Robert Dow, the original owner of Oxford, Christ Church (Och) MSS 984–8, was the eldest son of Robert Dow (1517–1612), citizen and Merchant Taylor of London. According to the 1568 Heraldic Visitation of London, Robert junior was fifteen at that time, and so was born in 1553; he had four brothers, John, Henry, Thomas and Richard, aged twelve, ten, five and two and a half years respectively. Since both John and Henry attended Merchant Taylors’ School, it is probable that Robert did likewise, though we cannot be certain of this since no accurate register of pupils was kept until Robert Dow senior instituted the School's Probation Books in 1607. Another not unreasonable expectation would be that the young Robert went up to St John's College, Oxford, given his father's munificience towards that College and its strong links with the Merchant Taylors’ Company. However, such an assumption would be unwarranted, and indeed, no Oxford college has any official record of him as an undergraduate. Fortunately in the British Library there are three holograph letters in Latin from Dow to Lord Burghley, dated 20 September, 4 October and 8 November 1573, written ‘Oxoniae (Oxonij), in Collegio Corporis Christi’. Since he does not sign himself ‘discipulus’ or ‘alumnus’, it is hardly surprising that there is no mention of his name in the College's Registers, and therefore the most likely explanation for his presence at Corpus Christi is that he was a gentleman-commoner, though this cannot be verified. Whatever his status, we know that Robert Dow definitely proceeded B.A., for the Oxford University Register of Congregation and Convocation 1564–82 has the following entry for 12 October 1573 recording his supplication for that degree:

Many scholars have attempted to come to terms with the stylistic diversification and experimentation that characterises Italian sacred and secular music at the turn of the sixteenth century. Changes in aesthetic attitudes and musical styles are both seen as typical of the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque periods. However, an important source for documenting this transition-the activities of the major music publishing houses in Italy centred largely in Venice, Rome, Milan and Naples-has been unduly neglected. To what extent did these activities reflect, or even influence, the course of musical development during this period, and how can an account of them aid the scholar in solving the complex historical problems of this transitional age?

For Agostino Agazzari, a Sienese noble, to be praised as his merit requires one would need the eloquence of the most famous writers of this century, because in truth his skill in the field of music is as much as [that of] any other [person] described [in this volume]. First in Siena he showed while he was young that the city had nothing to envy elsewhere, [for there was] no performer, no composer more excellent that he, because in playing the organ he was most imaginative and delicate, and in [his] compositions harmonious and lively. Therefore he was rewarded with a place in the Accademia degli Intronati. He then visited Germany, where he became known at the court of the Emperor Matthias, who having discovered his great learning wished to keep him in his service. But desirous of liberty, he did not wish to bind himself with that chain of gold, and returned to Italy, carrying with him a musical instrument never before seen or heard called the pandora, which he played sweetly. He went to Rome, where he was not only maestro of the famous cappella of S Apollinare, but [was] also called one of the first to introduce the concerto style, which he learnt from brief contact with Father Viadana. With regard to his compositions, he left, in addition to numerous manuscripts, twenty-four to twenty-six works printed at various times and in various places, including canzonette, madrigals, motets, masses, psalms in which he showed great [understanding of] counterpoint and harmony. On returning to Siena he was made director of the cappella of the Cathedral, in which post he died recently to the universal sorrow of virtuous men.

Restoration keyboard music has been well served in recent years by modern editions, source studies and thematic catalogues. Thus it is all the more surprising that Brussels Conservatoire MS XY 15139, a large manuscript from the early eighteenth century containing unique pieces by John Blow and William Croft as well as a number of early copies of music by Henry Purcell, has almost entirely escaped notice. It seems that the only references to it in the scholarly literature to date have been a brief description by Margaret Reimann in her article on the Kortkamp family in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, and my edition of two Croft suites in the 1982 revision of that composer's Complete Harpsichord Works.

The origins of The Earliest Motets (to c.1270): A Complete Comparative Edition lie in Hans Tischler's 1942 Yale doctoral dissertation, in which all the motets in D-W677, 1-Fl Plut.29.1 and D-W1099 were systematically transcribed. Tischler's dissertation has contained the only available transcriptions of the unica in these sources for nearly forty years, though works with concordances have been accessible in publications by Aubry, Rokseth, Anglès and Anderson. The Earliest Motets (henceforth EM) takes his dissertation as its core, and adds the motets of E-Mn 20486, F-Pn lat. 15139, F-Pn n.a.f. 13521, D-Mbs Mus.Ms. 4775, the chansonniers, and odd motet voices and texts found in various narrative works and poetry anthologies. Such a publication is therefore a major landmark of twentieth-century musicology.