The music
There are 92 complete pieces in Lord Danby’s Book, and three fragments. They are all written in French tablature for the 11-course Baroque lute in the standard ‘D minor’ tuning of the time. Like most sources of Baroque lute music, the manuscript is arranged in groups of pieces according to the tuning of the diapasons, but not very systematically. The two principal hands are confident and easy to read, suggesting, if not the work of professional scribes, very experienced and competent copying consistent with the collection’s possible use as teaching material. There are, however, no fingering indications for the left hand, nor are there diagrams or comments which would further suggest a didactic purpose. Rather it appears to be an anthology of attractive music compiled for a competent player. Of the two hands, D is the more elegantly formed, but A is generally more reliable musically, especially in the matter of rhythmic notation which is so often deficient in lute manuscripts of all periods. A habit common to both scribes is the frequent omission of rhythm signs on the upbeat notes to allemandes, courantes and so on. Both hands use the same technical and ornament signs (see below) with the exception of the small cross (x) used for a trill in three consecutive pieces in hand A (30-32); these three pieces were probably copied from the same source.
The music can be divided by concordances or internal technical features into two quite distinct categories: music composed and conceived for the lute, and arrangements for lute of music originally composed for another medium. The ‘pure’ lute music mainly seems to belong to the late-17th-century Austrian/Bohemian tradition of Count Losy and his contemporaries. There are a few pieces in the French style of the period, and three are by the Parisian court musician, Robert de Visée. But as many as nine pieces can be ascribed to Losy with some confidence, and a further three or four are possibly his as well; several more pieces can also be found elsewhere in lute manuscripts from the same tradition. The initiative in lute music had shifted from Paris to Vienna and Prague following the decline in the instrument’s popularity from about 1680. De Visée (c1660-c1720), who excelled on the lute’s more fashionable rival, the guitar, was engaged by the Parisian court as a guitarist and theorbist rather than as a lutenist, but he must have played the lute as well; all the pieces in Lord Danby’s Book by him had, however, appeared in guitar versions and in score in the 1680s.
At the time of writing, the identity, or even the nationality, of the composer of no. 22, concealed beneath the initials ‘C. N.’, remains unknown. The suite in F minor (23-26) that follows could be by the same composer, since the music is in a very similar style, reminiscent of that of the late-17th-century luthistes Charles Mouton (1626-after 1699) and Jacques de Gallot (fl1670-1686). There are a further two airs ascribed only to ‘N’ (18 & 88) which are also in hand D, though whether they are by the same composer is difficult to assess, since they appear to be transcriptions of vocal pieces (see below).
The rest of the music in the book, including that by Handel, can safely be assumed to have been arranged from other media, vocal or instrumental. Seven pieces come from operas: two very popular Lully extracts (21 & 77), an Entrée by Campra (28) and four items from Handel’s first opera Almira (12, 20, 55 & 90). The Ritornello and Air (78 & 78a), based on material re-used by Handel in arias in Serse and Joshua, is almost certainly an operatic extract. Most of the 11 other pieces marked ‘air’ or ‘aria’ may also be derived from operas, though their general brevity makes this less likely; while two airs (74 & 82) are clearly instrumental dance movements. Probably the anonymous Chaconne (55) and certainly the Jig (89) from Purcell’s Abdelazer are orchestral in origin, perhaps having gone through an intermediate keyboard or other arrangement.
Most of these arrangements are of dance music, which may have been orchestral pieces for dances or court balls, or which could have been conceived for keyboard or chamber ensemble. A Handel Gavotte (45) exists in both keyboard and four-part score versions; the unascribed Menuet (81), probably by Handel, appears in variant form, definitely by him, both as a keyboard piece and as a sonata movement for flute and continuo.
Six pieces are ascribed in the MS to Handel or to ‘H’ (12, 13, 15, 20, 45 & 92) and a further six may be confidently atributed to him by exact or near concordances, largely thanks to his habit of reusing early ideas in later music. More tentatively, it is possible to identify strong Handelian traits in a further nine pieces, one of which (73) may indeed carry a Handel ascription in its cryptic title. Two minuets (71 & 75) are attributed to Handel in this edition with some diffidence, since these, although melodically reminiscent of his style, also occur anonymously in another lute source of the same period; their Handelian appearance may be merely superficial.
The presence of music by Handel in the earlier hand (D) makes it unlikely that this layer of the MS was compiled in Utrecht, since his music would not have been known there by 1711. The only Handel piece in hand A, which corrected errors in pieces in hand D, is an improved version of a Gavotte (45) also present in hand D at the very end of the book (p. 137). So hand A could conceivably belong to a lute teacher in Utrecht, but hand D could not. The two places visited by the young Lords that are more plausible as sources for the book are Hamburg and Hanover.
As we have seen, Lord Danby bought a lute in Hamburg together with a book of music, probably for the instrument, but a more important aspect of the visit to Hamburg is that Handel had been living there a few years before. He had even given harpsichord lessons in 1704 to Cyril, son of John Wich, the English Resident who later received Danby and his brother so graciously. Some time towards the end of 1706 Handel left for Italy, but his good friend, the composer and writer on music, Johann Mattheson (1681-1764), remained as Cyril’s tutor and his father’s secretary, a position he held from 1706 until 1741, by which time Cyril had succeeded to his father’s post. Mattheson, who became one of the most important figures in 18th-century German music, was undoubtedly involved in the musical entertainments mounted by John Wich for the young English lords; but sadly neither his name, nor that of Handel, features in Bérard’s correspondence, addressed as it is to the Duke of Leeds, who was unlikely to be concerned with the names of mere secretaries or musicians.
Of the six pieces ascribed to Handel in the MS, one of the substantial overtures and very probably the other are reductions from orchestral scores composed for stage works. The final piece in the edition, an unusual overture in G minor (92), could perhaps have come from one of the three lost Hamburg operas, Nero (first produced 26 February 1705), Florindo or Daphne (both produced in 1708, after Handel had left Hamburg), none of which achieved the success of his first. Almira (first produced 8 January 1705) had been an immediate hit, and was revived in 1732 by Telemann (whose alterations can be seen in the surviving manuscript score). The other Handel overture (12) in Lord Danby’s book is an arrangement of a second overture to Almira (still unpublished, not the one in B flat printed in Chrysander’s edition of the opera) which appears at the beginning of the manuscript score. As well as this overture, the lute book contains arrangements of a gigue (20) and, unascribed, two further numbers from Almira, the ‘Ritornello’ to an aria, here called a minuet (54), and the aria ‘No, non voglio’ (90). The score versions of two dances, a gavotte (45) and an air (74) have recently been tentatively identified as fragments of the ballet music to Florindo and Daphne, respectively. (See critical notes.)
While the dances and even the overtures may have been reused in other stage productions, it is more likely that this music passed into the domestic repertoire of the intensely musical Hamburg society. In this respect, Lord Danby’s Lute Book is a unique document for Hamburg musical history in containing such arrangements of music composed in Hamburg by Handel. Even though he left the city more-or-less for good in 1706, some of Handel’s music (aside from the 1708 operas) is known to have remained popular in intellectual circles there; it was even played on the lute by one eminent Hamburg personality, the wife of the poet Brockes.
From what we know of Handel’s travels at this period, it seems likely that the English party just missed him in Hanover. Handel came there from Italy to take up his post as Kapellmeister to the Elector by June 1710, but had certainly left for England (via Halle and Düsseldorf) by the time they first arrived in September. The piece by ‘Farinell’ (43) in hand A may suggest a Hanover scribe, since Jean-Baptiste Farinel (1655-c1720) was maestro di concerto of the Hanover court orchestra at the time; a lutenist named Pignietta had been appointed to the orchestra in 1695. Lord Danby and his brother spent the period December 1710 - June 1711 at Hanover, at first participating enthusiastically in the Carnival (mid-December - late February), then resuming their musical studies and ‘learning Italian from a Roman Gentleman that belongs to Court’.
As we have seen above, the young Lords took part in concerts of chamber music with friends, teachers and professional musicians. The repertoire of their meetings can only be guessed at, but the possibility must be allowed that Lord Danby would have played the lute in ensemble as well as in a solo capacity. And this may not just have been as a continuo player; many manuscript sources of lute music from the time show that they could be used with accompanying parts for at least a violin or flute and a bass instrument, although these extra parts rarely survive. In almost all such cases the lute parts are self-sufficient as solos—indeed the ensembles were often arranged from solos by adding the other instruments. There is a possibility that Lord Danby’s Lute Book was at least partly intended for ensemble use. Two concordant sources (see concordances to nos. 4, 34, 36 and 39) are clearly chamber music collections, and it could be argued that the second Handel overture contains passages which could be improved by supplying a few notes in a ‘missing’ 2nd violin part. (See no. 92, bars 30, 52, 53, 56 & 57). The first violin part would double the lute at the upper octave, which is the normal procedure in such an ensemble. But, lacking the confirmation of the missing parts, this must remain conjecture.