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Cambridge. Cambridge University Library, MS Dd.2.11

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Source
Cambridge Digital Library
Library
Cambridge. Cambridge University Library
Shelfmark
  • MS Dd.2.11
Biblissima authority file
Date
  • c. 1588-1595 C.E.
Title
    • Musica
    • Galliard
    • Prelude
    • Prelude
    • Pavan
    • Galliard to the flat pavan
    • Pavan
    • Galliard
    • Passymeasures pavan
    • De la Court pavan
    • My heart is surely set
    • Go from my window
    • Duke of Milan's dump
    • Divisions on a ground
    • Coranto for Mrs Elizabeth Murcott
    • Galliard
    • Mrs Elizabeth Murcott's delight
    • Galliard
    • Pavan dolorosa
    • Mrs Elizabeth Murcott's galliard
    • Mr Timothy Wagstaff's content of desire
    • The Lord Hastings' good morrow
    • George Pilkington's funeral
    • Galliard
    • Pavan
    • Pavan Helena
    • Untitled
    • Galliard
    • Dargason
    • Galliard
    • Goodnight
    • Loth to depart
    • The Scottish hunt's up
    • Ploravit pavan
    • Almain
    • Mr Strang's Gregory Hits
    • Pavan
    • Bona speranza pavan
    • Pavan
    • Pavan
    • Melancholy galliard
    • Divisions on a ground
    • The hunt's up
    • La sol la pavan
    • Pavan
    • My Lord Willoughby's Welcome Home - Roland
    • Untitled (Prelude?)
    • Doctor Case's pavan
    • Fantasia
    • Fantasia
    • Fantasia
    • Ma pauvre bourse
    • Untitled
    • Fantasia
    • Fantasia
    • In nomine
    • Verbum iniquum
    • Avec vous mon amour finera
    • Un jour passe
    • Toy
    • Fatntasia?
    • Fantasia
    • Fantasia
    • Mrs White's nothing
    • Miserere
    • Fantasia
    • Susanne une jour
    • A jig - Doctor Bull's Myself
    • Si vous voulez
    • Le content est riche
    • Fantasia
    • Fantasia
    • Fantasia
    • Jour désiré
    • Fantasia
    • Fantasia
    • Fantasia
    • J'attend secours
    • Galliard on Walsingham
    • Battle galliard
    • Prelude
    • Pavan
    • Quadro pavan
    • Last will and testament pavan
    • Quadro galliard
    • Playfellow
    • Galliard
    • Monsieur's almain
    • Slight conceit
    • Pavan
    • Fantasia
    • Almain
    • Tres choses
    • Pavan
    • The Night Watch almain
    • La vecchia pavan
    • Pavan
    • Prelude
    • Fantasia
    • Pavan
    • A toy
    • Pavan
    • Galliard
    • Almain
    • Lady Russell's pavan
    • Galliard
    • Galliard
    • Fantasia
    • Fantasia
    • Earl of Essex's galliard / Can she excuse
    • Frog galliard
    • My Lord of Dehim's Lamentation
    • Prelude
    • French galliard
    • Galliard
    • Hunting of the mouse
    • Pavan
    • Galliard to the pavan
    • Galliard
    • Clement's squirrel
    • Pavan
    • Sedit sola pavan
    • Galliard
    • Heart's ease - The Honeysuckle
    • Prelude
    • Mr. Chidley's farewell
    • Pavan
    • Galliard
    • Almain
    • Cradle pavan
    • Pavan
    • Galliard
    • Piper's pavan
    • Almain
    • The long pavan
    • Lady Leighton's pavan / A dream
    • Lady Leighton's almain
    • Untitled (Jig?)
    • Pavan
    • Lord Russell's galliard
    • Progress
    • Decrevi Pavan
    • Squire's galliard
    • Galliard
    • Catin
    • Fantasia
    • Cradle pavan
    • Galliard
    • Untitled (Toy?)
    • Viscount Lisle's galliard - Susanna galliard
    • Galliard
    • Galliard
    • Galliard
    • Fantasia
    • Jig?
    • Piper's galliard
    • Robin is to the Greenwood Gone / Bonny Sweet Robin / Robin Hood
    • Galliard
    • Galliard on Go from my window
    • Galliard
    • Divisions on a ground
    • Ut Re Mi Fa Sol La
    • Rose
    • New Year's gift galliard
    • My lady P's pavan
    • Galliard
    • Galliard
    • Orlando sleepeth
    • Captain Cavendish's galliard
    • Fortune my foe / Complaint
    • Tarleton's jig
    • Gathering peascods
    • Galliard
    • Pavan
    • Galliard
    • Pavan
    • Lady Russell's pavan
    • Last will and testament pavan
    • Lady Clifton's spirit / Katherine Darcy's spirit
    • Fr. Dac. galliard
    • Lord Strang's March
    • Solus cum sola
    • Lord Willoughby's welcome home / Roland
    • Queen Elizabeth's Galliard
    • Almain
    • The Gordian knot
    • Almain
    • Jig
    • Galliard
    • Farewell all (Welsh almain)
    • Almain
    • Clark's Galliard / Jest
    • Cradle of conceits pavan
    • Hillary march
    • Pavan
    • Au joli bois
    • Earl of Derby's Coranto / French King's Masque
    • Queen's galliard
    • Galliard
    • New Year's gift galliard
    • Earl of Essex's galliard
    • Passymeasures pavan
    • Pavan
    • Galliard
    • Ahi se la donna mia
    • Almain
    • Mrs White's Choice / Thing
    • Holborne's farewell
    • La vecchia (pavan)
    • Galliard
    • Go merrily wheel
    • Long pavan
    • Fantasia
    • Lullaby
    • Passymeasures pavan
    • Bonny sweet boy
    • Robin is to the Greenwood Gone / Bonny Sweet Robin / Robin Hood
    • Playfellow jig
    • To Westminster
    • Spanish pavan
    • Pavan
    • Galliard
    • Fantasia
    • Galliard
    • Southwell's galliard
    • Trellyll
    • Pavan
    • Wilson's wild
    • Pavan
    • Coranto - Volt
    • Quadro pavan
    • Galliard to the quadro pavan
    • Downright Squire
    • Almain
    • Quadro pavan
    • Pavan
    • Squire's galliard
    • Galliard
    • Pavan
    • Clark's Galliard / Jest
    • Sir Robert Sidney's Galliard
    • Coranto
    • La volta
    • E. Porter's pavan
    • In nomine
    • Galliard
    • John petit John
    • Passymeasures pavan
    • The Countess of Ormond's Galliard / Light of Love
    • Galliard
    • Almain
    • La volta
    • Lachrimae pavan
    • Mignarda (galliard)
    • Pavan
    • The squirrel's toy
    • Pavan
    • Chow Bente
    • Song
    • Sir Walter Raleigh's galliard
    • Fancy
    • Robin Hood / Toy
    • Galliard
    • Galliard
    • A fancy
    • Over the broom Bessy
    • Toy
    • Hornpipe
    • Coranto
    • Lachrimae pavan
    • Bugle bow
    • Captain Digorie Piper's pavan
    • Galliard on Walsingham
    • De la tromba pavan
    • Patience pavan
    • Passion galliard
    • Passymeasures pavan
    • Passymeasures pavan
    • Sans per pavan
    • Lachrimae pavan
    • Fantasia
    • Mrs Anne Harcourt's galliard
    • Fantasia
    • Sir Philip Sidney's Lamentation
    • Scottish galliard
    • Good night and good rest
    • Pavan
    • Flat pavan
    • Galliard
    • Primero
    • Pavan
    • Old medley
    • Galliard to the pavan
    • Passymeasures pavan
    • Galliard to the passymeasures
    • Quadro pavan
    • Frog galliard
    • Galliard to the quadro pavan
    • A down
    • Fantasia
    • Galliard
    • Galliard
    • Hamburg march
    • Galliard
    • Walsingham
    • Walsingham
    • Preludium
    • Fragment
    • Fragment
    • Galliard
    • Pavan
    • Walsingham
    • Jig
    • Pavan
    • Lord Burgh's Galliard / Johnson's Jewel Galliard
    • Hamburg march galliard
    • To plead my faith galliard
    • Kemp's jig - The Parliament
    • Almain
    • Jig
    • Fantasia
    • Mrs Nichols' almain
    • Almain or masque tune
    • Divisions on a ground
    • Galliard
    • Tuning and prelude
    • see more
Agent
Description

  • Dd.2.11 is the first and largest of the four Mathew Holmes lute books, copied probably 1588-1595. Nine music manuscripts in Cambridge University Library were shown by Ian Harwood in the 1960s to have been copied by Holmes who was Precentor and Singingman of Christ Church in Oxford from 1588 and then in Westminster Abbey in London from 1597 until his death in 1621. Four of the manuscripts, with the shelfmarks Dd.2.11, Dd.5.78.3, Dd.9.33 and Nn.6.36, form a chronological series largely devoted to tablature for the renaissance lute. The four comprise the most extensive and important source of English lute music to survive in the world, totalling over 650 separate items, some duplicated within or between manuscripts, crammed into all available space of more than 300 folios (600 pages) in total. The manuscripts are the major source of the music of all the great English renaissance lute composers and preserve a complete cross-section of the repertoire in common use in England for the period 1580 to 1615. The other five manuscripts copied by Mathew Holmes are one for solo cittern (Dd.4.23), and four part books for the characteristic English mixed consort of lute (Dd.3.18), bass viol (Dd.5.20), recorder (Dd.5.21) and cittern (Dd.14.24), with part books for bandora and treble viol now lost.

    Holmes seems to have copied the four lute books sequentially, probably with some overlap, the first two manuscripts in Oxford from the late 1580s continuing with the last two into the second decade of the seventeenth century after he moved to Westminster Abbey. It is noticeable that his handwriting is bold and clear in the first manuscript, but gradually deteriorates throughout the series, accompanied by fewer titles and with composers’ names reduced to initials, together with progressive use of abbreviated notation of rhythm signs in the later manuscripts. The consort part books he also copied are presumed to have been used for teaching the choristers in his care and other pupils at Oxford and Westminster Abbey, but the purpose of the solo lute books is not at all clear. It is most likely that he chose to collect and record for his private use the lute music in circulation in the capital, which he first must have had access to when in Oxford and surely did when he moved to the centre of court life at Westminster Abbey. He may well have been acquainted with most of the resident and visiting composers still living, and could have been trusted to borrow their lute books long enough to copy a selection of his choice. From the high quality of much of the music, it seems he could play the lute to a high standard of proficiency and for his own personal recreation. Thankfully his hobby of filling up the four manuscripts obsessively with the huge amount of contemporary music that he laid hands on over a quarter of a century has turned out to be an invaluable legacy for the lute revival nearly 400 years later.

    The Holmes lute books are the first English sources to abandon the predominant influence of Italian musicians on the earlier Tudor court in favour of the characteristic forms of English pavans, galliards, almaines and sets of variations on popular ballad tunes, and so collectively preserve the flowering of the Golden Age of English lute music. The 324 items in Dd.2.11 are for solo renaissance lute mainly of 6 courses, except for 55 bandora solos and 1 bandora consort part. The contributor of the most music is Anthony Holborne with 28 lute solos and 19 for bandora. He was a highly praised musician and styled himself 'Gentleman and servant to her most excellent Majestie' (Elizabeth I) in his book of cittern solos published in 1597. However, the 20 lute solos by John Johnson, 21 by Francis Cutting and 38 by John Dowland are a very significant part of the music Holmes collected for his first manuscript, mainly copied in Oxford. It is a major source for the music of Richard Allison (8) and Francis Pilkington (8), and many others are represented by one or a few items each, ranging from the great to the obscure and including English composers from much of the Elizabethan period: Robert Ascue (2), Edward Blankes (1), William Byrd (2), Michael Cavendish (1), Edward Collard (2), Mr Lusher (2), John Marchant (1), Robert Parsons (1), Peter Philips (1), Edward Pierce (1), Thomas Robinson (1), Nicolas Strogers (1), John Taverner (1), John Whitfield (1). The genres are also largely typical of English lute music and are dominated by pavans and galliards (26 fantasias, 83 pavans, 84 galliards, 19 almaines, 8 jigs and settings of 15 popular ballad tunes, some in the characteristically English form of a set of variations).

    In addition to English music, Holmes also copied music by continental composers employed at the English court, including the Italians Augustine Bassano (1), Lodovico Bassano (3), Alfonso Ferrabosco the Elder (13), Renaldo Paradiso (1), and the Flemish Philip van Wilder (3). Music by composers with no obvious association with England also found its way into his hands, including one each from the continental printed collections by Emmanuel Adriaenssen, Joan Maria da Crema, Melchior Neusidler and Matthäus Waissel, as well as fantasias by Francesco da Milano (4), and lute intabulations of vocal music by the Flemish and French composers Jacob Arcadelt (1), Derick Gerarde (1), Orlando de Lassus (3) and Claudin de Sermisy (1), as well as the Spanish composer Cristobal Morales (1). Apart from the largest single collection of English lute solos, Dd.2.11 is also the largest of only seven known sources of music for the wire strung 7-course bandora, and includes all the known bandora solos ascribed to Anthony Holborne (19), together with a few by Alfonso Ferrabosco (6), Richard Allison (2) and Mr Valentyne (1). The remainder are anonymous, or bear the names of John Dowland (3), John Johnson (2) and Francis Cutting (1). It seems likely that Holborne composed for the bandora, but it is not clear how many of the other bandora pieces were written for the bandora rather than arranged from lute solos of the named composers.

    Many lute solos in the Holmes manuscripts have titles with the names of dedicatees, including royalty, nobility, members of the merchant class, academics or actors from the London theatres. The more famous can be easily identified and patronage often runs in families, but it is only rarely that the date or the occasions for which the music was written can be identified. Composers were probably either commissioned to write appropriately merry or sorrowful music for events such as marriages or funerals, or else they submitted music with the offer of a dedication to honour a patron or for direct financial reward, in the same way that they dedicated whole printed books of music to notable figures to acknowledge patronage or for financial gain. The 50 or so dedications in the Holmes lute books include in Dd.2.11 a galliard on fol. 72v by an unnamed composer dedicated to Sir Robert Sidney (1563-1626). On fol. 85v is Sir Phillip Sydneys Lamentacion by an unnamed composer, dedicated to Robert’s brother Philip Sidney (1554-1586), poet, courtier and soldier. On fols 40v and 62v, John Dowland’s very popular Earl of Essex Galliard is dedicated to Robert Devereux, Queen Elizabeth's favourite from 1587 who was executed for treason in 1601. The tune became a favourite well into the seventeenth century under the title Can she excuse from the related song Dowland published. The dedicatee of Francis Pilkington’s George Pilkingtons Funerall on fol. 6r was presumably the composer’s brother or other family member, but the date of his death is not known. A piece written for a specific event that can be dated is the anonymous lute solo titled Mr Chidleys farewell on fol. 44r, probably marking the departure of John Chidley and Andrew Meyrick from Plymouth with three ships in 1589, a voyage which came to utter disaster and probably ruined the Chidley family. Finally several jigs are dedicated to famous comic actors, presumably celebrating such events as their rise to fame or their retirement from the stage, and it is likely that the actors danced the jigs to the music on stage. Dd.2.11 includes versions of jigs probably for the actors Richard Tarleton (d. 1588) on fol. 56r, Robert Wilson (d. 1600) on 68v, and William Kemp (d. 1603) on 99v.

    John H. Robinson, Lute Society

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  • Provided by Cambridge University Library. Zooming image © Cambridge University Library, All rights reserved. Images made available for download are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC 3.0) This metadata is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
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