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Bookplate Index by Library or Collector |
Oxford Musical Society Homer
described the gods listening to "the sound of the gracious lyre which
Apollo held." The anonymous artist of the plate prepared for the
Oxford Musical Society depicted the god of song with his lyre and implied
the divinity of the reader. Ungodly, even non-Greek, instruments lie in
the foreground, together with some music hooks and a tragic mask. The Music
Society's rules and orders of 1757, reprinted in John H. Mee, The
Oldest Music Room in Europe (London: John Lane, 1911, pp. 45-53), make
it clear that it had both books and instruments in its care. "No
Books or Instruments shall be lent to any Person out of the Music-Room,
without the Leave of the Steward, or the Professor of Music (if a Member
of the Committee); and every Person who borrows any Book or Instrument,
shall sign a Receipt for it in a Book kept by the Closet Keeper, and shall
likewise return it by, or before, the Concert Evening following, and if it
be lost by him, he shall forfeit the full value." In order to check
delinquency, section 40 of the rules provided that "there shall be a
general Visitation of all the Books,
Instruments, and other Furniture of the Music-Room, at every Quarterly
Meeting; at which the last Steward and his Successor shall attend, and if
any Books, &c., shall be missing, the Closet Keeper or other Persons
to whose Care they were committed, shall be answerable for them."
Unfortunately, the visitations were not effective, for advertisements had
to be placed in the Oxford Journal during the 1760s requesting that
gentlemen or performers who had borrowed "Books belonging to the
Musical Society . . . for their private Practice" return them (Mee,
pp. 62-63). The exemplar
reproduced on the cover is found in a manuscript score of George Frederic
Handel's coronation anthems now at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research
Center, University of Texas at Austin (Finney Music Collection 10). The
anthems were as popular in Oxford as elsewhere. Two were given in the
opening concert in July 1748 of what is now known as the Holywell Music
Room where the Music Society was based (Mee, p. 8). Three of the anthems, Zadok
the Priest (HWV 258), The King Shall Rejoice (HWV 260),
and My Heart Is Inditing (HWV 261), had regular performances at the
Music Room during the 1750s and 1760s (Mee, p. 21). Concerts were given
weekly, except during passion week. In addition, benefit concerts were
provided for qualified musicians. Weekly concerts were discontinued in the
spring of 1789, but were restarted in 1793. From 1820 until 1840, when the
Music Society collapsed, concerts were given only occasionally. Mee
reports that ''the bulk of the library was removed [in 1840?] . . . to Magdalen
Hall, and, on the death of Dr. Michell in 1877, was sold by his
executors" (p. 193). Richard Michell was a Fellow of Lincoln College,
vice-principal and principal of Magdalen Hall, and the first principal of
Hertford College, when Magdalen became Hertford in 1874.1
Michell was a highly regarded tutor and held several university offices.
These duties presumably made him unwilling to shoulder the burden of
organizing the Music Society, but he was conscious of the need to preserve
the library. In about 1860 Michell employed an undergraduate to catalogue
the collection (Mee, p.193). It was not until 1901 that the Music Room was
restored and the Oxford University Musical Union recommenced regular
concert series. The Music
Society produced a catalogue in the 1770s that lists both score and parts
of the coronation anthems. The catalogue is reprinted by Mee, who explores
the problem of its date (p. 44). We do not know how the Music Society came
by the manuscript, a copy that has been attributed to John Christopher
Smith, Handel's chief copyist. The autograph is at the British Library.
Other complete contemporary manuscript copies exist at the Staats- und
Universitätbibliothek, Hamburg; the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; the
Royal College of Music, London: the Henry Watson Music Library,
Manchester; the earl of Shaftsbury's collection, Wimborne and the
Musikbibliothek der Stadt Leipzig. The Music Society's rules gave the
steward the power "to order any Manuscript Musick, that has never
been printed, to be transcribed for the use of the Society." The
anthems had been issued in score by Walsh in about 1743.2
Perhaps the copy remained from a performance during Handel's visit to
Oxford in 1733. Certainly, the volume has strong Oxford connections, for
it was in all likelihood bound by Thomas Sedgly.3 Since the dispersal of the Music Society's library, the manuscript now at
Texas passed through the dealer James Rushton in London before being
bought by Theodore M. Finney in Oxford in 1966. Finney's collection came
to Texas in 1970. In addition to the bookplate, the Texas copy contains
the Music Society's stencil mark and an indication of the number of parts,
twenty-one for instruments and eleven for voices, that it owned. The score
is in a three-quarter leather binding that is severely worn. There is a
paper label on the spine that is now too torn and faded to read. The
leather label on the front board announces "Handel's Coronation
Anthems." David
Hunter Fine
Arts Library University
of Texas at Austin Notes 1. Dictionary of National Biography and Alumni Oxoniensis. DNB makes no mention of Michell's musical interests, nor is he included in A. Hyatt King's Some British Collectors of Music (Cambridge: University Press, 1963). |
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