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J.S. Humphries, XII Sonatas for Two Violins, with a Thorough Bass
for the Harpsichord, op. 1 (London: John Walsh, [1734]). MU.
1170. 48
James Kent, Twelve Anthems (London: Preston and Son,
[c.1780]). MU. 1202. 49
Ayres & Symphonys for y e Bass Viol being a Choice Collection of y e most
Favorite Song Tunes, Aires & Symphonys out of the Late Operas,
Curiously Contriv’d & Fitted to the Bass Viol by the Best Masters …
(London: J. Walsh … & J. Hare, [1710]). MU. 1172. 50
Johann Schenck, Select Lessons for the Bass Viol of Two Parts
Collected by our Best Viollist out of the Works of … Giovanni Schenk
… the First Collection (London: I. Walsh and I. Hare, [1703]),
continuo part only. MU. 882. 51
William Gorton, A Choice Collection of New Ayres, Compos’d and
Contriv’d for Two Bass-Viols (London: John Young, 1701). MU.
1002-3. 52
It is likely that most of these prints came from the same source as MU. MS 647.
Three of them contain solo bass viol music contemporary with the manuscript,
and a bass viol could have been used in performances of the sets of trio sonatas by
Williams and Humphries. In one case, Gorton’s Choice Collection, there is a definite
connection: Hand B of MU. MS 647 copied two sets of divisions (one a fragment
of a piece by Jenkins) onto an extra sheet at the end of each part-book. 53
Furthermore, as we shall see, the part-books of the Williams and Humphries trio
sonatas and the copy of Ayres & Symphonys for y e Bass Viol have similar blue paper
covers to the Gorton and were annotated by the same eighteenth-century hand.
The odd man out is the copy of James Kent’s Twelve Anthems since it is church
music and is much later than the others, though since it is on Dent’s list it too
presumably came from Magdalene College.
48 RISM A/I, iv. 452, H 7925; Smith and Humphries, A Bibliography of … John Walsh …1721-
1766, 191-192, no. 852; A Short-Title Catalogue of Music Printed before 1825 in the Fitzwilliam Museum,
ed. Rumbold and Fenlon, 70; R. Platt, ‘John [J.S.] Humphries’, GMO (accessed 2 July 2007). Smith
and Humphries and Rumbold and Fenlon give the date as c.1736.
49 RISM A/I, v. 25, K 404; A Short-Title Catalogue of Music Printed before 1825 in the Fitzwilliam
Museum, ed. Rumbold and Fenlon, 75. The date, 1773, on Dent’s list is of the original Randall
edition, which he probably took from Eitner.
50 A Short-Title Catalogue of Music Printed before 1825 in the Fitzwilliam Museum, ed. Rumbold and
Fenlon, 2. For the collection, see fn. 16.
51 RISM A/I, vii. 377, S 1455; Smith, A Bibliography of … John Walsh … 1695-1720, 40-41, no.
136; A Short-Title Catalogue of Music Printed before 1825 in the Fitzwilliam Museum, ed. Rumbold and
Fenlon, 107. It is a reprint of movements from Schenck’s Scherzi musicali (Amsterdam, [1698]).
52 RISM A/I, iii. 297, G 3027; A Short-Title Catalogue of Music Printed before 1825 in the Fitzwilliam
Museum, ed. Rumbold and Fenlon, 40.
53 Anonymous A minor ground, VdGS, Anon, no. 401; fragment of Jenkins, C major ground,
VdGS, Jenkins, Music for Two Bass Viols, no. 36 (also catalogued separately as VdGS, Anon, no.
402).
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