Beschreibung:

Lute Highly important early seventeenth-century manuscript of Italian and French lute music in French tablature, comprising some 320 pieces, INCLUDING THE LACHRIMAE PAVAN, JOHN DOWLAND'S MOST FAMOUS COMPOSITION AND THE MOST POPULAR PIECE OF MUSIC IN THE WHOLE OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY notated in brown ink by a single scribe, almost entirely in French lute tablature, on up to four six-line tablature staves per page, comprising mostly dances (including 99 courantes, 37 voltes, 35 galliards and 32 ballets), but also 3 fantasias (fols.260v-263r) and some French song movements, the identifiable composers of the mostly unattributed dances including Michelangelo Galilei (1575-1631), Daniel Bacheler (1572-1619), Robert Ballard (c.1575-after 1649), Jean-Baptiste Besard (1567-1625), Charles Bocquet (c.1570-before 1615), Diomedes Cato (1560 to 1565-after 1607 or 1618), John Dowland (1563-1625/6), Nicolas de la Grotte (c.1530-c.1600), Henri de L'Enclos (1592/3-1649), Charles de Lespine (?1580s-after 1627), Mercure d'Orléans (fl. c.1590-c.1619), Elias Mertel (c.1561-1626), René Mesangeau (late C16th-?early January 1638), Victor de Montbuisson (c.1575-after 1638), Julien Perrichon (1566-c.1600), Jakub Reys (c.1550-c.1605) and Nicolas Vallet (c.1583-after 1642), the manuscript containing some tuning charts (e.g. on fols.283r and 285r) and a number of cancellations (on fols.8r, 35r, 77r, 133v, 234r and 266v), the music continued on one page (fol.151r) on a handwritten stave in the lower margin 285 leaves, oblong 8vo (c.15 x 18.3cm), the watermarks, incompletely described in the literature, including a crown surmounting a double-headed eagle over a shield enclosing the letters MB (?), type-set staves, modern ink foliation to lower outer corners, possibly contemporary Latin inscription to inside cover "Ignavia est iacere ubi possis surgere", early German inscription on free endpaper ("Der Herre Vnnd [?]..."), some later (dealer's?) pencil markings to lower pastedown ("...II 95"), Dolmetsch library stamp and pencil shelfmark ("Dolmetsch Library II B 1") to front pastedown, some modern pencil annotations, including tablature, on fols.259v-260r, presumably in Arnold Dolmetsch's hand, contemporary blind-stamped German pigskin binding, plausibly by the Federnelkenmeister binder of Cologne (c.1583-1619, EBDB w004758), three concentric roll-tooled leafy borders around a central panel with small corner and centre stamps, two later clasps with plaited straps, [probably Bavaria, c.1620], one leaf before fol.21 excised, first leaf on a guard and the leading edge strengthened, some worming, some light damp-staining, small marginal tears to fol.231 and fol.246 (slightly affecting text of latter), tear to last leaf expertly repaired, spine worn ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT LUTE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. IT IS ALSO ONE OF THE MOST SUBSTANTIAL OF ALL EXISTING LUTE MANUSCRIPTS AND THE MOST SIGNIFICANT TO BE OFFERED AT AUCTION IN MODERN TIMES. NOT ONLY INCLUDING 89 PIECES UNIQUE TO THIS SOURCE, IT ALSO CONTAINS A VERSION OF THE MOST POPULAR PIECE OF MUSIC WRITTEN BETWEEN 1597 and 1650: DOWLAND'S LACHRIMAE PAVAN. This spectacular manuscript, UNPUBLISHED IN ITS ENTIRETY, and probably Bavarian in origin, is written by the same scribe who wrote the lute book of Joannes Aegidius Berner von Rettenwert (1603-1663), a volume copied in Salzburg c.1623-1627 (and preserved now in Prague, Národní Muzeum - České Muzeum hudby: MS G.IV.18) that exhibits a considerable overlap in repertoire with the present manuscript (90 of the Dolmetsch manuscript's pieces are transmitted in the Prague source). Given that the ownership signature in the Prague volume appears to match the musical hand there, it is possible that the scribe in both manuscripts, whose hand is fluent and bears witness to evident musical training, was one and the same as Joannes Berner himself - one of whose residences, from 1643 on, was Schloss Anif, outside Salzburg. According to Suza