1 00:00:09,440 --> 00:00:13,280 Hello, and welcome to this webinar, 'The Dancing Monster in Context'. 2 00:00:13,670 --> 00:00:18,400 Thank you very much for being here. My name is Helen. I'm the Public Engagement Officer at the Bodleian libraries. 3 00:00:18,800 --> 00:00:26,750 Just to let you know a few practical things before we start, we are recording the event but as this is a zoom webinar, your video and audio are turned off. 4 00:00:27,350 --> 00:00:29,840 We'd love to hear what you think during today's event. 5 00:00:29,860 --> 00:00:37,280 So if you would like to ask a question, please type it in the Q&A window throughout and your question will be put live to the speakers during the session. 6 00:00:37,820 --> 00:00:41,720 You can also vote for questions you are interested in by clicking on the thumbs up. 7 00:00:42,260 --> 00:00:49,880 If we don't have time to answer all your questions today, we'll collate the most popular ones and do our best to answer them in our follow up email. 8 00:00:50,600 --> 00:00:54,979 We really value your feedback, so please do fill out the short questionnaire after the webinar. 9 00:00:54,980 --> 00:01:00,920 The link is in your booking email. This helps us to continue to offer and improve free events like this for everyone. 10 00:01:01,670 --> 00:01:08,990 This webinar is linked to the wonderful display, The Dancing Master, at the Bodleian Weston Library until Sunday, the 21st of January. 11 00:01:09,290 --> 00:01:17,570 Do come and see it if you can. Our presenter today is Dr. Alice Little, Research Fellow at the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments, 12 00:01:17,810 --> 00:01:26,450 part of the Music Faculty at the University of Oxford. Alice's research focuses on collectors and collecting, particularly 18th century tune books, 13 00:01:26,450 --> 00:01:31,309 And their compilers, looking at what sources the collections were gathered from and what 14 00:01:31,310 --> 00:01:35,810 the selection of music says about the people and cultures that collected and used them. 15 00:01:36,200 --> 00:01:39,420 So I'll hand over now to Alice. Thank you. 16 00:01:39,450 --> 00:01:45,899 Good evening. I'm delighted to welcome tonight Professor Rebecca Herissone to the Zoom stage to talk to us 17 00:01:45,900 --> 00:01:51,220 about Playford's Dancing Master and the context of its printing in 17th century England. 18 00:01:51,780 --> 00:01:57,480 Rebecca Herrisone is Professor of Musicology at the University of Manchester and a fellow at the British Academy. 19 00:01:57,960 --> 00:02:01,350 Her research focuses on the musical cultures of early modern England, 20 00:02:01,590 --> 00:02:05,880 particularly issues of creativity, reception, and manuscript and print cultures, 21 00:02:06,120 --> 00:02:11,670 which has led her to work extensively on the publishing activities of John and Henry Playford, 22 00:02:11,910 --> 00:02:18,660 Thomas Cross and John Walsh, and to consider the complex relationships between musical notation and performance in the period. 23 00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:24,120 She's written three monographs, most recently 'Musical Creativity in Restoration 24 00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:31,859 England', awarded the Diana Mc Veagh Prize by the North American British Music Studies Association in 2015 and has 25 00:02:31,860 --> 00:02:37,620 articles published in journals including the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Musical 26 00:02:37,620 --> 00:02:43,320 Quarterly, Journal of Musicology, Music and Letters, and the Journal of the Royal Musical Association. 27 00:02:43,980 --> 00:02:50,700 She co-edited music and letters from 2007-19 and is now a Vice President of the Royal Musical Association, 28 00:02:51,030 --> 00:02:58,410 chair of the Musica Britannica Editorial Committee, Series Co-editor of Cambridge Elements in Music 1617-50, 29 00:02:58,710 --> 00:03:04,500 a general editor of the Works of John Eccles and a member of the Editorial Boards of the Purcell Society, 30 00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:06,000 and Music and Letters. 31 00:03:06,570 --> 00:03:15,120 Her current research focuses on Purcell's reception, particularly the material traces we can uncover of the small network of individuals who preserved, 32 00:03:15,120 --> 00:03:19,230 performed and transformed his music in the 18th and 19th centuries. 33 00:03:19,740 --> 00:03:23,160 Tonight, she will be speaking to us about 'The Dancing Master in Context'. 34 00:03:23,280 --> 00:03:28,920 Welcome, Rebecca. Thank you very much, Alice I'm just going to share my screen. 35 00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:32,940 Can everybody see that? I hope that's all okay. And good evening, everybody. 36 00:03:32,940 --> 00:03:39,659 It's lovely to be here. Now, this session is the second of two talks given to complement The Dancing Master exhibition at the Bodleian. 37 00:03:39,660 --> 00:03:45,780 as Alice just mentioned, following on from Jeremy Barlow's fascinating lecture given on the 2nd of November, 38 00:03:45,960 --> 00:03:50,760 'A Dance Band for Playford'. Whereas Jeremy focussed mainly on the book itself, 39 00:03:50,760 --> 00:03:56,940 What its images tell us about the musical practices underpinning dancing in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, 40 00:03:57,270 --> 00:04:03,180 and especially on the instrumentation of the bands that were used to accompany ballroom and country dancing in the period, 41 00:04:03,600 --> 00:04:10,979 In this session, my aim is to place The Dancing Master within the broader context of John Playford's music publishing, 42 00:04:10,980 --> 00:04:18,750 exploring what his portfolio of publications can tell us about the breadth of musical activities in Commonwealth and Restoration England, 43 00:04:19,020 --> 00:04:23,159 what sorts of people participated in them, and how Playford used his publishing 44 00:04:23,160 --> 00:04:27,480 business to encourage and arguably to influence and shape those activities. 45 00:04:28,020 --> 00:04:33,630 Now, the talk's going to be divided into three sections and there should be time for a few questions after each section. 46 00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:41,969 So in the first part, I'm going to describe how John Playford revolutionised music publishing in 17th century England by establishing a commercial 47 00:04:41,970 --> 00:04:48,450 market for music books and then nurturing it through his skilful and persistent strategies for targeting his customer base. 48 00:04:49,110 --> 00:04:55,140 In part two we'll consider the evidence that survives of the types of people at whom Playford aimed his publications. 49 00:04:55,500 --> 00:04:59,760 What we know about who actually bought the books and how they seem to have been used, 50 00:05:00,120 --> 00:05:03,540 providing us with a snapshot of the many different ways in which music was 51 00:05:03,540 --> 00:05:08,130 incorporated into different social environments in 17th century English society. 52 00:05:08,760 --> 00:05:16,379 Finally, in the third section of the talk, we'll look at how Playford sourced materials for his publications from his own music making activities, 53 00:05:16,380 --> 00:05:21,210 which allowed him to establish connections with many of London's leading professional musicians. 54 00:05:21,480 --> 00:05:28,530 And how, in an era before intellectual property rights, his publications sometimes brought him into conflict with those musicians. 55 00:05:29,280 --> 00:05:38,610 So we're going to start by looking a little bit at Playford himself, and this is an engraving of him from one of his books published in 1660. 56 00:05:39,390 --> 00:05:44,100 Now, today, Playford is sometimes referred to as the "Father of English music printing", 57 00:05:44,370 --> 00:05:48,420 but his initial steps into his profession were neither promising nor musical. 58 00:05:49,020 --> 00:05:52,530 Completing his stationer's apprenticeship in 1647, 59 00:05:52,860 --> 00:05:57,419 he emerged into the instability and uncertainty of the English Civil War and set 60 00:05:57,420 --> 00:06:01,710 up shop in the Inner Temple Churchyard near St Paul's Cathedral in London. 61 00:06:02,460 --> 00:06:07,080 He was strong in his allegiance to the crown and began producing pro-royalist pamphlets, 62 00:06:07,320 --> 00:06:10,710 which immediately brought him into conflict with the Puritan authorities. 63 00:06:11,250 --> 00:06:15,510 His publication of "King Charls his Tryal" following the execution of Charles 64 00:06:15,510 --> 00:06:21,000 the First in January 1649, led to a warrant being issued for his arrest. 65 00:06:21,360 --> 00:06:24,809 And it was only in the wake of the serious threat to his freedom and possibly 66 00:06:24,810 --> 00:06:29,220 even his life that he switched the focus of his business to music publishing. 67 00:06:29,970 --> 00:06:32,330 Now, given that Playford was a trained musician, 68 00:06:32,340 --> 00:06:38,070 this may have seemed like a logical step for him to take, but such a career shift was not without its 69 00:06:38,150 --> 00:06:42,380 own risks. Music printing had an inauspicious history in England. 70 00:06:42,890 --> 00:06:49,820 It was first formally established when Elizabeth I issued a patent to Thomas Tallis and William Byrd in 1575, 71 00:06:50,150 --> 00:06:56,840 giving them a 21 year monopoly on publishing polyphonic music, importing foreign music and printing manuscript paper. 72 00:06:57,530 --> 00:07:02,270 The new venture was marked by the publication that year of 'Cantiones sacrae'. 73 00:07:02,690 --> 00:07:07,070 It's actually got a much longer title, as you can see there, but people usually refer to it as 'Cantiones sacrae', 74 00:07:08,030 --> 00:07:13,010 containing 17 pieces by each composer, possibly one for each year of Elizabeth's reign. 75 00:07:14,290 --> 00:07:22,689 Despite this editorial fanfare, 'Cantiones sacrae' was rather an anomalous collection comprising Latin motets that were technically banned, 76 00:07:22,690 --> 00:07:26,920 according to Elizabeth's own edict on the use of music in liturgical services. 77 00:07:27,250 --> 00:07:34,860 And as Joan Milsom has argued, possibly intended more to impress Elizabeth's counterparts abroad than for the home market. 78 00:07:35,620 --> 00:07:43,210 For these and a variety of other reasons, this book did not act as a spur for the two composers to begin the commercial music publishing business. 79 00:07:43,540 --> 00:07:47,560 And it was only in 1588, three years after Tallis's death, 80 00:07:47,860 --> 00:07:53,470 that Byrd set up a new partnership with the printer, Thomas East, and began publishing music regularly. 81 00:07:54,040 --> 00:07:58,090 A steady flow of music publications was produced in the next 25 years, 82 00:07:58,330 --> 00:08:05,410 but it came to an almost complete halt following the death of the publisher and then patent holder, William Barley in 1614. 83 00:08:05,710 --> 00:08:09,940 And there followed a 30 year hiatus in which, as Donald Krummel notes, 84 00:08:10,270 --> 00:08:15,670 "scarcely two dozen books were issued that might have come under the control of the [Polyphonic Music] patent". 85 00:08:16,660 --> 00:08:22,780 It's hardly surprising, therefore, that Playford's initial steps towards music publishing in the 1650s were tentative. 86 00:08:23,440 --> 00:08:29,320 His first published music book seems to have been a reissue of a collection of psalms by William Child. 87 00:08:29,650 --> 00:08:37,720 The "The First Set of Psalmes of III voyces fit for private chappell or other private meetings", which had originally been published in 1639. 88 00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:46,750 Although no copy of this reissue is extant, Playford included it among the musical books he advertised for sale at his shop in 1651, 89 00:08:47,200 --> 00:08:50,229 describing Child's collection as having been printed this year, 90 00:08:50,230 --> 00:08:55,420 1650. Though it's not clear whether it yet carried the revised title Playford used when 91 00:08:55,420 --> 00:09:01,570 he republished the set again in 1656 as "Choise Musick to the Psalmes of David". 92 00:09:02,990 --> 00:09:07,380 In 1639, the collection had been printed from engraved plates, 93 00:09:07,700 --> 00:09:16,040 which is significant because it meant the Playford only had to buy the plates and set up a new title page in order to produce the reissue in 1650. 94 00:09:16,580 --> 00:09:21,139 While he obviously did have to cover the outlay for the plates themselves, which is not insubstantial, 95 00:09:21,140 --> 00:09:25,460 plus paper and ink and the materials needed for the printing process to be completed. 96 00:09:25,940 --> 00:09:32,000 He did not initially have to make the more major purchase of what would become the main tools of his trade. 97 00:09:32,240 --> 00:09:37,100 A complete set of musical type suitable for the single impression printing method that was standard 98 00:09:37,100 --> 00:09:42,350 in this period and that gave rise to the characteristic appearance of music prints in the 16th and 99 00:09:42,350 --> 00:09:47,809 17th centuries in which there were small gaps between segments of the stave resulting from the fact 100 00:09:47,810 --> 00:09:52,340 that the pieces of type contained both the note and the section of Stave on which it was printed. 101 00:09:52,340 --> 00:09:59,540 And you can see that here in an example of a page from one of Playford's early publications, "A Musicall Banquet", which we'll come back to in a moment. 102 00:10:00,170 --> 00:10:06,590 And you can see small gaps between the staves, particularly the blank staves on the right hand side of the page there. 103 00:10:08,160 --> 00:10:14,790 Although we don't know for sure when Playford did commit himself to music printing by buying his first set of Granjon music type. 104 00:10:15,150 --> 00:10:20,580 The fact that his initial music publication was from engraved prints suggests that he tested his market cautiously. 105 00:10:21,660 --> 00:10:24,660 Nevertheless, the publication of a harmonised book of Psalms, 106 00:10:24,660 --> 00:10:32,130 a book suitable for both domestic and liturgical use during this period of political and religious upheaval, was a shrewd move. 107 00:10:32,640 --> 00:10:35,580 And apparently it met with success because the following year, 108 00:10:35,580 --> 00:10:40,590 Playford not only published the first edition of Hilton's The Dancing Master, 109 00:10:40,920 --> 00:10:43,890 initially entitled The English Dancing master, as we know, 110 00:10:44,250 --> 00:10:51,930 but also he published a much broader ranging collection of instrumental and vocal music of his own making, "A Musicall Banquet". 111 00:10:52,680 --> 00:10:58,290 Both books were produced using the single impression method, as we can see from this page, from "A Musicall Banquet" on the screen. 112 00:10:58,740 --> 00:11:01,740 So by then he must have bought his first set of musical type. 113 00:11:02,430 --> 00:11:09,810 While the English Dancing Master was a book with a clearly identified musical function providing country dance tunes for practical use, 114 00:11:10,200 --> 00:11:17,429 "A Musicall Banquet" incorporated four distinct sections, and we can see those advertised on the title page. 115 00:11:17,430 --> 00:11:25,230 Playford evidently intended to use these as a form of market research, as Stacy Jocoy Houck notes, 116 00:11:25,530 --> 00:11:31,229 Playford later explained the book's structural design in comments he included in the address "To all 117 00:11:31,230 --> 00:11:38,400 Understanders and Lovers of Musick" in the prefatory material to his 1655 collection of two part instrumental music, 118 00:11:38,580 --> 00:11:47,090 Court Ayres. So he wrote in that preface: "About three years since I published a book called "A Musicall Banquet" there 119 00:11:47,090 --> 00:11:50,930 Being in it, a small taste of music in four several tracts. 120 00:11:51,230 --> 00:11:56,690 The first was some Rules for Song and Violl. The second had in it about 30 lessons for Lyra Violl, 121 00:11:56,690 --> 00:12:00,740 The third contained about 27 lessons of Two Parts, Basse and Treble, 122 00:12:01,070 --> 00:12:09,320 and the fourth consisted of about 20 Rounds and Catches. That little book, finding such acceptance among all lovers and practitioners in music, 123 00:12:09,500 --> 00:12:16,420 and the impression now totally sold off, I resolved to enlarge each of these tracts and to print them in several books, which I have now, 124 00:12:16,430 --> 00:12:21,890 through God's permission, accomplished. The first book I called 'A Brief Introduction to the skill of Song and Violl'. 125 00:12:22,250 --> 00:12:26,540 The second, 'Musicks Recreation', wherein is 177 Lessons for the Lyra Violl. 126 00:12:26,930 --> 00:12:32,480 The third is entitled 'Court-Ayres of two parts Treble and Basse', containing 246 lessons. 127 00:12:32,870 --> 00:12:39,680 The fourth is called 'Catch that Catch can, or catches, rounds and cannons' for 3 or foure Voyces containing at least 150. 128 00:12:39,980 --> 00:12:43,550 Whereby you have a much larger Banquet than you had before." 129 00:12:44,590 --> 00:12:50,290 So: the success of the 'Musicall Banquet' led Playford to expand each of the books four sections into 130 00:12:50,290 --> 00:12:55,570 an independent publication establishing the framework on which his music publishing business was built. 131 00:12:56,260 --> 00:13:01,220 We can see these four publications shown in bold type underlined in this table here. 132 00:13:01,240 --> 00:13:06,310 So the bold type publications are the ones that came out of the "Musicall Banquet". 133 00:13:09,160 --> 00:13:16,750 So in this table, Playford's publications are arranged by genre, and the right hand column lists the dates of successive editions, 134 00:13:16,750 --> 00:13:19,899 taking into account the fact that in some cases, as with 'Catch 135 00:13:19,900 --> 00:13:28,570 that Catch can' Playford sometimes altered the title of the volume between editions. Alongside the genres represented by the 'Musicall Banquet', 136 00:13:28,570 --> 00:13:34,840 So that's: an anthology for solo lyra viol, two-part instrumental dances associated with the court, and catches and rounds for 137 00:13:34,840 --> 00:13:39,280 three or four Voices, plus the rudimentary instruction manual, "An Introduction to the Skill of Musick". 138 00:13:39,460 --> 00:13:46,420 So we have all those four represented in the table there, but we also see published anthologies for other instruments and combinations of instruments. 139 00:13:47,440 --> 00:13:53,320 So that's a single instrument anthologies, which is Section five in the table there, and, 140 00:13:53,950 --> 00:13:59,559 and also anthologies of songs and dialogues mainly derived from music performed at court and in the public theatre. 141 00:13:59,560 --> 00:14:08,820 And those are the top of the table. These are shown under the titles, select musicals and dialogues and choices, songs and dialogues. 142 00:14:09,330 --> 00:14:14,130 And there were also two books of harmonised Psalms as well, through which Playford, as a parish clerk, 143 00:14:14,280 --> 00:14:19,200 attempted to contribute to efforts to improve congregational psalm singing, though with limited success. 144 00:14:19,860 --> 00:14:25,259 The single composer volume shown at the bottom of the table in the final category are somewhat different in character, 145 00:14:25,260 --> 00:14:32,249 and we're going to return to these later. So now we just need to note that there were very few in number, particularly in relation to the anthologies, 146 00:14:32,250 --> 00:14:37,260 and especially if you take into account the fact that there were mainly issued in single editions without reprint. 147 00:14:37,260 --> 00:14:41,700 So there's just one date associated with most of them, whereas with the anthologies higher up the table, 148 00:14:41,700 --> 00:14:45,390 most of them have more than one date because they were reissued in new editions. 149 00:14:47,050 --> 00:14:53,470 Playford's business model marks a distinct departure from the music publication practices of the early 17th century. 150 00:14:53,470 --> 00:14:59,830 And it's indicative of the completely new way in which he addressed the practical challenges of publishing music in this period. 151 00:15:00,310 --> 00:15:05,310 To understand both why he had to adopt such a different way of working and also the impact of his music, 152 00:15:05,330 --> 00:15:08,440 his business practices on musical activity in the period. 153 00:15:08,740 --> 00:15:16,270 We need to take a step back into this earlier period to investigate the very different framework on which music publishing was built at that time. 154 00:15:17,320 --> 00:15:22,540 Now much has been made of the emergence of commercial music printing in the early 17th century. 155 00:15:22,870 --> 00:15:28,419 But Robert Hume's research on early modern demographics has demonstrated that there were so few people 156 00:15:28,420 --> 00:15:33,730 in England with sufficiently large incomes to be able to buy anything but the cheapest chapbooks, 157 00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:38,709 That printing remained a difficult and precarious business well into the 18th century. 158 00:15:38,710 --> 00:15:43,750 And that wasn't just music printing. The problems were considerably exacerbated for music printing, in fact, 159 00:15:43,750 --> 00:15:50,770 because despite the fact that almost all publications of this period were produced using movable type, music notation was not 160 00:15:50,770 --> 00:15:57,640 well-suited to this printing technique requiring specialised and therefore expensive type printing on high quality thick paper. 161 00:15:57,880 --> 00:16:02,830 In the period when paper costs were exorbitant and a time consuming production process, 162 00:16:03,400 --> 00:16:08,680 given that the number of musically literate people was tiny, the potential market remained vanishingly small. 163 00:16:09,640 --> 00:16:13,060 Thus making a profit from printing music was a challenging task. 164 00:16:13,990 --> 00:16:17,950 Prior to Playford in late 16th and early 17th century England, 165 00:16:18,190 --> 00:16:25,420 music printing seems to have existed primarily thanks to the support of wealthy aristocrats who subsidised publications, 166 00:16:25,660 --> 00:16:30,730 a form of patronage that was well established on the continent, and that was also common within literary circles. 167 00:16:31,070 --> 00:16:35,139 Clear evidence for this practice is difficult to find in English musical sources, 168 00:16:35,140 --> 00:16:41,170 but it's strongly implied by the virtually ubiquitous inclusion of dedications to named noblemen and women, 169 00:16:41,350 --> 00:16:48,730 In all music books published in this period, and by the consistent references within them to words such as 'support' and 'encouragement', 170 00:16:49,240 --> 00:16:52,060 which clearly imply some kind of financial arrangement. 171 00:16:53,050 --> 00:16:58,660 Isolated examples from surviving account books confirmed that such subsidies were paid, for example, 172 00:16:58,660 --> 00:17:04,720 including a payment of £10 made by the Duke of Buckingham to a musician that presented a set of books. 173 00:17:05,350 --> 00:17:08,259 A well-known legal dispute that arose between the printer, 174 00:17:08,260 --> 00:17:15,610 Thomas East and publisher George Eastland over the publication of John Dowland's "Second Booke of Songs or Ayres" in 1600, 175 00:17:15,910 --> 00:17:23,590 is also informative because the records of this case tell us that Dowland's wife sold her husband's manuscript to Eastland for £20, 176 00:17:23,920 --> 00:17:28,840 plus a 50% share, in the expected dedication reward from Lucy, Countess of Bedford. 177 00:17:30,370 --> 00:17:34,810 In some cases, dedicatees were already patrons of the musicians whose music was being printed. 178 00:17:35,140 --> 00:17:36,070 So, for example, 179 00:17:36,070 --> 00:17:44,500 John Maynard dedicated his 12 wonders of the world to his ever honoured lady and mistress and tells her that the music in the volume had its prime, 180 00:17:44,500 --> 00:17:46,960 original and birth rights in your own house. 181 00:17:48,160 --> 00:17:54,700 In others, dedications seem to have been made in a more speculative manner, in the hope of encouragement for this or future publications, 182 00:17:54,970 --> 00:17:59,050 or perhaps of gaining employment, a practice that occurred frequently on the continent as well. 183 00:17:59,710 --> 00:18:05,260 What is significant is that in almost all cases these are collections of music by a single composer, 184 00:18:05,470 --> 00:18:11,230 and the dedicatory epistles are addressed to the dedicatees directly by the composers of the music within the volume. 185 00:18:11,680 --> 00:18:18,280 There are only about half a dozen anthologies produced in this period where dedications came instead from the publisher. 186 00:18:18,700 --> 00:18:23,200 So although composers had no particular legal privileges to print their own music, 187 00:18:23,200 --> 00:18:27,249 as we'll see in part three of this talk, in early 17th century England, 188 00:18:27,250 --> 00:18:33,970 they do seem to have been directly involved, both in the process of publishing their music and in promoting their printed books. 189 00:18:35,470 --> 00:18:40,270 In contrast, Playford was from the start, a genuinely commercial music publisher. 190 00:18:40,450 --> 00:18:47,890 In fact, he was among the first individuals within the field of music to initiate the shift from patronage-based to more strictly commercial activity, 191 00:18:48,070 --> 00:18:51,850 that's also been detected within literary circles from the mid 17th century. 192 00:18:52,480 --> 00:18:59,380 This fundamentally different approach can be seen in the complete lack of dedications to the nobility in Playford's anthologies, 193 00:18:59,590 --> 00:19:05,380 meaning that there is no hint of patronage. Rather than relying on these traditional sources of support, 194 00:19:05,680 --> 00:19:10,480 he sought to publish music that would appeal to a broad enough market to make profits on its own. 195 00:19:11,170 --> 00:19:16,930 As the Donald Krummel writes, he was a man who understood the basic problem of music publishing in his day. 196 00:19:17,350 --> 00:19:23,410 His major task was one not of printing music, but of finding purchasers who would buy the music that he printed. 197 00:19:24,040 --> 00:19:28,630 And that's the end of part one. In part two, we'll see if we can find out a bit more about who those purchasers were. 198 00:19:30,460 --> 00:19:35,080 Thank you, Rebecca. So we've got time for some questions now if people want to put them in the Q&A box. 199 00:19:35,740 --> 00:19:40,149 And I've got one to kick us off, which is that you said that Playford was, from the start, 200 00:19:40,150 --> 00:19:44,980 a genuinely commercial music publisher, but I wonder just how successful commercially he was? 201 00:19:45,890 --> 00:19:55,460 Well, we know that by the time he died, he was actually rather struggling because there was a note in his will that says that his estate, 202 00:19:55,700 --> 00:20:01,600 he fears, is going to come short of the expectations of many of my friends and acquaintance, acquaintances. 203 00:20:01,640 --> 00:20:05,780 So he obviously died in some financial embarrassment. 204 00:20:05,810 --> 00:20:11,150 He mentions this having happened since the death of his, his wife, which had happened six or seven years, years earlier. 205 00:20:11,150 --> 00:20:19,930 But. But he clearly was struggling. And his son, Henry, struggled so much that by the early 18th century, he actually gave up music publishing. 206 00:20:19,940 --> 00:20:26,270 First of all, he diversified and started to produce engravings and artistic impressions. 207 00:20:26,540 --> 00:20:32,329 But then he sort of moved away from music publishing altogether, partly because there was a lot more competition by by this point. 208 00:20:32,330 --> 00:20:37,070 But it was certainly something that was that was not an easy, easy business to work in at the time. 209 00:20:38,300 --> 00:20:43,010 Thank you. So there's a couple of questions in the chat now as well in the Q&A box. 210 00:20:43,610 --> 00:20:47,360 Firstly, from Patrick, he asked what's the source of musical type? 211 00:20:47,360 --> 00:20:51,020 Who cut the typefaces? Do you know the answer to that? No, we don't know that. 212 00:20:51,050 --> 00:20:56,360 What we do know is that there was a sort of inheritance track really for and for the type. 213 00:20:56,370 --> 00:21:04,670 So sometimes new music publishers bought a type that had been - we know had been - used by previous publishers. 214 00:21:05,180 --> 00:21:13,639 So Thomas East's type was, was was bought up and used used by subsequent printers in the mid-17th century. 215 00:21:13,640 --> 00:21:22,430 And we know this because some people have done some really detailed work and they can see how the type it decays and deteriorates. 216 00:21:22,430 --> 00:21:30,139 And so there were certain kind of faults in the type that you can trace from one publication to another, if you're, if you're that way inclined. 217 00:21:30,140 --> 00:21:35,150 So we know it was passed on, but we don't know much about who was who was making it, as far as I know, 218 00:21:35,150 --> 00:21:38,510 anyway. Thank you. Umm, staying, 219 00:21:38,510 --> 00:21:42,319 Staying with the commercial aspects, Rodri asks: 220 00:21:42,320 --> 00:21:45,800 Playford dedicates The Dancing Master to the gentleman of the Inns of court. 221 00:21:46,070 --> 00:21:50,570 Was he seeking a paying public there? I think not. 222 00:21:50,600 --> 00:21:53,450 I'm going to come on to that in the in the next in the next section. 223 00:21:53,450 --> 00:21:59,509 I think he was seeking people to buy the book rather than a dedicatory sort of donation. 224 00:21:59,510 --> 00:22:02,810 I think he was saying that if you're that sort of a person, this book's for you. 225 00:22:04,350 --> 00:22:08,890 I think we've got time. Let's do one more now and then we'll perhaps save the others for after the section two. 226 00:22:09,330 --> 00:22:15,400 Felicity asks: How popular was the lyra viol? At the time, really quite popular. 227 00:22:15,940 --> 00:22:23,170 And I mean, violls generally were remained popular actually for quite a lot longer than than people, 228 00:22:23,860 --> 00:22:32,790 People imagine. They were slightly easier to play than the new Baroque cello or bass violin as it was originally used, because of the frets. 229 00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:37,360 So if you were so, you could play the lyra viol while using tablature, 230 00:22:37,930 --> 00:22:41,110 which is slightly easier for the novice because it tells you where to put your fingers. 231 00:22:41,110 --> 00:22:44,170 And so you don't have to work out things like fingering for yourself. 232 00:22:44,500 --> 00:22:48,040 So the lyra viol was was really popular in this period. 233 00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:54,880 There's quite a lot of anthologies published for it, in the mid- and going into the sort of 1660s and seventies. 234 00:22:55,540 --> 00:23:00,129 Wonderful. Thank you. I'm aware we've got a few more queued up, but we'll save them till after section two. 235 00:23:00,130 --> 00:23:06,850 And just to reassure anyone who we don't get to today, that we will send the questions unanswered onto Rebecca. 236 00:23:07,120 --> 00:23:13,910 Who can send a few lines by email to let everybody know what the answers were, so do keep them coming in and I'll return after section two. 237 00:23:13,930 --> 00:23:23,110 Thank you Rebecca. Thank you. So in this section, we're going to examine a little bit about what we can tell about who Playford's customers were. 238 00:23:23,890 --> 00:23:29,110 Now, I mentioned before that the most immediately recognisable characteristic of Playford's music publications 239 00:23:29,380 --> 00:23:35,380 is the fact that he concentrated almost entirely on producing anthologies of music in single genres, 240 00:23:35,590 --> 00:23:42,880 including collections of instrumental dances in parts, single instrument collections, part songs and catches as we saw on the table before. 241 00:23:43,990 --> 00:23:44,920 More than anything, 242 00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:52,420 this shift away from the composer to genre led collections indicates how Playford sought to cater for the interests of his purchasers, 243 00:23:52,690 --> 00:23:56,469 who primarily wanted to have music that was accessible for them to play on the instrument 244 00:23:56,470 --> 00:24:00,520 or instruments available to them at home or in social spaces like the tavern. 245 00:24:00,940 --> 00:24:05,740 So we can see that in the table here you've basically got single genre collections 246 00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:11,350 that can be used in the domestic environment or in semi social environments like the pub. 247 00:24:13,230 --> 00:24:17,640 So they weren't particularly interested in playing music by a specific composer. 248 00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:22,290 And the title pages of the collections clearly demonstrate this new emphasis. 249 00:24:22,710 --> 00:24:27,000 So just to return to the question about a lyra viol, we've got Musicks Recreation of the lyra viol, 250 00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:32,550 first published in 1652, and it's typical in that no mention is made of composers at all. 251 00:24:32,820 --> 00:24:40,110 So the title instead stresses that the lessons are new and excellent as well as easy and delightful for all young practitioners. 252 00:24:40,890 --> 00:24:44,370 In other anthologies, composers are mentioned either generically or by name, 253 00:24:44,370 --> 00:24:48,810 but their presence on the title page is just one of a number of potential selling points 254 00:24:49,110 --> 00:24:53,760 appearing after the largest type that advertises the genre and the novelty of the collection. 255 00:24:54,030 --> 00:24:58,230 So, for example, the title page for 'Choice songs and ayres' of 1673, 256 00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:04,230 highlights the fact that these are songs for one voice with instrumental accompaniment, then in smaller type, 257 00:25:04,410 --> 00:25:09,150 Playford advertises them as most of the newest songs sung at court and the public theatres. 258 00:25:09,630 --> 00:25:14,010 And only then he notes that they are composed by several gentlemen of His Majesty's music, 259 00:25:14,010 --> 00:25:16,830 which is clearly intended to lend authority to the collection. 260 00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:24,390 So with this basic structure in place Playford adopted a range of strategies to encourage and nurture his target customers. 261 00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:33,450 First, he clearly had a keen eye for musical fashion and adjusted his collections to reflect changing tastes in both instrumentation and repertory. 262 00:25:33,900 --> 00:25:37,230 As the section on single instrument anthologies in the table indicated. 263 00:25:37,260 --> 00:25:42,810 So in the early 1650s, he wrote he published anthologies for cittern and gittern and lyra viol. 264 00:25:43,110 --> 00:25:46,980 But then they were replaced by books like 'Apollo's Banquet for the Violin'. 265 00:25:47,460 --> 00:25:53,790 Its successive editions between 1669 and 1701, demonstrating the instrument's sustained popularity. 266 00:25:54,900 --> 00:26:03,000 Secondly, he produced multiple editions of most of his anthologies, which allowed him constantly to update their contents to incorporate 267 00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:11,070 The most recent repertory, assisted as we will see in part three of the talk, by his close connections to many of London's leading professional musicians. 268 00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:16,470 He was forthright in advertising the new content on the title pages of new volumes. 269 00:26:16,770 --> 00:26:21,710 So successive editions of the Dancing Master can show this, as an illustrative example here. 270 00:26:21,990 --> 00:26:25,890 So here is the title page for the first edition is the English Dancing Master, 271 00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:32,880 which describes the collection as plain and easy rules for the dancing of country dances with the tune to each dance. 272 00:26:33,120 --> 00:26:35,130 So that's how he started in 1651. 273 00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:44,870 The second edition of 1652 changes the title to the Dancing Master, but it keeps the original description of the plain and easy rules, 274 00:26:44,870 --> 00:26:51,169 but it adds to it to be played on the treble violin and then tells us that it's the second edition, 275 00:26:51,170 --> 00:26:57,410 which is an improvement on the first edition because it is enlarged and corrected for many gross errors, 276 00:26:57,650 --> 00:27:00,709 which were in the former edition, don't quite know why 277 00:27:00,710 --> 00:27:05,510 Playford wanted to draw attention to the errors and to make it sound like he wasn't a very good publisher. 278 00:27:05,510 --> 00:27:11,870 But of course, what it does do is it makes you feel that you need to buy the replacement edition to get everything right. 279 00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:19,130 The next edition, which was unnumbered from 1665, has a further set of additions announced on the title page, 280 00:27:19,430 --> 00:27:25,160 the tunes of the most usual French dances and also other new and pleasant English tunes for the treble violin. 281 00:27:26,060 --> 00:27:32,240 And then the fourth edition of 1670 is again sold on the basis of its corrections, emendations and novel editions, 282 00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:36,230 claiming they comprise many new dances never printed before. 283 00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:44,440 In adopting this strategy of constant updating of content which he employed pretty much ubiquitously across his entire range of music books, 284 00:27:44,770 --> 00:27:49,300 Playford sought to encourage his customers to buy successive editions of the same anthology, 285 00:27:49,540 --> 00:27:52,840 which he clearly needed to do because his customer base remained very small. 286 00:27:53,410 --> 00:27:55,149 To be fair, he was as good as his word, 287 00:27:55,150 --> 00:28:00,760 and most of his multi-volume series do incorporate substantial alterations and new content with each new volume. 288 00:28:02,060 --> 00:28:06,410 Now Playford's third marketing strategy was to try to expand the potential market for his 289 00:28:06,410 --> 00:28:11,240 music books by including brief guides to notation or tablature in the opening pages. 290 00:28:11,750 --> 00:28:17,900 Usually these included an explanation of the notation used, either staff notation or more simply a form of tablature, 291 00:28:18,110 --> 00:28:20,810 telling the player where to place his or her fingers physically. 292 00:28:21,470 --> 00:28:28,100 Plus basic technical advice, such as how to tune the instruments and information on interpreting ornamentation signs. 293 00:28:28,580 --> 00:28:32,090 So one example can be seen in 'Musicks recreation on the lyra viol', 294 00:28:32,090 --> 00:28:38,060 where the title page advertises its inclusion of some few playing directions as a guide for beginners. 295 00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:43,790 In this case, they comprise just four pages in which Playford first explains the tablature notation. 296 00:28:43,790 --> 00:28:49,760 So that's where you can see the little table at the bottom, which shows you what the tablature means. 297 00:28:50,180 --> 00:28:54,010 And then he explains Note values and notation of metre within the volume. 298 00:28:54,020 --> 00:28:56,749 But he doesn't go any further than this. Now, 299 00:28:56,750 --> 00:29:01,579 these materials can scarcely have been sufficient for customers to access the music in the books if they had 300 00:29:01,580 --> 00:29:07,280 had no prior instruction in either musical theory or the techniques of playing the instruments in question. 301 00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:11,690 But they did allow Playford to market them as being suitable for complete novices. 302 00:29:12,170 --> 00:29:19,160 There was a corresponding shift in the musical content of his books away from repertory that required a relatively high level of skill, 303 00:29:19,370 --> 00:29:24,140 which was characteristic of early 17th century printed music, towards much simpler material. 304 00:29:25,790 --> 00:29:28,169 For those who sought more than the most basic instructions, 305 00:29:28,170 --> 00:29:34,290 Playford expanded on the last section of the 'Musicall Banquet' by creating his famous 'Introduction to the Skill of Musick'. 306 00:29:34,710 --> 00:29:42,570 This is another excellent example of his multi edition marketing. In its original 1654 incarnation, which we can see the title page of here. 307 00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:51,240 It was called a 'Brief Introduction to the Skill of Musick', and it was a modest compendium comprising just 34 pages in three sections. 308 00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:56,520 So there was a set of rudimentary instructions for understanding musical notation, a bit like the ones you just saw for the lyra viol. 309 00:29:56,940 --> 00:30:02,070 Then there was a reproduction of the Preface of Thomas Campion's 'New Way of making four parts in Counterpoint'. 310 00:30:02,310 --> 00:30:07,020 Originally written in the 1610s is a manual to teach intervals and harmonic rules. 311 00:30:07,470 --> 00:30:09,780 And then there was a set of directions for playing the bass 312 00:30:09,780 --> 00:30:15,719 viol, primarily consisting of instructions for tuning the instrument and for finding the notes according to its frets, 313 00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:23,330 because it's tablature notation again. Now, the 1655 edition was already significantly expanded in relation to the first, 314 00:30:23,330 --> 00:30:27,530 and it established a common core of content based around these three elements. 315 00:30:27,530 --> 00:30:30,890 So there are rudimentary instructions for understanding musical notation, 316 00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:35,150 the direction supplying the bass viol with similar instructions added for the treble violin, 317 00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:42,110 and now the whole of Thomas Campion's 'Art of Setting or Composing Music in Parts' with annotations by Christopher Simpson. 318 00:30:42,410 --> 00:30:50,690 And, covered it covered the principles of consonance, dissonance, progressions and part writing, plus imitative counterpoint to some later editions. 319 00:30:51,410 --> 00:30:54,139 Playford also began to include selections of printed music, 320 00:30:54,140 --> 00:30:59,450 including two part songs, harmonised psalm settings and tunes for the bass viol and for treble violin. 321 00:30:59,870 --> 00:31:06,370 Some editions also incorporated additional borrowings, such as a translation of the Preface from Caccini's 'Le nuove muschie', 322 00:31:06,620 --> 00:31:11,719 which was included between 1664 and 1694 but not identified as a translation. 323 00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:20,240 And so it's a bit confusing. With each new edition of the Introduction, Playford incorporated changes to content, some small others more substantial, 324 00:31:20,420 --> 00:31:26,600 making the introduction of valuable record of developments in theoretical understanding of music in England in the 17th century, 325 00:31:26,900 --> 00:31:33,770 and of its compositional practices. Playford's strategies for nurturing and encouraging potential customers for his music 326 00:31:33,770 --> 00:31:38,420 editions give us a strong indication of who he felt these customers were demographically, 327 00:31:38,690 --> 00:31:46,190 and the title pages and prefatory material emphasise the types of potential purchaser he was seeking to attract. Across all his books, 328 00:31:46,190 --> 00:31:52,520 He makes consistent reference to young beginners and to those for whom access to a tutor might prove difficult, 329 00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:56,420 particularly people living in the countryside away from major conurbations. 330 00:31:56,930 --> 00:32:02,419 So, for example, if we would turn to the preface of 'Musicks recreation of the lyra viol, 331 00:32:02,420 --> 00:32:07,069 we can see that Playford tells us that he's printed the book for the benefit and 332 00:32:07,070 --> 00:32:12,080 encouragement of young learners and also to add a few brief and necessary directions, 333 00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:17,060 especially for young beginners who live in the country and far from any master or teacher. 334 00:32:18,300 --> 00:32:24,300 But his books also reflect the gender and class association of particular genres of music and instruments. 335 00:32:24,750 --> 00:32:32,850 So, for example, and this is where the question we just had comes in, we've got the preface to the Ingenious Reader of the English Dancing Master, 336 00:32:33,060 --> 00:32:39,810 which identifies the art of dancing as a quality that has been formally honoured in the courts of princes. 337 00:32:40,170 --> 00:32:45,360 But of course, in the Commonwealth, Playford couldn't relate it to courtly pursuits in England, 338 00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:48,959 so he instead targeted the gentlemen of the Inns of Court, 339 00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:54,990 whose sweet and airy activity has crowned their grand solemnity with admiration to all spectators. 340 00:32:55,500 --> 00:33:00,420 He endorses the art of dancing as a commendable and rare quality fit for young gentlemen, 341 00:33:00,750 --> 00:33:04,860 which is said to be excellent for recreation after more serious studies, 342 00:33:05,100 --> 00:33:11,130 making the body active and strong and graceful in deportment and a quality very much beseeming a gentleman. 343 00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:17,790 So he's clearly targeting this at the young students of law in the Inns of Court. 344 00:33:18,690 --> 00:33:23,759 His 1666 publication 'Musick's Delight on the Cithern' and was also aimed at young men, 345 00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:30,060 as is implied by the engraving next to the title, which shows a seated young man playing the instrument. 346 00:33:30,630 --> 00:33:37,800 In his preface, it explains that he simplified the lessons so as to be useful for the practice of young beginners. 347 00:33:38,370 --> 00:33:44,760 And he's provided mostly new tunes set after the manner of the guitar way of playing the guitar was a trendy new instrument at the time, 348 00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:49,350 which I hope will render it the more acceptable among our young gallants. 349 00:33:52,430 --> 00:34:00,890 So in contrast, the image Playford used to accompany successive editions of 'Musicks Hand-maid', which is a collection of lessons for the virginals 350 00:34:00,900 --> 00:34:07,459 or harpsichord showed a young woman at the keyboard, in this case playing with a male violinist and female singer, 351 00:34:07,460 --> 00:34:11,030 which may have been intended to demonstrate the versatility of the collection. 352 00:34:11,300 --> 00:34:18,080 Because in the preface, he notes that the pieces are so composed that the treble violin may play the tunes along with the virginals, 353 00:34:18,260 --> 00:34:20,240 which will be a pleasant consort. 354 00:34:21,110 --> 00:34:27,740 The association between young women and keyboard playing had a long had a long standing history dating back into the Elizabethan period. 355 00:34:28,100 --> 00:34:36,260 And Playford alludes to this in his preface, referring to the virginals as an instrument of much delight and variety of harmony, 356 00:34:36,470 --> 00:34:41,240 which excellency has made it the delight of many young ladies and gentle women. 357 00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:48,620 So as Stephanie Carter summarises in her 2016 study of the market for printed music in Restoration England, 358 00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:56,570 Playford appears to have relied upon professional men, gentlemen students and ladies as the clientele for the majority of his musical output. 359 00:34:57,350 --> 00:35:01,490 Although she notes that some specific publications had a different target market, 360 00:35:01,670 --> 00:35:06,440 particularly the two collections of harmonised Psalms, the 1671 four part volumes, psalms and hymns 361 00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:10,670 And solemn music and the whole book of Psalms in three parts of 1677, 362 00:35:10,970 --> 00:35:17,720 both of which were intended to encourage improvements in the singing of hymns in church services, rather misguidedly actually, as it turned out. 363 00:35:18,510 --> 00:35:23,780 Now, Carter's research has established that Playford's market extended well beyond his London base. 364 00:35:24,260 --> 00:35:31,280 A set of sales catalogues printed by the Newcastle bookseller William London in 1657, 1658 and 1660, 365 00:35:31,490 --> 00:35:38,960 includes among its 3700 titles some 19 music books of which ten were published or marketed by John Playford. 366 00:35:39,530 --> 00:35:44,929 There's no reason to think either that this practice was not duplicated in other major towns and cities across England, 367 00:35:44,930 --> 00:35:52,790 where booksellers had well-established trade routes to London. Owners occasionally provide a few clues of likely provincial purchases themselves. 368 00:35:53,150 --> 00:35:58,580 In fact, a copy of the 1673 musical companion held at the Royal College of Music Library today, 369 00:35:58,580 --> 00:36:05,000 for example, includes the annotation "John Day, his book, Living in Lechlade, Gloucestershire", for example. 370 00:36:06,530 --> 00:36:12,620 It was, however, surprisingly rare in this period for owners to annotate books with marks of their ownership, such as this one. 371 00:36:12,870 --> 00:36:18,500 And even when names are included, it's often impossible to uncover useful information about the named individuals. 372 00:36:18,980 --> 00:36:22,490 Most of what we know about ownership of music books in Restoration England, in fact, 373 00:36:22,490 --> 00:36:27,500 comes from the libraries of notable collectors of music in the period who were clearly exceptions. 374 00:36:28,250 --> 00:36:34,220 Many were either professional musicians themselves, such as Edward Lowe and Richard Goodson, both Oxford professors of music, 375 00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:38,750 or of the people with strong connections to professional music making, such as Henry Aldrich, 376 00:36:38,750 --> 00:36:41,959 Dean of Christchurch, Oxford and the Right Honourable Roger North, 377 00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:48,590 who consulted closely with professional musicians in Restoration and early 18th century London, which we know from his wonderful writings. 378 00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:57,049 Beyond these exceptions, little is known about individual customers. Carter's survey of some 275 surviving copies of printed 379 00:36:57,050 --> 00:37:04,040 music books produced between 1650 and 1700 revealed that just 62 contained any kind of annotations. 380 00:37:04,220 --> 00:37:06,709 And most of these are anonymous corrections, in fact, 381 00:37:06,710 --> 00:37:13,310 often carried out before sale at the instigation of the publisher, they used to make corrections to books 382 00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:21,229 following the printing process, umm, quite frequently. There are, though, some tantalising examples where owners did insert their names, 383 00:37:21,230 --> 00:37:24,110 the problem being that it's usually impossible to trace those people. 384 00:37:24,860 --> 00:37:29,599 So the Harvard University Library copy of Playford's 1677 'Whole Book of Psalms', for example, 385 00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:37,010 contains on one of its front fly leaves a signature the date the 20th of May 1692, and a number of pen trials. 386 00:37:37,550 --> 00:37:44,490 It's difficult to make out the initial of the surname, but the owner appears to be one James Varnell though, or possibly James Vernell. 387 00:37:44,810 --> 00:37:49,340 Because a few pages further on in the prefatory pages, a further annotation was added. 388 00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:56,930 "Henery Vernell cruell" and "Henery" is also written, you can't really see it very well, but above its written in much larger writing. 389 00:37:58,530 --> 00:38:01,979 I've been unable to trace the Vernells, but the two annotations together, 390 00:38:01,980 --> 00:38:06,630 particularly the inclusion of the word "cruell" and the implication that this is a juvenile hand, 391 00:38:06,900 --> 00:38:11,520 suggest to me that James and Henry may have been young siblings in 1692. 392 00:38:11,790 --> 00:38:14,220 There was not proved sufficient to locate them. 393 00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:22,580 There are no more than about 20 names inserted within the 62 annotated copies of Restoration music books identified by Carter. 394 00:38:22,850 --> 00:38:29,180 And from the dates given, it's clear that a good number of these were 18th century owners of books previously owned by someone else. 395 00:38:29,630 --> 00:38:35,910 Most will never be identified, including the John Falconer, I think, whose name appears, 396 00:38:35,930 --> 00:38:41,540 I think it's been a 19th century- and it certainly wasn't a 17th century one in the inner margin 397 00:38:41,540 --> 00:38:46,460 or page one of the 1690 edition of the Dancing Master in the British Library copy of the book. 398 00:38:47,330 --> 00:38:52,969 Neither are we likely to find out who the John Speer, who owned a copy of the 1678 edition of 'The Peasant Companion', 399 00:38:52,970 --> 00:38:59,240 was, or the unhelpfully named John Smith, who added his name to his copy of the 1663 edition of 'Catch 400 00:38:59,240 --> 00:39:00,140 That Catch Can'. 401 00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:09,900 By far the most vivid picture of the use of Playford's publications by a specific individual is provided, of course, by the case of Samuel Pepys. 402 00:39:10,350 --> 00:39:16,829 He can hardly be regarded as representative of Playford's customers, and it's clear that he moved both within Playford's own milieu and that of 403 00:39:16,830 --> 00:39:20,400 the professional musicians with whom the publisher was closely acquainted. 404 00:39:21,210 --> 00:39:25,350 But his diary and library provide us with a snapshot of Playford's business workings. 405 00:39:25,860 --> 00:39:31,110 Carter notes a distinction between the music books recorded in the library and those mentioned in the diaries, 406 00:39:31,230 --> 00:39:36,180 which she suggests may partly be explained by the fact that the diary runs only in the 1660s, 407 00:39:36,180 --> 00:39:42,930 whereas the library was accumulated over Pepys's whole life. The latest music books dating from 1699 when he died in 1703. 408 00:39:43,710 --> 00:39:47,550 But the nature of the music publications within the library also suggests that people 409 00:39:47,550 --> 00:39:52,530 regarded them more as collectors' pieces than books to use in practical music making. 410 00:39:52,890 --> 00:40:00,270 They include, for example, Louis Grabu's lavishly self-published full score for his opera 'Albion and Albinus' from 1687 and 411 00:40:00,270 --> 00:40:05,100 several other single composer collections such as Purcell's 'Sonatas of three parts' of 1683. 412 00:40:05,700 --> 00:40:11,639 Whereas the books mentioned in the diary are predominantly anthologies of songs such as 'Catch that catch can' and 'Select Ayres and 413 00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:17,940 dialogues' and books of instrumental music for beginners such as 'Musicks Hand-maid' and probably 'Musicks recreation on the lyra viol'. 414 00:40:18,540 --> 00:40:25,560 These are, of course, the books that we've seen were the core of Playford's output and seems to have been an ideal target customer. 415 00:40:26,670 --> 00:40:30,180 Beyond the actual copies of Playford's music books Pepys owned and used, 416 00:40:30,180 --> 00:40:34,259 there are entries in his diary that provide fleeting glimpses of the day to day 417 00:40:34,260 --> 00:40:38,430 interactions that must have taken place between Playford and his London customers. 418 00:40:39,090 --> 00:40:42,660 Some of them record purchases of books that we find later in his library. 419 00:40:42,900 --> 00:40:49,950 So for example, on the 13th April 1660 Peeps tells us that on the way to visit his father, he "went to Playford's; 420 00:40:50,130 --> 00:40:53,940 And for two books that I had on six shillings and sixpence to boot, 421 00:40:54,180 --> 00:40:58,740 I had my great book of songs, which he sells always for 14 shillings." 422 00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:02,520 We don't know for sure which book was the "great book of songs", 423 00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:09,300 but Robert Latham speculates that it may have been Playford's 'Select Ayres and dialogues' of which two volumes are recorded in Pepys's library. 424 00:41:10,170 --> 00:41:14,850 The entry also highlights the healthy exchange market that was clearly in operation at Playford's Shop, 425 00:41:15,090 --> 00:41:19,110 indicating that he bought second-hand music books as well as sending his own new products. 426 00:41:20,570 --> 00:41:28,010 Pepya's acquisition is a copy of Richard Dering's 'Cantica Sacra', found in his library, is also recorded on the 22nd of November 1662, 427 00:41:28,010 --> 00:41:32,089 when he writes that he went to Playford's and "bought the book of country dances", 428 00:41:32,090 --> 00:41:35,900 so presumably 'The Dancing Master' itself and "there meeting Mr Playford, 429 00:41:35,930 --> 00:41:39,920 He did give me his Latin Songs of Mr Deerings, which he lately printed". 430 00:41:40,820 --> 00:41:45,860 So the fact that Playford did give him the book suggests that the copy was a presentation from Playford, 431 00:41:45,860 --> 00:41:51,500 presumably indicating that Pepys was a valued and esteemed customer who presumably spent quite a lot of money in the shop. 432 00:41:52,370 --> 00:41:57,379 That Playford, What that sorry, that Pepys, was a repeat customer to whom Playford could sell new editions of his 433 00:41:57,380 --> 00:42:02,840 regular publications is also suggested by the entry for the 23rd of November 1666, 434 00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:08,209 when Pepys writes that he "called at Playford's and there find that his new impression of his Ketches 435 00:42:08,210 --> 00:42:14,390 (i.e. Catch that catch can) are not yet out the fire (i.e the Great fire of London) having hindered it. 436 00:42:14,870 --> 00:42:19,099 But his man tells me that it will be a very fine piece, many new things being added 437 00:42:19,100 --> 00:42:24,680 to it" and Pepys eventually bought the new edition on the 15th of April 1667. 438 00:42:25,460 --> 00:42:29,450 So that's the end of the second part where we've been looking at who bought Playford's books. 439 00:42:29,450 --> 00:42:34,759 And we're going to look in the third part shortly at how he got hold of the music that 440 00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:39,530 he printed and what that tells us about his interaction with professional musicians. 441 00:42:39,740 --> 00:42:43,610 But there's time for a few questions now, I think. Thank you. 442 00:42:44,120 --> 00:42:47,599 So I've been busily looking at the question box while we've been going. 443 00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:51,980 And of course, inevitably some of the questions refer back to what we were talking about at the end of Section one. 444 00:42:52,490 --> 00:42:56,450 So I grouped them cunningly for you into two main questions. 445 00:42:57,290 --> 00:43:02,960 So I'm going to throw two at you at once. But they're related, if that's okay, about instruments, about instrumentation. 446 00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:08,600 So firstly, you mentioned that he was a professional musician, do you know what he played and what training he had? 447 00:43:08,810 --> 00:43:12,050 And secondly, did he sell instruments alongside the music? 448 00:43:12,830 --> 00:43:16,970 So the first question, first answer is that he was a singer. 449 00:43:17,660 --> 00:43:19,129 He may have played instruments as well. 450 00:43:19,130 --> 00:43:28,610 We don't actually know exactly where he was, how he was trained, but he seems to have been it was probably a cathedral choristers training, 451 00:43:28,610 --> 00:43:33,080 which was basically the main apprenticeship that you had in East Anglia in his case. 452 00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:38,480 And in terms of selling instruments, I don't think we have records that he did, 453 00:43:39,410 --> 00:43:44,840 which is not say that he didn't, but but he wasn't primarily known for that, as far as I remember. 454 00:43:45,930 --> 00:43:46,700 Lovely. Thank you. 455 00:43:46,710 --> 00:43:54,240 And then the second group, I think this will lead you nicely into Section three and give us time at the end for a couple more questions. 456 00:43:55,650 --> 00:43:59,370 Someone has asked, particularly about Purcell: Were they friends? Which I believe they were, 457 00:43:59,370 --> 00:44:04,349 But perhaps you have more detail on that? You're coming on to sources, 458 00:44:04,350 --> 00:44:09,810 but I'm under the impression that Purcell may have written some of the tunes in The Dancing Master and they're kind of anonymous, 459 00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:14,219 and I wonder if you have any comments on that, and if I may combine an extra bit, 460 00:44:14,220 --> 00:44:18,660 Did he have a team working for him or was he a sole agent? 461 00:44:19,470 --> 00:44:22,830 Okay. So these these are quite tricky questions. Sorry! Playford certainly did know 462 00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:33,780 Purcell. And in fact, the clearest indication of of this is the fact that so one of Purcell's earliest publications was his 'Sonatas of three parts', 463 00:44:33,780 --> 00:44:41,610 which he published in 1683. So he'd only been a professional musician for sort of four or five years at that point. 464 00:44:41,790 --> 00:44:46,290 About five years. And it's an engraved publication. 465 00:44:46,290 --> 00:44:52,319 And that's the sort of technique that people often used, that composers often used. 466 00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:54,210 when they were self-publishing their music. 467 00:44:54,840 --> 00:45:02,040 But in this case, the interesting thing is that the engraver was clearly mimicking John Playford's own hand. 468 00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:10,080 So we've got quite a lot of, there are several manuscripts in Playford's hand that we'll we'll come across a couple in this next section. 469 00:45:10,830 --> 00:45:15,120 But Playford was involved in what's known as manuscript publication. 470 00:45:15,120 --> 00:45:16,199 So as well as printing books, 471 00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:25,410 he also produced to order manuscripts for the sort of music that didn't get, there wasn't, there wasn't a sufficient market for it to be printed. 472 00:45:26,250 --> 00:45:28,380 So we know what Playford's hand was was like. 473 00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:36,660 And, and these engraved sonatas clearly mimic that that hand although they don't appear to have been produced actually by him. 474 00:45:37,080 --> 00:45:42,240 So he clearly was directly involved in that publication by Purcell. 475 00:45:42,900 --> 00:45:46,620 So yes, we definitely know that they were acquainted. 476 00:45:47,250 --> 00:45:49,230 I've forgotten what the next what the next questions were. 477 00:45:49,260 --> 00:45:57,420 So so it was about I know you're coming on to the sources for his tunes, but someone has specifically asked whether he had a team working for him. 478 00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:06,990 Probably. He definitely, I mean, it was definitely the case that there were teams of people who would correct by hand. 479 00:46:06,990 --> 00:46:11,970 Manuscripts are sorry publications once they had actually been completed. 480 00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:21,510 The best example we have of that is actually slightly after John Playford's time and it's Purcell self-published opera, 481 00:46:21,930 --> 00:46:30,329 The Prophetess or The History of Dioclesian, which was on the stage in 1690, and was published in 1691, and there's a whole swathe of copies. 482 00:46:30,330 --> 00:46:35,010 In fact, I keep finding them that have got handwritten corrections in them. 483 00:46:35,190 --> 00:46:39,059 And there were three or four people. We don't, they're all anonymous, 484 00:46:39,060 --> 00:46:48,810 but but there are three or four different hands that clearly went through and did multiple corrections for multiple copies of these of these prints, 485 00:46:48,810 --> 00:46:52,680 which which had sort of seven or eight pages where you needed to do corrections 486 00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:56,309 and we can recognise the hands because luckily they wrote some text as well. 487 00:46:56,310 --> 00:47:02,010 So we know that there was a team working in that case and it seems very likely that in Playford's case he would 488 00:47:02,010 --> 00:47:09,760 also have had a team of people who were copying out manuscripts for him as a sort of scriptorium and, 489 00:47:10,190 --> 00:47:15,209 and we know that there were sort of rooms in the back rooms of printers' shops where they were. 490 00:47:15,210 --> 00:47:18,210 People would carry out that work. So, yes, probably. 491 00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:22,620 And obviously there were there were printers that he was working with as well. Brilliant. 492 00:47:22,620 --> 00:47:28,440 Thank you. And then the final one was about the sources for his tunes, which I think leads us nicely back into Section three. 493 00:47:29,310 --> 00:47:32,459 So I shall disappear and see you at the end, keep them coming. 494 00:47:32,460 --> 00:47:35,730 The Q&A box is nice and full. So thank you very much, I'll see you soon. Thank you. 495 00:47:35,910 --> 00:47:47,380 Okay. So alongside his acquaintance with Pepys, Playford's close association with professional and highly trained amateur musicians, 496 00:47:47,650 --> 00:47:52,990 is also indicated by his presentation of a number of his publications to those individuals. 497 00:47:53,470 --> 00:47:59,620 A British Library copy of his 1671 Psalms and Hymns, for example, contains a dedication in Playford its handwriting, 498 00:47:59,620 --> 00:48:03,879 indicating that it was humbly presented to the Right Honourable Francis North, 499 00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:10,270 a leading lawyer at the Inns of court, and at that point Solicitor General, and of course the brother of Roger North, although we met before. 500 00:48:10,850 --> 00:48:17,139 There's also a copy of the second book of the Pleasant Musical Companion that you can see on screen here from 1686 and its got 501 00:48:17,140 --> 00:48:23,770 another autograph annotation, this time identifying it as the gift of Mr. John Playford to John Jackson. 502 00:48:23,770 --> 00:48:29,470 And again, it's in Playford's hand. John Jackson was master of the courses at Wells Cathedral in this period, 503 00:48:30,340 --> 00:48:37,180 but the surviving material sources associate with Playford make it clear that he not only knew such figures through his business interactions, 504 00:48:37,390 --> 00:48:40,030 but that he also actively made music with them, 505 00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:45,040 in particular as a participant in several of the regular music meetings that grew up during the Commonwealth. 506 00:48:45,730 --> 00:48:52,240 Informal music making in small groups was a highly popular activity among musically educated people in 17th century England, 507 00:48:52,510 --> 00:48:57,910 leading to the development of an extensive repertory of instrumental concert pieces and part songs. 508 00:48:58,390 --> 00:49:02,890 Music in these genres was played frequently in private households such as the North family residence. 509 00:49:03,070 --> 00:49:07,120 When music making during the Commonwealth at the residence of his grandfather, 510 00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:11,740 Dudley, the Third Lord North, was vividly described by Roger North in his memoirs. 511 00:49:12,430 --> 00:49:18,610 But consorts also thrived among singing men, and other educated musicians leave, living in Cathedral closes, 512 00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:23,260 And university communities where professional and what we would term in modern terms, 513 00:49:23,470 --> 00:49:27,580 amateur musicians often played alongside one another for recreation. 514 00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:33,520 Both Pepys and North, for example, had direct experience of performing with London's leading musicians. 515 00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:38,920 Among several other anecdotes, Pepys recalled singing in a coffeehouse with the composer Matthew Locke and one of the 516 00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:44,319 elder Purcells and playing consort music with Pelham Humphrey and a "Mr. Caesar". North, 517 00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:49,540 meanwhile, reports playing an "Itallian manner'd" piece with his brother Francis and with Henry Pursell. 518 00:49:50,930 --> 00:49:56,780 Consorts were an important form of social interaction, mainly between male players and singers, 519 00:49:56,780 --> 00:50:01,520 a uniquely intimate form of music making which came into its own during the Commonwealth, 520 00:50:01,790 --> 00:50:06,859 when more public modes of performing became impossible. Alongside the socialisation 521 00:50:06,860 --> 00:50:10,220 involved in the actual act of meeting to play or sing music together, 522 00:50:10,460 --> 00:50:17,930 A more material kind of interaction developed between members of these musical groups as they exchanged and disseminated amongst one another 523 00:50:17,930 --> 00:50:20,840 The Consort Repertory they played and sung their meetings. 524 00:50:21,410 --> 00:50:25,640 Andrew Ashby showed in his study of the transmission of 17th century consort music, 525 00:50:25,820 --> 00:50:32,570 How manuscripts were loaned between aristocratic families so that material could be copied by the borrower into their own sources. 526 00:50:33,110 --> 00:50:36,950 Musicians who visited households also acted as couriers and copyists, 527 00:50:36,950 --> 00:50:44,030 bringing scores and part books with them for copying into local sources and sometimes taking material back with them on their return. 528 00:50:44,810 --> 00:50:48,740 Close relationships between manuscripts associated with particular households 529 00:50:48,740 --> 00:50:52,610 within several regions of England, including not only the pieces copied into them, 530 00:50:52,610 --> 00:51:00,290 but also the details of the notation itself bear witness to the sorts of transmission that took place through these kinds of scribal communities. 531 00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:05,899 The same sorts of patterns can also be discerned among manuscript sources associated with more formal 532 00:51:05,900 --> 00:51:10,940 and regular music meetings that are known to have taken place in various locations across England. 533 00:51:11,660 --> 00:51:18,200 One such group, which seems to have operated in London in the early 1650s, has been identified by Mary Chan. 534 00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:25,909 It centred on the composers John Hilton, he of the 'English Dancing Master', Henry Lawes, Charles Coleman, Nicholas Lanier and John Wilson. 535 00:51:25,910 --> 00:51:34,010 But John Playford was clearly also a key member. The shared repertory of three manuscripts containing songs predominantly by these composers, 536 00:51:34,010 --> 00:51:35,630 one of which is in Hilton's hand, 537 00:51:36,410 --> 00:51:43,100 testifies to this group's activities alongside a number of annotations that indicates that music was sometimes added to the books, 538 00:51:43,400 --> 00:51:50,900 even as the music meetings were taking place. Hilton's Autograph Manuscript British Library Additional Manuscript 11608, for example, 539 00:51:51,170 --> 00:51:58,880 includes a note that he added on Folio 63 Verso, telling us "the treble I took and put down as Mr Thorpe sung it". 540 00:51:59,420 --> 00:52:06,320 And he also wrote down a variant of a song later on, noting "The last close of the third verse is as Mr Ellison sung it". 541 00:52:06,980 --> 00:52:13,310 There are also clear signs of memorised transcription in the related manuscript, British Library Egerton 2013, 542 00:52:13,550 --> 00:52:18,500 including the use of shorthand notation of text and partial transcription of the continuo part, 543 00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:22,190 which again hints at oral transcription as the music was being sung. 544 00:52:23,390 --> 00:52:30,200 Chan adds colour to the image of collected music making by observing that the dramatic flavour of the songs and dialogues in the 545 00:52:30,200 --> 00:52:36,559 manuscripts and their subtle political references, imply that the material was being performed in front of an audience, 546 00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:39,290 indeed an audience with royalist sympathies. 547 00:52:40,310 --> 00:52:46,280 In addition to identifying the links between the three manuscripts directly associated with the composers within this musical group, 548 00:52:46,610 --> 00:52:54,080 Chan notes "The repertoire of the music group represented by the three related manuscripts is closely related to Playford's early publications". 549 00:52:54,320 --> 00:53:01,100 In particular, the catchess that formed part three of the Musicall Banquet, and there was subsequently developed into the dedicated catch book. 550 00:53:01,100 --> 00:53:03,140 Catch the Catch Can in 1652. 551 00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:12,170 The material here reproduces all but three of the captures in the last section of Hilton's manuscript Add. 11608 in versions almost identical to them. 552 00:53:12,590 --> 00:53:17,900 It's very likely that Hilton's manuscript was used as the source for the publication rather than it being the other way round. 553 00:53:18,170 --> 00:53:24,910 Because whether mistakes or dubious readings, it's Hilton's manuscript that has the correct one and Playford's publication that has the error. 554 00:53:25,670 --> 00:53:34,760 Music by composers from within the group also dominates Playford's early song collections, particularly 'Select Musicall Ayres and Dialogues' of 1653, 555 00:53:35,090 --> 00:53:40,670 where he highlighted the names of John Wilson, Henry Lawes, Charles Coleman and William Webb on the title page, 556 00:53:40,940 --> 00:53:44,570 and included songs found in all three of the manuscripts identified by Chan. 557 00:53:45,350 --> 00:53:49,400 These manuscripts were not the direct source for 'Select Musical Ayres' of 1653, however, 558 00:53:49,610 --> 00:53:54,650 because that seems to have been a manuscript copied by Playford himself in connection with Hilton's music meetings. 559 00:53:54,950 --> 00:54:02,780 The autograph now held in the Bibliotheque Nationale Paris MS Res 2489 again shows a good deal of its repertory with the three manuscripts, 560 00:54:02,990 --> 00:54:07,730 as well as including other songs which Playford subsequently published in his earliest songbooks. 561 00:54:08,030 --> 00:54:13,969 So there are 15 pieces in that manuscript, for example, with direct parallels to songs in 'Select Ayres and Dialogues'. 562 00:54:13,970 --> 00:54:23,500 The second book, published in 1669. Chan infers from these books- from these links between manuscript sources and Playford's early printed songs, 563 00:54:23,720 --> 00:54:31,370 that his decision to enter music publishing may actually have been a direct result of his participation in these public or semi-public music meetings. 564 00:54:31,970 --> 00:54:39,260 Although this hypothesis can't be proved, we do know that he continued to use his involvement in such music meetings as a source for his publications. 565 00:54:39,470 --> 00:54:43,490 Once his business was established because he described a later group to which he 566 00:54:43,490 --> 00:54:48,500 belonged as the source for his material for the 1667 edition of Catch That Catch Can, 567 00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:52,550 referring to it as the Late Music Society meeting. 568 00:54:52,910 --> 00:55:00,350 Sorry, the Late Music Society Meeting in the Old Jury London and dedicating the contents of the book to its participants. 569 00:55:04,770 --> 00:55:13,940 Described here as the 'Late Music Society', the club seems to have met between about 1659 and 1665, and Playford's description of the dedicatees' 570 00:55:13,980 --> 00:55:21,600 excellent musical performances when the when it only the contents of the musical companion was thrown before you in loose papers. 571 00:55:22,790 --> 00:55:27,650 And leaves us in no doubt that the book represents the repertory performed during meetings. 572 00:55:28,100 --> 00:55:34,310 Ian Spink deduced that the loose papers in question may actually have been another surviving set of manuscripts copied by Playford. 573 00:55:34,550 --> 00:55:37,970 The part books now held in the Euing Collection at Glasgow University, 574 00:55:38,300 --> 00:55:42,290 which include a list of members of the 'Old Jewry Musick Society' at the front 575 00:55:42,290 --> 00:55:45,859 of the continuo book, and probably reflect much of the repertory of the club, 576 00:55:45,860 --> 00:55:50,870 thus forming a parallel with the Paris songbook which I mentioned earlier who was associated with Hilton's music meetings. 577 00:55:52,350 --> 00:55:56,009 We know then that Playford harvested material for his printed music books from repertory, 578 00:55:56,010 --> 00:56:00,660 sung music meetings he attended in London that involved the chief musical professionals of the day. 579 00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:05,490 He didn't, however, seek to appropriate this music without acknowledging its originators. 580 00:56:05,790 --> 00:56:11,370 So what was the dedication of the 1667 'Catch That Catch Can' depicts a dedicatees as performers, as you can see here. 581 00:56:13,140 --> 00:56:15,800 Indeed, most of those listed were well known professional singers. 582 00:56:15,810 --> 00:56:22,920 The dedication to the 1652 'Select Musicall Ayres and Dialogues' is addressed instead to the works' composers and Playford 583 00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:27,240 is at pains to give them full credit as the authors of the music within the collection. 584 00:56:27,900 --> 00:56:31,260 So he writes: "For the preservation." 585 00:56:31,260 --> 00:56:36,450 This is beautiful language, by the way, "for the preservation and expression of this noble and heavenly science I have 586 00:56:36,450 --> 00:56:40,500 here collected of the beauteous flowers which grew in your fragrant gardens. 587 00:56:40,830 --> 00:56:48,810 These sweet Ayres for instrument and voice, hoping you will not conceive the spider's web to be the worst being woven out of her own bowels. 588 00:56:49,110 --> 00:56:52,980 Nor is the bees, honey, the worse though gathered of several flowers. 589 00:56:53,370 --> 00:56:55,439 The work is yours. You by whom 590 00:56:55,440 --> 00:57:03,300 Musick may think herself richly graced and beautified by your rare skill and knowledge in this science in which you are most richly blessed. 591 00:57:03,480 --> 00:57:07,590 And by you with this most excellent science preserved alive in this nation. 592 00:57:08,070 --> 00:57:13,920 Therefore, the praise belongs to you. This collection being the issue of some part of your excellent pains, 593 00:57:14,160 --> 00:57:19,410 it can then be no less than justice and my duty to present to your protection that which is your own. 594 00:57:19,890 --> 00:57:27,570 To you, I owe the tribute of my pains, acknowledging myself deeply engaged in the debt of service and respect for your willing condescension 595 00:57:27,780 --> 00:57:33,000 to the powerful persuasion of some friends for the publication of these few Ayres and dialogues. 596 00:57:33,270 --> 00:57:39,780 There is variety. It may be to please all." So Playford's reference to 'your willing condescension, 597 00:57:39,780 --> 00:57:44,220 to the powerful persuasion of some friends for the publication of these few ayres' 598 00:57:44,550 --> 00:57:48,930 strongly implies that the composers had given consent for their songs to be printed. 599 00:57:49,170 --> 00:57:52,860 But the effusive tone of the earlier section perhaps hints otherwise, 600 00:57:53,040 --> 00:57:59,339 and this especially this suspicion is confirmed by some rather barbed comments made by Henry Lawes, 601 00:57:59,340 --> 00:58:03,540 the one of the people to whom this dedication is addressed in the 'Preface to all Understanders 602 00:58:03,540 --> 00:58:08,130 and Lovers of Music' that he included in the first book of his single composer collection, 603 00:58:08,340 --> 00:58:15,270 'Ayres and Dialogues for One, Two and Three Voices', which was published by Playford a year after 'Select Musicall Ayres and Dialogues'. 604 00:58:15,270 --> 00:58:18,600 So in 1652. And here is what Lawes writes: 605 00:58:19,870 --> 00:58:25,300 "It is easy to say I have been much importuned by persons of quality to publish my compositions. 606 00:58:25,630 --> 00:58:29,980 But though I could plead it and without vain pretensions, yet now I shall wave it. 607 00:58:30,220 --> 00:58:33,430 Nor was I drawn to it by any little thoughts of private gain. 608 00:58:33,670 --> 00:58:38,140 The men of my relations, as the world now goes, are justly presumed not to overflow. 609 00:58:38,590 --> 00:58:42,879 And perhaps the matter will not reach that value, let the Stationer look to that. 610 00:58:42,880 --> 00:58:52,340 Who himself had undergone the charge and trouble of the whole impression, who, yet by his favour, had lately made bold to print in one book. 611 00:58:52,360 --> 00:58:57,910 Above 20 of my songs whereof I had no knowledge till his book was in the press. 612 00:58:58,300 --> 00:59:01,600 And it seems he found those so acceptable that he is ready for more. 613 00:59:02,200 --> 00:59:06,160 Therefore, now the question is not whether or not my composition shall be public, 614 00:59:06,400 --> 00:59:14,440 but whether they shall come forth from me or from some other hand, and which of the two is likeliest to afford the true correct copies. 615 00:59:14,530 --> 00:59:17,710 I leave others to judge. In this book I reprint 616 00:59:17,740 --> 00:59:20,620 None that were published in the former or ever in print before." 617 00:59:21,730 --> 00:59:26,290 So within the space of just a few lines, Lawes overturns the version of events implied by Playford. 618 00:59:26,500 --> 00:59:31,270 He clearly felt agrieved that his songs had been published without consultation, and questions 619 00:59:31,270 --> 00:59:36,280 the likely accuracy of music published under such circumstances without the authority of the composer. 620 00:59:36,820 --> 00:59:41,799 Notably, he makes a point of mentioning that in his later collection, the stationer, meaning Playford, that's 621 00:59:41,800 --> 00:59:46,600 What publishers were referred to as in the period, had undergone the charge and trouble of the whole impression. 622 00:59:46,600 --> 00:59:52,720 In other words, Playford was bearing the costs of publishing this single composer collection of Henry Lawes's songs. 623 00:59:53,080 --> 00:59:56,200 Now, as we saw in the earlier table, if you look at the bottom of the table, 624 00:59:56,410 --> 01:00:00,370 Playford's business was very much focussed on producing genre based anthologies, 625 01:00:00,370 --> 01:00:08,740 and he only rarely published single composer volumes of the nearly 100 music books that he produced between 1650 and his death in about 1686, 626 01:00:08,950 --> 01:00:12,000 Only eight were given over to the music of a single composer. 627 01:00:12,010 --> 01:00:17,640 So those are the ones shown at the bottom. And three of these were the books of Ayres and Dialogues by Henry Lawes. 628 01:00:18,190 --> 01:00:22,360 It may not be coincidental then that they were published immediately after Lawes had taken 629 01:00:22,360 --> 01:00:26,800 exception to Playford's appropriation of his songs for 'Select Musicall Ayres and Dialogues'. 630 01:00:27,100 --> 01:00:33,850 Is it possible that this is a kind of PR exercise undertaken by Playford to try to mend his professional relationship with Henry Lawes, 631 01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:42,040 who was one of the most important sources for his material? All three books include dedications to noble benefactors made by Lawes himself, 632 01:00:42,250 --> 01:00:46,150 which suggests that the books were published with support from traditional patronage, 633 01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:50,930 the process familiar to composers from earlier in the 17th century, as we saw. 634 01:00:51,400 --> 01:00:58,600 But it was nevertheless Playford who took the financial risk. Significantly, in the preface to the second book of the Treasury of Music, 635 01:00:58,600 --> 01:01:04,570 which was an anthology of Lawes's three books of ayres and dialogues published in 1669, seven years after Lawes's death, 636 01:01:05,020 --> 01:01:10,719 Playford states that the book "doth chiefly consist of Mr. Henry Lawes compositions being transcribed from his 637 01:01:10,720 --> 01:01:17,530 originals a short time before his death and with his free consent for me to publish them if occasion offered" it. 638 01:01:19,230 --> 01:01:24,540 Today, it's easy for us to sympathise with Lawes's objections to Playford's appropriation of his material. 639 01:01:24,900 --> 01:01:29,879 But in 1650s England, such complaints were, from a legal perspective, entirely unjustified. 640 01:01:29,880 --> 01:01:35,430 Since the concept of, sorry, the concept of intellectual property rights did not yet exist, 641 01:01:35,850 --> 01:01:40,140 which meant that composers technically had no special rights to the printing of their material. 642 01:01:40,530 --> 01:01:45,600 It was only in 1710 that the first genuine copyright law came into existence in Britain, 643 01:01:45,930 --> 01:01:50,190 and even then this law known as the "Act of Anne" which stated that the author of the 644 01:01:50,190 --> 01:01:54,329 book shall have the sole liberty of printing and reprinting such book for 14 years, 645 01:01:54,330 --> 01:02:03,480 and no longer was not generally understood to apply to music printing until there was a test case brought by J.C. Bach and C.F. Abel in 1774. 646 01:02:04,110 --> 01:02:07,469 In 17th century England, authority was given not to composers, 647 01:02:07,470 --> 01:02:12,330 but rather to the Company of Stationers, the principal guild for those involved in the book trade, 648 01:02:12,660 --> 01:02:20,280 whose members had the sole right to print music, apart from the actual songs in any language, with or without the composer's permission or knowledge. 649 01:02:20,700 --> 01:02:25,560 It was through his membership of this company that Playford was able to set up his music publishing business. 650 01:02:26,370 --> 01:02:32,460 So technically, Playford was able to publish any music that fell into his hands without any recourse or reference to the composer. 651 01:02:33,120 --> 01:02:38,850 In practice, as we have seen, he used his close connections to London professional musicians as a marketing tool, 652 01:02:39,090 --> 01:02:41,370 mainly to give his publications authority. 653 01:02:41,610 --> 01:02:49,290 Frequently stating that he had obtained materials direct from the composer. In his 1679 'Choice Ayres, Songs and Dialogues', 654 01:02:49,290 --> 01:02:55,950 For instance, he stated "most of the songs and ayres herein contained, I received exact copies from the hands of their authors", 655 01:02:56,340 --> 01:03:00,989 and he made similar comments in the preface to the fourth Book of 'Choice Ayres and Songs' in 1683, 656 01:03:00,990 --> 01:03:07,860 claiming that he had with 'no small pains and care printed the Songs as true as possible from the best copies". 657 01:03:08,790 --> 01:03:14,970 Now it's possible that Playford paid at least a small fee to composers for providing copies of their material, 658 01:03:15,210 --> 01:03:21,300 a practice that we know to have been the norm in the early 17th century, as we saw with Dowland in the second section. 659 01:03:21,870 --> 01:03:24,930 But there's no hard evidence to indicate that he did this. 660 01:03:25,290 --> 01:03:32,820 In any case, once the music was in the publisher's hands, composers apparently had nothing more to do with their pieces in these anthology volumes. 661 01:03:33,210 --> 01:03:39,420 Playford was free to alter, adapt and arrange any music he came across to fit the purposes for which he wished to print it. 662 01:03:40,470 --> 01:03:48,360 This flexibility and Playford's skill as an adaptor was hinted at by one of the singers of the 'Old Jewry Music Society', Charles Pigeon, 663 01:03:48,720 --> 01:03:55,379 in a commendatory verse to my ingenious friend Mr. John Playford, published in the front matter of Select Ayres and Dialogues, 664 01:03:55,380 --> 01:04:01,630 the second book in 1669, when he wrote: "Nor Let Vain Momus Carp and Cry. 665 01:04:01,650 --> 01:04:03,900 This work speaks thee a plagiary. 666 01:04:04,230 --> 01:04:12,960 For don't we know thy depth and skill in musick? Thou dost change or fill what pleaseth not, or where it wants and regulate the false discounts. 667 01:04:13,200 --> 01:04:18,000 Thou art as ready to translate as to transcribe thy book can say it." 668 01:04:19,530 --> 01:04:25,050 Playford clearly did have the skill and training to act as an editor and arranger of the music that he published. 669 01:04:25,350 --> 01:04:29,100 And this placed him in a strong position when it came to publishing his core products: 670 01:04:29,340 --> 01:04:33,060 Anthologies of popular music arranged for a variety of different media. 671 01:04:33,390 --> 01:04:41,430 Since he was able to rework the same materials for different forces of maximising the market for the repertory that he had available to him. 672 01:04:42,150 --> 01:04:45,990 One illustrative example noted by Stephanie Carter is William North's 673 01:04:45,990 --> 01:04:54,690 dialogue "Come my Daphne, Come Away", which Playford printed with an accompanying bass part in select musicals and dialogues in 1652. 674 01:04:54,960 --> 01:04:57,900 In common with the other dialogues in part two of this anthology, 675 01:04:58,200 --> 01:05:03,809 but it also appeared with only the two vocal parts in the 1667 and 1673 editions of 'Catch 676 01:05:03,810 --> 01:05:10,219 That Catch Can'. More substantial rearrangement and reworking can also be detected in variant versions of popular 677 01:05:10,220 --> 01:05:15,620 tunes that Playford published in anthologies for different instruments and instrumental combinations. 678 01:05:15,950 --> 01:05:23,810 So the tune 'The Glory of the West', for example, was one that was included by Hilton in the first edition of the English Dancing Master in 1651 679 01:05:24,110 --> 01:05:29,090 and that Playford also published in Tablature for lyra viol later that year in a Musicall Banquet. 680 01:05:29,990 --> 01:05:33,860 And then again for keyboard in Musick's Hand-maid in 1663. 681 01:05:34,980 --> 01:05:42,990 As Carter's parallel transcriptions that we can see here demonstrate the three versions differ substantially in their rhythmic profile. 682 01:05:43,350 --> 01:05:48,569 So the Dancing Master version comes across as a serious lyrical dance with even rhythms. 683 01:05:48,570 --> 01:05:53,399 And I'm just going to play a little bit of this in one of Jeremy Barlow's recordings, actually with the Broadside Band. 684 01:05:53,400 --> 01:05:57,810 So this is what the top version you can see on the screen, 685 01:05:58,050 --> 01:06:36,810 The one from the Dancing Master sounds like. [Music plays] So that's the Dancing Master version. 686 01:06:37,170 --> 01:06:43,170 The Musicall Banquet version, however, has a sort of swung dotted rhythm that gives the dance a much spikier character. 687 01:06:43,170 --> 01:06:48,840 And this is a recording by Paul Odette, Andrew Laurence King and David Douglas, which which reflects that. 688 01:06:54,810 --> 01:06:58,780 [Music plays] 689 01:06:59,560 --> 01:07:26,350 So the version at the bottom of the of the screen there, which is from Musick's Hand-maid from 1663 690 01:07:26,500 --> 01:07:31,360 also retained these dotted rhythms. So this is the keyboard version and here Playford 691 01:07:31,360 --> 01:07:36,190 provided an accompanying part for the left hand, taking the music in some quite unexpected harmonic directions. 692 01:07:36,200 --> 01:07:42,069 I'm afraid I don't have a recording of that one. So it's in the lives of examples like these that we could perhaps best understand the Dancing 693 01:07:42,070 --> 01:07:47,530 Master in the context of John Playford and music publishing in late 17th century England, 694 01:07:47,770 --> 01:07:53,620 its successive editions formed part of a varied and flexible portfolio of printed music through which Playford 695 01:07:53,620 --> 01:07:58,870 and his successors made available the most popular tunes and songs of the day for people to enjoy, 696 01:07:59,110 --> 01:08:00,549 whether it be in solitary keyboard 697 01:08:00,550 --> 01:08:06,459 playing in their private chambers; with family members and friends gathered around the fire to play lutes and viols 698 01:08:06,460 --> 01:08:12,670 after dinner on a cold winter's evening; with fellow gentlemen of the Cathedral choir meeting in the tavern after Evensong; 699 01:08:12,880 --> 01:08:15,970 at more formal music meetings in the upper chambers of the tavern, 700 01:08:15,970 --> 01:08:23,800 with audiences seated around them; or, of course, in communal country dancing encapsulated so vividly in the Dancing Master's instructions. 701 01:08:24,070 --> 01:08:28,790 Thank you. Thank you so much, Rebecca. 702 01:08:28,810 --> 01:08:33,070 We have, I hope, just a couple of minutes for a couple of last questions, 703 01:08:33,070 --> 01:08:41,930 because I'd really love to turn us back to, probably I would say half the 130 people we had earlier 704 01:08:41,950 --> 01:08:46,330 Half of them probably came to Playford first through the Dancing Master, the English Dancing Master, 705 01:08:46,960 --> 01:08:50,5 So I'd like to turn back if I may to dances and the Dancing Master itself. 706 01:08:52,000 --> 01:08:56,110 So I have again, three questions on the same theme, so I'll give you them one at a time. 707 01:08:56,950 --> 01:09:03,680 The first, I hope, is an easy one, which is simply, Was there much overlap between songs and dances? Was this 708 01:09:03,700 --> 01:09:09,700 Was this material recycled in different ways and was it played by consorts with songs played by instrumental groups? 709 01:09:09,880 --> 01:09:13,930 Yes, it really was those. There was an awful lot of recycling going on. 710 01:09:13,930 --> 01:09:24,339 And I mean, one of the things that comes across very clearly from that is, is the the the way in which creativity was really fluid in this time. 711 01:09:24,340 --> 01:09:30,340 And so you'll have the core of a tune, which will be the same, and you'll certainly be able to identify and recognise that tune. 712 01:09:30,790 --> 01:09:36,249 But it comes in many, many different forms. So not only translating for different instruments with different sorts of notation, 713 01:09:36,250 --> 01:09:40,719 but also with the sorts of variants that we see there 'For the Glory of the West'. 714 01:09:40,720 --> 01:09:47,200 And so you get the piece, you know, transcribed with very different characters for different combinations of instruments. 715 01:09:47,200 --> 01:09:51,150 But yeah, the same tunes come up repeatedly and you know, 716 01:09:51,190 --> 01:09:57,249 some of them are very well known like Lily Bolero and stuff like that, that, you know, that were, were common popular tunes, 717 01:09:57,250 --> 01:10:02,920 but also turn up in that case in a court ode and and was deliberately incorporated 718 01:10:02,920 --> 01:10:06,670 by Purcell into that ode because it was one of the favourite tunes of Queen Mary. 719 01:10:06,670 --> 01:10:14,860 So you know these things were very, very fluid and and I think as well what comes across is that the 720 01:10:14,860 --> 01:10:20,799 distinctions that we would make between sort of popular and folk and classical high arts were, 721 01:10:20,800 --> 01:10:23,770 were, I mean they did exist to a certain extent, 722 01:10:23,770 --> 01:10:32,770 There was more erudite and less erudite music, but the tunes could be put to all sorts of purposes that crossed those boundaries very fluidly. 723 01:10:33,870 --> 01:10:38,189 That leads me nicely into another question, which is coming from Chris-, from Christopher Marsh, 724 01:10:38,190 --> 01:10:45,179 which is to consumers who were primarily privileged and urban, what was the appeal of country dance tunes? 725 01:10:45,180 --> 01:10:52,020 And then I'm going to link that to Leslie's question below, which is what is the contemporary meaning of the term country dances? 726 01:10:53,040 --> 01:10:58,050 That's a very good question. And and if the Christopher Marsh whose asked this, is the Christopher Marsh I think he is, 727 01:10:58,410 --> 01:11:01,680 He knows an awful lot about this already. So. 728 01:11:03,430 --> 01:11:13,690 I mean, I guess what my response to that would would be that the more upper class clientele for these books had a kind of dual existence. 729 01:11:13,690 --> 01:11:19,989 They had the urban existence, and they also had country estates, although, you know, they had relation to country estates. 730 01:11:19,990 --> 01:11:32,500 And so I guess they came from those environments as well. And it was in terms of the upbringing of of a a renaissance and baroque well-to-do person, 731 01:11:32,500 --> 01:11:36,610 It was part of their training to learn these these dances. 732 01:11:37,060 --> 01:11:41,950 And again, I think there was a bit of a crossover between the country dance and the courtly dance. 733 01:11:42,700 --> 01:11:49,090 And and so, you know, the flavour of those dances crosses over between between the two things. 734 01:11:50,750 --> 01:11:54,649 That leads me actually to Leslie has a sort of second second part to the question, 735 01:11:54,650 --> 01:12:01,820 which is I like I love this Playford probably wasn't going out to villages doing field work. 736 01:12:02,360 --> 01:12:05,720 There is an assumption now that these are traditional folk dances. 737 01:12:06,470 --> 01:12:09,140 And Barbara has also asked something which I'm going to link in here, 738 01:12:09,140 --> 01:12:14,960 which is how did Playford find out about the choreographies that were included in the Dancing Master? 739 01:12:16,050 --> 01:12:18,150 That's a very, both very good questions. 740 01:12:18,420 --> 01:12:25,139 And there is quite a big deal about about the choreography because of course dance notation was in its infancy in this period 741 01:12:25,140 --> 01:12:32,400 and we usually tend to think of the Feuillet notation which derived from France and wasn't used in England in this period. 742 01:12:33,300 --> 01:12:41,250 And so I to be honest, I'm not an expert in English dance, so I don't know where the notation that he used came from, but, 743 01:12:41,920 --> 01:12:45,659 But I mean, my impression is that what I mean, 744 01:12:45,660 --> 01:12:49,649 Of course, the other thing we need to bear in mind here is that is that the Dancing Master 745 01:12:49,650 --> 01:12:52,680 originates with Hilton and not with not with Playford so Playford published it, 746 01:12:53,430 --> 01:12:58,379 but the material is Hilton's. So I suppose the question needs to be where did Hilton get it from? 747 01:12:58,380 --> 01:13:07,020 But I really I don't know. But it is definitely the case that these tunes did the rounds in cities as well as in as in country environments. 748 01:13:07,020 --> 01:13:17,430 And so you would have heard them in all sorts of contexts in the tavern and in cities as well as as well as in the country, 749 01:13:17,730 --> 01:13:21,150 and people were playing them at home as well. It was really a very fluidly used. 750 01:13:21,150 --> 01:13:24,450 I think it's lovely. I think you've also just answered Jeff's question there 751 01:13:24,570 --> 01:13:31,980 which was all the references to the dances in the Dancing Master being danced in his lifetime, and if so, where and who by? 752 01:13:32,760 --> 01:13:40,530 Not as far as I know. And but, you know, the usual places that one goes to, like, Pepys's diary, 753 01:13:40,530 --> 01:13:48,000 They do make reference to dancing. It's just not always very clear who is doing the dancing and and what exactly they are dancing to. 754 01:13:48,750 --> 01:13:52,380 But so, yeah, I don't know. But again, I'm not a historian of dance. 755 01:13:52,400 --> 01:13:55,740 I wouldn't consider myself expert in that. Lovely, 756 01:13:55,740 --> 01:14:00,120 Thank you. There are a couple more questions left, but I think we're out of time, so draw it to a close there. 757 01:14:00,120 --> 01:14:03,450 But those questions will be passed on for Rebecca afterwards. So don't worry, 758 01:14:03,690 --> 01:14:07,380 If we didn't quite get to yours, hopefully you'll have an answer soon enough. 759 01:14:07,950 --> 01:14:11,790 A couple of people have also asked about sources and references. 760 01:14:11,790 --> 01:14:16,349 We have prepared a short bibliography which will be circulated after the event. 761 01:14:16,350 --> 01:14:23,280 So it just reminds me to say thank you very much to Rebecca for this evening's talk and to pass back over to Helen for the closing notices. 762 01:14:23,370 --> 01:14:26,400 So thank you very much. And thank you Alice, 763 01:14:26,760 --> 01:14:27,749 And thank you, everyone, 764 01:14:27,750 --> 01:14:34,610 for joining us today and for staying with us since we ran slightly over and also for asking such thoughtful and interesting questions. 765 01:14:34,620 --> 01:14:41,310 A huge thank you to Alice Little and Rebecca Herrisone and Karen, our behind the scenes technical team. 766 01:14:42,000 --> 01:14:49,320 It was a really fascinating webinar and I will be sending out the literature links and the recording as soon as we have it available. 767 01:14:49,980 --> 01:14:56,340 If you have time, please take a moment to fill out our feedback form so that we can continue to offer these events to people in the future. 768 01:14:56,730 --> 01:15:00,390 And thank you everybody, and we hope to see you again soon. And have a good evening. 769 01:15:00,630 --> 01:15:01,110 Thank you.