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Oxford Musical Society    

Homer described the gods listening to "the sound of the gracious lyre which Apollo held." The anonymous artist of the plate prepared for the Oxford Musical Society depicted the god of song with his lyre and implied the divinity of the reader. Ungodly, even non-Greek, instruments lie in the foreground, together with some music hooks and a tragic mask.

The Music Society's rules and orders of 1757, reprinted in John H. Mee, The Oldest Music Room in Europe (London: John Lane, 1911, pp. 45-53), make it clear that it had both books and instruments in its care. "No Books or Instruments shall be lent to any Person out of the Music-Room, without the Leave of the Steward, or the Professor of Music (if a Member of the Committee); and every Person who borrows any Book or Instrument, shall sign a Receipt for it in a Book kept by the Closet Keeper, and shall likewise return it by, or before, the Concert Evening following, and if it be lost by him, he shall forfeit the full value." In order to check delinquency, section 40 of the rules provided that "there shall be a general Visitation of all the Books, Instruments, and other Furniture of the Music-Room, at every Quarterly Meeting; at which the last Steward and his Successor shall attend, and if any Books, &c., shall be missing, the Closet Keeper or other Persons to whose Care they were committed, shall be answerable for them." Unfortunately, the visitations were not effective, for advertisements had to be placed in the Oxford Journal during the 1760s requesting that gentlemen or performers who had borrowed "Books belonging to the Musical Society . . . for their private Practice" return them (Mee, pp. 62-63).

The exemplar reproduced on the cover is found in a manuscript score of George Frederic Handel's coronation anthems now at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin (Finney Music Collection 10). The anthems were as popular in Oxford as elsewhere. Two were given in the opening concert in July 1748 of what is now known as the Holywell Music Room where the Music Society was based (Mee, p. 8). Three of the anthems, Zadok the Priest (HWV 258), The King Shall Rejoice (HWV 260), and My Heart Is Inditing (HWV 261), had regular performances at the Music Room during the 1750s and 1760s (Mee, p. 21). Concerts were given weekly, except during passion week. In addition, benefit concerts were provided for qualified musicians. Weekly concerts were discontinued in the spring of 1789, but were restarted in 1793. From 1820 until 1840, when the Music Society collapsed, concerts were given only occa­sionally. Mee reports that ''the bulk of the library was removed [in 1840?] . . . to Magdalen Hall, and, on the death of Dr. Michell in 1877, was sold by his executors" (p. 193). Richard Michell was a Fellow of Lincoln Col­lege, vice-principal and principal of Magdalen Hall, and the first principal of Hertford College, when Magdalen became Hertford in 1874.¹ Michell was a highly regarded tutor and held several university offices. These duties presumably made him unwilling to shoulder the burden of organizing the Music Society, but he was conscious of the need to preserve the library. In about 1860 Michell employed an undergraduate to catalogue the collection (Mee, p.193). It was not until 1901 that the Music Room was restored and the Oxford University Musical Union recommenced regular concert series.

The Music Society produced a catalogue in the 1770s that lists both score and parts of the coronation anthems. The catalogue is reprinted by Mee, who explores the problem of its date (p. 44). We do not know how the Music Society came by the manuscript, a copy that has been attributed to John Christopher Smith, Handel's chief copyist. The autograph is at the British Library. Other complete contemporary manuscript copies exist at the Staats- und Universitätbibliothek, Hamburg; the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; the Royal College of Music, London: the Henry Watson Music Library, Manchester; the earl of Shaftsbury's collection, Wimborne and the Musikbibliothek der Stadt Leipzig. The Music Society's rules gave the steward the power "to order any Manuscript Musick, that has never been printed, to be transcribed for the use of the Society." The anthems had been issued in score by Walsh in about 1743.² Perhaps the copy remained from a performance during Handel's visit to Oxford in 1733. Certainly, the volume has strong Oxford connections, for it was in all likeli­hood bound by Thomas Sedgly.³

Since the dispersal of the Music Society's library, the manuscript now at Texas passed through the dealer James Rushton in London before being bought by Theodore M. Finney in Oxford in 1966. Finney's collection came to Texas in 1970. In addition to the bookplate, the Texas copy contains the Music Society's stencil mark and an indication of the number of parts, twenty-one for instruments and eleven for voices, that it owned. The score is in a three-quarter leather binding that is severely worn. There is a paper label on the spine that is now too torn and faded to read. The leather label on the front board announces "Handel's Coronation Anthems." 

David Hunter

Fine Arts Library

University of Texas at Austin 

Notes