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Revisions in the Chamber Music of Matthew Locke

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Michael Tilmouth
Michael Tilmouth*
Affiliation:
Edinburgh University
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Extract

Many of the pieces in Matthew Locke's seven sets of consort music, whose principal source is the great score-book in the British Museum, Add. MS 17801, were subjected to a process of careful and repeated revision. The changes Locke made were sometimes extensive, involving the restructuring of an entire movement, the introduction of new material, or the substantial modification of that existing already. The editor of such works must decide whether he is going to present a single version—in this case presumably the composer's final revision—or to embody the variant readings in a textual commentary, or to print such readings in their entirety as parallel texts. The usefulness of a textual commentary tends to be in inverse proportion to its length: the more variants there are to be listed the less easy it becomes to perceive the overall shape of that version of the text embodying them. In the case of Locke's music ‘For Several Friends’ and the movements of the Flat Consort which were subjected to much change the ideal solution is obviously to print both first and last versions in full. But Locke is after all not Beethoven, and in the recent Musica Britannica edition only the composer's final versions have been presented, with a few examples of movements from the early version of the Flat Consort to illustrate the extent and nature of the modifications. Nevertheless, Locke's revisions are worth considering in some detail, for they reveal a composer with a mind both restless and fastidious. The best point of departure is the autograph score-book itself which Locke entitled ‘Compositions for Broken, and whole Consorts, of two, three, Fower, Five, and Six Parts, made by Matthew Locke, Composer in Ordinary to his Majestye’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 98 , 1971 , pp. 89 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © 1972 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 Matthew Locke: Chamber Music, ed. Michael Tilmouth (Musica Britannica, xxxi-xxxii), London, 1971–2.Google Scholar

2 Add. 17801, ff. 1, 2v. Further details concerning this and other sources will be found in the textual commentary to the Musica Britannica edition. I am grateful to Miss Pamela Willetts of the British Museum for her assistance in examining the score-book, and to Mr. Howard Nixon for many observations on the binding.Google Scholar

3 Mason, E., Vindiciae Ecclesiae Anglicanae, London, 1625; H. Hugo, De militia equestri antiqua et nova, Antwerp, 1630; and J. Stow, Annales, London, 1631 (British Museum shelf-marks c.18.b.15, c.46.k.2 and c.21.e.11).Google Scholar

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9 Ibid., xxxi. 43.Google Scholar

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11 Musica Britannica, xxxi. 99, bars 31–34.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., xxxi. 119ff. and 138ff.; 126ff. and 139ff.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., xxxii. 59, bars 65–73 (originally four bars shorter and settling quickly into a diatonic A minor).Google Scholar

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