music notebook

Language: English

Language: French

Context and purpose

Music notebook inscribed and possibly compiled by Elizabeth Roper and Mary Roper. Each woman has inscribed a leaf at one end of the notebook; Elizabeth's inscription is dated 1691. Following the inscriptions, there are two distinct sequences of transcription in the manuscript, one from each end, each numbered separately in the Newberry Library foliation. There is no conclusive internal evidence as to which section of the manuscript was transcribed first; however, of the few items in the compilation which can be dated, most derive from the period 1695-1705 and are at Mary Roper's end of the book. Most of the notebook consists of pieces for harpsichord, with a few vocal items and one piece for organ. There are also a few prose definitions of technical musical terms. French music predominates in each section of the manuscript, though both sections also include work by English composers, as well as other items which scholars have not so far been able to identify. Each section begins with a sequence of French pieces; however, as Gustafson notes, a grammatical error in the transcription of one of the titles ("Double de le Gigue", item 46) suggests that the scribe of at least this sequence was not a native French speaker. All of the prose definitions of musical terms are in English. The French music in the collection is less carefully attributed than the English: the Courante Chambonnière is the only French piece to be explicitly attributed to its composer; the pieces by Lully and Lebègue are identified, if at all, only by generic title. The English music is more frequently but not invariably attributed to named composers: Purcell, Eccles, Byron. Gustafson identifies 8-11 hands within the manuscript, which he regards as a working document, "a somewhat haphazard collection of pieces from which one learned to play the harpsichord, rather than the systematic or unified compilation of a professional musician", while prizing it as "rare evidence of the presence of French harpsichord music in Great Britain before the turn of the century".