false;'>8r</a> (with a treble clef) and one of the parts 'for iii V[iols] 3 Orph[arion] Mr. Read' on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(100);return false;'>10v</a>. The mixed consort parts are mostly anonymous, although some bear composer ascriptions, or ascriptions are found in the parts for the same music in other Holmes part books, or in concordant sources. Just over three-quarters of the mixed consort parts are also in Dd.5.21 and so the music consists of the same range of genres and composers, including the major figures of the second half of the sixteenth century: Alfonso Ferrabosco I, Nicholas Strogers, John Johnson, Richard Allison, Anthony Holborne and John Dowland. None of these are known to have composed for the mixed consort, apart from Richard Allison, who published a book of consort lessons in 1609, and so the original compositions are presumed to have been for other instruments and it is not known who made the mixed consort arrangements. In addition, twenty-three parts are ascribed to 'R Read'/'R R' (plus three more in the related part book Dd.5.21). These are presumed to have been composed for mixed consort by Richard Read, a singingman at Christ Church, Oxford, between 1588 and 1617, graduating as B.Mus. at Christ Church on 7 July 1592. Read was at Christ Church at the same time as Holmes, and may have participated in the performance of the mixed consort music in Holmes' part books. The range of genres of mixed consort music is typical of the English repertory from the 1580s onwards and includes variations on Italian grounds and street songs (5), pavans (28), galliards (17), almaines (3), jigs (7), volts (2), song settings (5) and ballad tunes (16), many also known from settings for lute or other instruments. The other known sources of mixed consort music see the introduction to the facsimile of Dd.5.21 in this digital library.The second section of Dd.5.20 (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(27);return false;'>15-50</a>) includes 42 viola da gamba/bass viol solos and/or consort parts (it can be difficult to decide which) in mensural notation (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(101);return false;'>11r</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(27);return false;'>15r-18v</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(50);return false;'>26v-33v</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(82);return false;'>43v-44r</a> and <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(96);return false;'>50v</a>) in addition to 31 solos and 4 orphan duet parts for lyra viol in French tablature, copied consecutively in two blocks on ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(35);return false;'>19r-26r</a> and <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(65);return false;'>35r-36v</a>. The viola da gamba sections include mainly anonymous music plus a few composed (not necessarily originally for viol) by John Dowland, Tobias Hume, Richard Read, and William Byrd. The genres represented are largely pavans and galliards, as well as a prelude, a fantasia, and a few Italian grounds, ballad tunes, toys, almaines and song settings. The lyra viol sections include music by John Coprario, Daniel Farrant, Alfonso Ferrabosco II, Andrew Marks and Joseph Sherlie, the first three employed as English Court musicians (see Ashbee and Lasocki (1998)). The genres represented are much the same as for the viol da gamba sections, and include a few each of corantos, toys, ballad tunes, pavans, galliards and almaines, as well as a prelude, a fancy and a song setting. The music is grouped according to tunings of which there are three: Traficante T33 or lute way (fret intervals ffeff) on ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(35);return false;'>19r-19v</a>, T25 Leero way (fefhf) on ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(36);return false;'>19v-21r</a> and <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(47);return false;'>25r-26r</a>, and T36 Alfonso way (ffhfh) on ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(40);return false;'>21v-24v</a> and <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(65);return false;'>35r-36v</a> (see Traficante (1970)).John H. Robinson, Lute Society, and Joëlle Morton, University of Toronto (May 2025)Bibliography<ul><li>Ian Harwood, 'The Cambridge Lute Manuscripts: A Postscript', Lute Society Journal 6 (1964), p. 29</li><li>Andrew Ashbee and David Lasocki, Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians (Asghgate/Routledge, 1998)</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://www.violadagambanetwork.eu/lyra-viol-source-list/'>European Violadagamba Network</a></li><li>Frank Traficante, 'Lyra viol tunings: "All Ways have been Tryed to Do It"', Acta Musicologica 42 (1970), pp. 183-205; and see https://vdgs.org.uk/thematic/03-ANON-TABLATURE-D.pdf</li></ul>