13 Titles - Viola da Gamba Society

continuo section that includes lutes and theorboes as well as a keyboard and abass viol. 37 Several other Oxford Music School manuscripts from this periodhave duplicate bass parts that look as if they were performed by an ensemblewith a sizeable continuo section, presumably to involve as many players aspossible in music that, on the face of it, seems designed for only three orfour. 38According to Anthony A Wood, the return of Charles II to London at the endof May 1660 began a decline in Oxford music-making, particularly at themeetings organised by William Ellis:After his Majesties restoration, when the masters of musick were restored totheir several places that they before had lost, or else if they had lost none, theyhad gotten them preferments, the weekly meetings at Mr Ellis’s house began todecay, because they were held up only by scholars, who wanted directors andinstructors &c so that in few yeares after, the meeting in that house ... [was]totally layd aside ... 39[18] As we have seen, Baltzar probably left Oxfordshire for London in thesummer of 1660, though there is no record of his receiving a court post untilthe summer of 1661. But when his preferment came, it was a handsome one; inSeptember 1661 he was appointed as a violinist in the Private Music at £110 ayear, starting from Midsummer 1661. 40 £110 was a great deal of money whenmany of the violinists in the Twenty-four Violins were getting only the samerate - 20d. a day - that their predecessors had been getting in the reign ofEdward VI. Moreover, since Baltzar received a new place rather than one thatwas already in existence, his salary may well have been a reflection of hispersonal standing as a musician rather than the application of precedence;£110 is one of the highest individual salaries paid to any royal musician at thetime, though a number of Baltzar’s colleagues actually earned more at Courtthan he did because they held several places simultaneously.Although there is no evidence that Baltzar ever returned to Oxford after hisdeparture for London, the note ‘Giuen mee by the Author, Mr Tho: Baltzar.October 1662’ at the end of the twelve-movement C minor. suite, shows thatLowe kept in touch with him, though it may have been in London rather thanOxford; Lowe also received a court post at the Restoration, as an organist ofthe Chapel Royal. The third suite by Baltzar in C. 102, an undated ninemovementwork, is of particular interest since parts survive for it in twodifferent keys. Five of them are in G major (the two violin parts, one copy ofthe bass part in the ‘loose Bases’ and a duplicate bass in Lowe’s continuo book,MS. Mus. Sch. E. 451), but the organ part in C. 102 is in A major, headed byLowe ‘Another Sute in A# the Other 3 partes prickt as they were first sett inGamut’. On the cover of E. 451 Lowe indexed the extra bass part - in G major37 Bellingham: op. cit., p. 4838 For instance, Ob Mus. Sch. MSS E. 431-6; a set of parts of Matthew Locke’s The First Part ofthe Broken Consort in Och Mus. MSS 772-6 includes autograph copies of the bass for threetheorboes.39 Shute: op. cit., ii, p. 10340 PRO, L.C. 3/73, 125; L.C. 5/137, 287, quoted in de Lafontaine op. cit., pp. 125 and 140; E.351/546, f. 5, quoted In Andrew Ashbee: Lists of Payments to the King’s Musick in the Reign ofCharles 11 (1660-1685) (Snodland, 1981), p. 50