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‘YONG BEGINNERS, WHO LIVE IN THE COUNTREY’: JOHN PLAYFORD AND THE PRINTED MUSIC MARKET IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2016

Stephanie Carter
Stephanie Carter*
Affiliation:
Newcastle University
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

John Playford dominated the commercial music publishing trade of mid-seventeenth-century England, encouraging musical literacy and supplying beginner books for the growing domestic amateur musical class. Playford was clearly aware of the need to attract as many customers as possible in order to succeed in a commercial business; however, very little is known about his customers. This article identifies the contemporary audiences of seventeenth-century English printed music books, building on previous scholarship including Alec Hyatt King’s Some British Collectors of Music c. 1600–1900 (1963), and provides an initial record of provenance marks in surviving copies of the publications. Placing the printed book and its customer within the wider context of music-making and bookselling in seventeenth-century England develops our understanding of the social dimensions of the printed music trade, including dissemination and distribution networks.

Type
Research Article
Information
Early Music History , Volume 35 , October 2016 , pp. 95 - 129
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

My thanks are due to Dr Kirsten Gibson and Prof. Rebecca Herissone for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

References

1 See manuscript studies such as Christopher W. Marsh’s description of the Henry Atkinson Manuscript in his Music and Society in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 211–14.

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18 Playford, J., Cantica Sacra . . . The Second Sett (London, 1674)Google Scholar, Cantus and Bassus partbooks, ‘To all judicious Lovers and Understanders of Musick’, sig. [A2v].

19 Robert Martin later became a dealer of imported Italian music in London. Krummel, D., ‘Venetian Baroque Music in a London Bookshop: The Robert Martin Catalogues, 1633–50’, in O. Neighbour (ed.), Music and Bibliography: Essays in Honour of Alex Hyatt King (New York, 1980), pp. 1–27 Google Scholar; Wainwright, J., Musical Patronage in Seventeenth-Century England: Christopher, First Baron Hatton (1605–1670) (Aldershot, 1997), p. 28 Google Scholar.

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22 British Library, Harley MS 5936/419–420 (Bagford Collection). Henry Playford married a daughter of an Oxford lawyer, and two apprentices – John Baker and John Church – were both from Oxford. See Thompson, ‘Manuscript Music in Purcell’s London’, p. 610; Stationers’ Company Apprentices 1641–1700, ed. D. McKenzie (Oxford, 1974), p. 132; Stationers’ Company Apprentices, 1701–1800, ed. D. McKenzie (Oxford, 1978), p. 275.

23 Herissone, R., Musical Creativity in Restoration England (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 88–92 Google Scholar.

24 Robert Thompson lists examples of ruled paper purchases in his ‘Manuscript Music in Purcell’s London’, pp. 606–7.

25 Pearson, D., Book Trade Bills and Vouchers from Durham Cathedral Library 1634–1740 (History of the Book Trade in the North; Wylam, 1986)Google Scholar, pp. [8–12].

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28 Marsh, Music and Society in Early Modern England, p. 137.

29 The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Latham, viii, p. 344.

30 Moss, J., Lessons for the basse-viol (London, 1671)Google Scholar, ‘To his Present and Quondam Scholars’.

31 Herissone, ‘Playford, Purcell and the Functions of Music Publishing in Restoration England’, p. 262.

32 Wilson, Roger North on Music, p. 356.

33 Leppert, R., Music and Image: Domesticity, Ideology and Socio-Cultural Formation in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1988), p. 67 Google Scholar.

34 Diesineer, G., [Instrumental Ayrs in Three, and Four Parts (London, c. 1680)], ‘To all Lovers, and Understanders of Music’Google Scholar.

35 A single-composer work would presumably have required some kind of payment to the composer, unlike anthologies.

36 Playford, J., Choice Ayres and Songs . . . The Second Book (London, 1679)Google Scholar, ‘To all Lovers of Musick’, sig. A2.

37 Playford, Musick’s Hand-maid, ‘The Preface’, sig. A2.

38 Price, D., Patrons and Musicians of the English Renaissance (Cambridge Studies in Music; Cambridge 1981), pp. 18–19 Google Scholar. Adrian Johns notes that agents were used by gentlemen clients for the general book trade as well. See Johns, The Nature of the Book, pp. 157–8.

39 Wainwright, Musical Patronage in Seventeenth-Century England, p. 28.

40 R. Southey, ‘The things I had to do: Making a Living as a Musician in 18th-Century Newcastle’, unpublished paper given at The Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne meeting in Newcastle, March 2013. Southey also highlights that throughout the eighteenth century music teachers sold new or second-hand instruments. Southey, R., Music-Making in North-East England during the Eighteenth Century (Farnham, 2006), p. 179 Google Scholar.

41 8 May 1661. The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Latham, ii, p. 96. The uncle was Robert Pepys of Brampton, Huntingdonshire and the cousin was Frank Perkin of Parson Drove, Cambridgeshire.

42 Carter, ‘Music Publishing and Compositional Activity’, pp. 227–49.

43 Spink, Restoration Cathedral Music, pp. 76–7.

44 Temperley, N., ‘Playford and the Metrical Psalms’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 25 (1972), pp. 331–378 Google Scholar, at p. 357; Synopsis of Vocal Musick by A.B. Philo-Mus., ed. R. Herissone (Music Theory in Britain, 1500–1700: Critical Editions; Aldershot, 2006), pp. 23–4.

45 Hume, R., ‘The Economics of Culture in London, 1660–1740’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 69 (2006), pp. 487–533 Google Scholar, at p. 497.

46 Ibid., p. 496.

47 Ibid., pp. 496–7.

48 Herissone, Musical Creativity in Restoration England, pp. 260–3; Marsh, Music and Society in Early Modern England, p. 173.

49 Playford, J., The English Dancing Master (London, 1651)Google Scholar, sig. [A2].

50 Playford, J., Court Ayres (London, 1655)Google Scholar, sig. [A], Dedication.

51 See, for example, Wainwright, Musical Patronage in Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 169–77; Chan, M., ‘A Mid Seventeenth-Century Music Meeting and Playford’s Publishing’, in J. Caldwell, E. Olleson and S. Wollenberg (eds.), The Well Enchanting Skill: Music, Poetry, and Drama in the Culture of the Renaissance. Essays in Honour of F. W. Sternfeld (Oxford, 1990), pp. 231–244 Google Scholar; Mateer, D., ‘Hugh Davis’s Commonplace Book: A New Source of Seventeenth-Century Song’, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, 32 (1999), pp. 63–87 Google Scholar; Bailey, C., ‘William Ellis and the Transmission of Continental Keyboard Music in Restoration England’, Journal of Musicological Research, 20 (2001), pp. 211–242 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bellingham, B., ‘The Musical Circle of Anthony Wood in Oxford during the Commonwealth and Restoration’, Journal of the Viola da Gamba Society of America, 19 (1982), pp. 7–70 Google Scholar; Willetts, P., ‘Music from the Circle of Anthony Wood at Oxford’, British Museum Quarterly, 24 (1961), pp. 71–75 Google Scholar; Crum, M., ‘An Oxford Music Club, 1690–1719’, Bodleian Library Record, 9 (1974), pp. 83–99 Google Scholar; Irving, J., ‘Consort Playing in Mid-17th-Century Worcester: Thomas Tomkins and the Bodleian Partbooks Mus.Sch.E.415–18’, Early Music, 12 (1984), pp. 337–344 Google Scholar.

52 O’Callaghan, M., ‘Tavern Societies, the Inns of Court, and the Culture of Conviviality in Early Seventeenth-Century London’, in A. Smyth (ed.), A Pleasing Sinne: Drink and Conviviality in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 37–51 Google Scholar, at pp. 37–8.

53 27 September 1665. The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Latham, vi, p. 242.

54 Wilson, Roger North on Music, pp. 351–2.

55 Chan, ‘A Mid Seventeenth-Century Music Meeting’, pp. 242–4. As Chan notes, the catches were just one part of the repertory of Hilton’s music meeting, as the manuscripts demonstrate. Chan, M., ‘John Hilton’s Manuscript British Library Add. MS 11608’, Music & Letters, 60 (1979), pp. 440–449 Google Scholar, at p. 445. See also Robins, B., Catch and Glee Culture in Eighteenth-Century England (Woodbridge, 2006), pp. 10–11 Google Scholar.

56 Hilton, J., Catch that Catch can (London, 1652)Google Scholar, ‘To all Lovers of Musick’, sig. A3.

57 Wilson, Roger North on Music, p. 352. North further supplemented the account, describing how ‘with help of a dull organist and miserable-singers, folks heard music out of the Catch-book, and drank ale together’. Ibid., p. 304.

58 A solo female performer is depicted in the frontispiece picture of Playford’s The Treasury of Musick (1669), but the ‘buxom woman’, sitting in a noticeably seductive position, appears to represent ‘Musick’. The volume is addressed to ‘Gentlemen’ and ‘Courteous Sirs’ in the prefatory material. Krummel, D., English Music Printing, 1553–1700 (London, 1975), p. 119 Google Scholar.

59 Austern, L. P., ‘“Sing Againe Siren”: The Female Musician and Sexual Enchantment in Elizabethan Life and Literature’, Renaissance Quarterly, 42 (1989), pp. 420–448 Google Scholar, especially p. 431.

60 Woolley, A., ‘English Keyboard Sources and their Contexts, c. 1660–1720’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 2008), p. 7 Google Scholar.

61 Woolley, H., The Gentlewomans Companion Or, A Guide to the Female Sex (London, 1673), p. 84 Google Scholar.

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63 Marsh, Music and Society in Early Modern England, p. 208.

64 Ibid.

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66 Playford, J., Musick’s Delight on the Cithren (London, 1666)Google Scholar, ‘Musick Books sold by John Playford at his Shop in the Temple’, p. [102].

67 Playford, A Musicall Banquet, sig. [A4].

68 Playford, Musicks Hand-maid, ‘Instructions for Learners on the Virginal or Harpsichord to Play by Book’, sig. [A4].

69 Greeting, T., The Pleasant Companion (London, 1675)Google Scholar, ‘Directions for Playing on the Flagelet’, sig. [A3].

70 Ibid., sig. [B3r]. Playford also advertises his Introduction in Musick’s Delight on the Cithren: ‘Those who desire a more full and large Accompt of the Notes, their Measures and Proportion, I Refer them to that book of my Introduction to the Skill of Musick, lately printed.’ Playford, Musick’s Delight on the Cithren, sig. [B1r].

71 Herissone also suggests that Playford’s brief instructions were not sufficient for the absolute beginner. See Herissone, Synopsis of Vocal Musick by A.B. Philo-Mus, pp. 48–9.

72 There is scant evidence of professional musicians working as regional teachers, such as London-based Frances Forcer (1649–1705) teaching in Kent. A. Woolley, ‘London Musicians and the Provinces in the Late Seventeenth Century: The Case of Francis Forcer (1649–1705)’, unpublished paper given at the study day Musical Life outside London, 1500–1800: Networks, Circulation, Sources in Newcastle, Oct. 2014.

73 Parish Registers of Newcastle, St Andrew’s, 1597–1687 (William Smith died 29 May 1646). Also Joseph Ells, noted as a teacher of music at his daughter’s baptism in 1659. Parish Registers of Newcastle, All Saints’ (Allhallows’), 1600–87. Other examples are given in Marsh, Music and Society in Early Modern England, pp. 207–8.

74 Playford, J., Apollo’s Banquet . . . 5th Edition (London, 1687)Google Scholar, ‘To all Ingenious Lovers and Practitioners of Musick’, sig. A2.

75 British Library, shelfmark K.1.i.19.

76 Thompson, ‘Sources and Transmission’, pp. 51–3.

77 Catalogue of the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, ed. R. Latham, 7 vols. (Cambridge, 1987–94), iv: Music, Maps and Calligraphy.

78 King, A. Hyatt, Some British Collectors of Music, c. 1600–1960 (Cambridge, 1963)Google Scholar; Woodfill, W., Musicians in English Society from Elizabeth to Charles I (Princeton, 1953)Google Scholar; Price, Patrons and Musicians of the English Renaissance; Wainwright, Musical Patronage in Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 169–77.

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81 Studies of literary texts include Johns, The Nature of the Book; Sherman, W., Used Books: Marking Readers in Renaissance England (Philadelphia, 2008)Google Scholar; Jackson, H., Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books (Yale, 2002)Google Scholar; Andersen, J. and Sauer, E., Books and Readers in Early Modern England (Philadelphia, 2002)Google Scholar.

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83 Surviving copies of a single title range between one and well over twenty, with many titles surviving in at least seven copies. For a list of examined copies, see Carter, ‘Music Publishing and Compositional Activity’, pp. 251–73.

84 Hulvey, M., ‘“Not So Marginal”: Manuscript Annotations in the Folger Incunabula’, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 92 (June, 1998), pp. 159–176 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 161. Unfortunately, this continues today with what John Milsom has coined ‘fakesimiles’, referring to the removal of manuscript annotations in modern facsimiles of early printed music.

85 Wainwright, Musical Patronage in Seventeenth-Century England, p. 26.

86 British Library, shelfmark K.3.1.4.

87 Hand-correction in printed music has been the focus of recent scholarship. See, for example, Schab, ‘Revisiting the Known and Unknown Misprints in Purcell’s Dioclesian’, pp. 343–56; Herissone, ‘Playford, Purcell and the Functions of Music Publishing in Restoration England’, p. 276; B. White, ‘“Studying a little of the French Air”: Louis Grabu’s Albion and Albanius and the Dramatic Operas of Henry Purcell’, in Cowgill, R., Cooper, D. and Brown, C. (eds.), Art and Ideology in European Opera: Essays in Honour of Julian Rushton (Woodbridge, 2010), pp. 12–39 Google Scholar, at p. 16.

88 Mace, T., Musick’s Monument, Or, A Remembrancer of the Best Practical Musick (London, 1676)Google Scholar, ‘The Subscribers Names’, sigs. [c1v]–d.

89 King, Some British Collectors of Music, p. 9.

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91 West Sussex Record Office, Chichester, Par. 203/7/40. See Marsh, Music and Society in Early Modern England, p. 561.

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97 Marsh notes that musicians may have passed their musical instruments to their descendants. It is not far-fetched to presume that musicians also passed on their music libraries and musical accessories. Marsh, Music and Society in Early Modern England, p. 18.

98 Thompson, ‘Sources and Transmission’, p. 43.

99 Marsh, Music and Society in Early Modern England, p. 212.