An Unknown Autograph of Harpsichord Music by William Croft

This article discusses a previously unknown bifolium of harpsichord music in the hand of the English composer William Croft (1678–1727), located in a guardbook at Christ Church Library, Oxford, Mus. 1141a. While many compilers of harpsichord manuscripts from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries appear to have assembled or part-assembled collections without the aid of exemplars, copies where the compiler is identifiable are rare. Croft's manuscript is enigmatic in several respects; for instance, its provenance is unclear. Nevertheless, its discovery affords an opportunity to reassess Croft's harpsichord music and to compare the autograph and its contents to other English keyboard autographs of the period, many of which are little known.