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The Four-Part Consort Music of John Jenkins

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Andrew Ashbee
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Extract

The fame of John Jenkins as a composer has rested almost entirely on his magnificent series of fantasias. There are more than 100 of these embracing a variety of instrumental groupings and differing styles. The quality of the music and the pre-eminence of the fantasia as an instrumental form in the early seventeenth century made these works a natural starting-point for modern scholars seeking some assessment of Jenkins's contribution to the development of English instrumental music. There are, however, many other compositions by him worthy of detailed study and I hope that the collection published recently in Musica Britannica will focus attention on some of these, among them not only the large-scale fantasia-suites, but also the very attractive, though relatively humble airs.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 96 , 1969 , pp. 29 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 Cf. E. H. Meyer, English Chamber Music, London, 1946, pp. 216–24; R. A. Warner, The Fantasia in the Works of John Jenkins, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1951. A comprehensive collection of his music will be found in John Jenkins: Fancies and Ayres, ed. H. J. Sleeper, Wellesley, 1950.Google Scholar

2 Consort Music of Four Parts (Musica Britannica, xxvi), ed. A. Ashbee, London, 1969.Google Scholar

3 All published in Musica Britannica, xxvi.Google Scholar

4 Pamela J. Willetts, ‘Sir Nicholas Le Strange and John Jenkins’, Music & Letters, xiii (1961), 30–43; ‘Music from the circle of Anthony Wood at Oxford’, British Museum Quarterly, xxiv (1961), 71–75; ‘John Lilly, Musician and Music Copyist’, Bodleian Library Record, vii (1967), 307–11; ‘Autograph Music by John Jenkins’, Music & Letters, xlviii (1967), 124–6; ‘Musical Connections of Thomas Myriell’, Music & Letters, xlix (1968), 36–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 See the list in A. Ashbee, The Four-Part Instrumental Compositions of John Jenkins, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1966, iii. 67–71.Google Scholar

6 I am indebted to Commander G. J. Dodd for drawing my attention to these airs, and to Miss Pamela J. Willetts for information on their copyist.Google Scholar

7 Only one (Christ Church, MSS 367–70, No. 18) has two tenor parts.Google Scholar

8 John Jenkins: Fancies and Ayres, ed. Sleeper, pp. 104–5.Google Scholar

9 Christ Church, MS 1005, and Newberry Library, Chicago, Case MS VM.I.A18.J.52.c.Google Scholar

10 Newberry Library, Case MS VM.I.A.18.J.52.c.Google Scholar

11 British Museum, Add. MSS 17792–6, and New York, Drexel MSS 4180–85 contain Fantasias 5 and 6.Google Scholar

12 E. H. Meyer (Die Mehrstimmige Spielmusik des 17. Jahrhunderts in Nordund Mitteleuropa, Cassel, 1934, pp. 155–6) mistakenly attributes five of Ward's fantasias to Jenkins—Meyer Nos. 5 and 10–13—and therefore his numbering is unreliable.Google Scholar

13 Willetts, ‘Autograph Music by John Jenkins’, Music & Letters, xlviii (1967), 124–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Jacobean Consort Music, ed. Thurston Dart and William Coates, London, 1955 (2nd edn. 1962).Google Scholar

15 The Fantasia in the Works of John Jenkins, p. 205. For obvious reasons this last idea features more in the five- and six-part fantasias than in the present group.Google Scholar

16 John Wilson (ed.), Roger North on Music, London, 1959, p. 296.Google Scholar

17 Willetts, ‘Autograph Music by John Jenkins’, Music & Letters, xlviii (1967), 124–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 These include: 7 Fancy-Ayre Divisions (Bodleian, Mus. Sch. MSS d.241–4), 15 Fancy-Ayre sets (British Museum, Add. MSS 27550–54), 10 Fancy-Air-Galliard sets (Bodleian, Mus. Sch. MS c.82), all for two trebles, bass and organ; 9 Fancy-Almain-Corant sets for treble, two basses and organ (Bodleian, Mus. Sch. MSS d. 241–4); 21 fantasias for two trebles and a bass (British Museum, Add. MS 31428).Google Scholar

19 British Museum, Add. MS 23779, owned by Sir Nicholas Le Strange but indexed and partially copied by Jenkins, contains organ parts for Coprario's fantasia-suites. Variants from the Derham books are also listed.Google Scholar

20 Musica Britannica, xxvi. 78–132.Google Scholar

21 These numbers include the two-movement Fancy-Air sets as well as the three-movement works.Google Scholar

22 British Museum, Add. MSS 27550–54 and Bodleian, Mus. Sch. MSS d. 241–4.Google Scholar

23 Wilson, Roger North on Music, p. 347.Google Scholar

24 See Suites Nos. 5 and 6.Google Scholar

25 One organ part to a fantasia-suite by Jenkins appears in a full version on two staves in British Museum, Add. MS 31423, f. 258, and as a figured bass in Durham Cathedral Library, MS D.2, No. 17.Google Scholar