Francis Tregian the younger as music copyist

Musical Times, Summer 2002 by Smith, David J

Were the 'Tregian' manuscripts copied by the younger Francis Tregian, or are they the product of a professional scriptorium? There is no evidence that a scriptorium ever existed, and the evidence of the paper and handwriting is inconclusive: the variation in script is no more than might reasonably be expected in a project of this scope.50 No evidence has come to light that is inconsistent with the identification of Tregian as the scribe, even after revising the date of his death to 1617.(51) Thompson rightly questions the assumption that no music contained in the manuscripts could have been composed after his death (previously taken to have been in 1619): if any piece were shown to date from after 1617, or if it were possible to demonstrate beyond doubt that a certain sequence of works had been taken from a published source after this date, then whatever the Tregian connection to the copying process, he could not have been the scribe. However, she admits that `no printed source for the texts later than 1616 has yet been identified',52 so the hypothesis stands. Unless corroborative evidence comes to light to prove the existence of a scriptorium that might have produced the manuscripts, there is no reason to discard the hypothesis that Tregian was the scribe.

NOTES

1. RR Thompson: `Francis Tregian the Younger as music copyist: a legend and an alternative view', in Music fr Letters vol.82 no.1 (2001), pp.1-31. The abbreviations used for the Tregian manuscripts in her article have been adopted here.

2. Thompson's hypothesis is presented in an abridged form in RR Thompson: `The "Tregian" manuscripts: a study of their compilation , in The British Library Journal 18 (1992), pp.202-04. In response to this, Anne Cuneo questions Thompson's assumption that if Tregian did not copy all the music, then he cannot have been the instigator of the collection: Tregian may have been the collector even if he was not the copyist (see Anne Cuneo: Le trajet d'une riviere (Paris, 1995), pp.731-32). However, in this study, I aim to show that we should not rule out Tregian as the scribe.

3. E. Cole, 'In search of Francis Tregian', in Music & Letters vol.33 (1952), pp.28-32.

4. Thompson: 'Francis Tregian', p.7, Plate 1.

5. For example, she suggested that FVB and the score-books were copied by the younger Francis Tregian on the Continent and sent back in relays to his father in prison (E. Cole: `Seven problems of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book', in Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 79 (1952-53), p.61). This hypothesis is challenged in DJ Smith: `The instrumental music of Peter Philips: its sources, dissemination and style', D.Phil. diss. (University of Oxford, 1994), pp.64-71 (henceforth Smith).

6. For example, the use of Gothic script for German titles in Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Lubbenau MS Lynar Al, or the use of an italic typeface for book titles in this article.

7. J. Wainwright: Musical patronage in seventeenth-century England (Aldershot, 1997), pp.52-59.