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the bass line is incompetent and was probably cobbled together by the copyist. 42 It
seems unlikely that the version in MU. MS 647 – and therefore the whole of Item
XIII – was copied much before 1730.
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A clue to the provenance of MU. MS 647, and the identity of Hand B, lies in its
relationship to the other music books transferred to the Fitzwilliam Museum from
Magdalene College around 1915. Evidence for the nature of this transaction is
provided by two documents kept with MU. MS 647. The first is a letter to Edward
Dent on headed Magdalene College notepaper:
22 July 1915 / Dear Dent / In going through some loose and
very dirty papers in th[e] College Library, I have come across
the enclosed pieces of music. I wonder if you would care to
look through them any time at your leisure, and to pick out
anything you think the Fitzwilliam would care to have? The
rest I shall probably throw away, unless you suggest any other
destination for them. / I hope this is not troubling you too
much / I am / yours very truly / Stephen Gaselee
The writer, Stephen (later Sir Stephen) Gaselee (1882-1943), was Pepys
Librarian at Magdalene at the time, 43 while Edward Dent (1876-1957) was a Fellow
of King’s College, Cambridge and seems to have been acting as an advisor for the
Fitzwilliam. 44 At that period the library of the Fitzwilliam Museum, founded on the
collection of Richard, Viscount Fitzwilliam (1745-1816), was the main music
library in Cambridge, and would therefore have been a more natural home for the
collection than the main university library. 45
The second document was written by Dent himself in pencil on headed
notepaper of 75 Panton Street, Cambridge, one of the two houses he owned in
Cambridge. It seems to be a list of the items received from Gaselee, annotated
42 For the early publication history of the Water Music, see W.C. Smith and C. Humphries,
Handel: a Descriptive Catalogue of the Early Editions (Oxford, 1970), esp. 255-260; C. Hogwood, Handel:
Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks (Cambridge, 2005), 22-24.
43 For Gaselee, see R. Storrs, rev. D. McKitterick, ‘Sir Stephen Gaselee’, ODNB (accessed 3
September 2007).
44 For Dent, see esp. P. Radcliffe, Edward J. Dent: a Centenary Memoir (Rickmansworth, 1976); H.
Carey, Duet for Two Voices: an Informal Biography of Edward Dent Compiled from his Letters to Clive Carey
(Cambridge, 1979); A. Lewis and N. Fortune, ‘Edward J(oseph) Dent’, GMO (Accessed 3
September 2007); N. Scaife, ‘Edward Dent’, ODNB (accessed 3 September 2007).
45 For the music collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum, see esp. J.A. Fuller-Maitland and A.H.
Mann, Catalogue of the Music in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (London and Cambridge, 1893); A
Short-Title Catalogue of Music Printed before 1825 in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, ed. V. Rumbold
and I. Fenlon (Cambridge, 1992); C. Bartlett, The Music Collections of the Cambridge Libraries: a Listing
and Guide to Parts Three to Six of the Research Publications Microfilm Collection (Reading, 1991). I am
grateful to Karen Arrandale for advice on Edward Dent and his position in Cambridge at the time.
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