The Gyffard Partbooks, 1 and 2 (review)

One of the most important sources of Tudor music, the Gyffard partbooks (British Library Add. Mss. 17802-5) contain, as editor David Mateer describes (1:ix), "a broad and representative selection" of sacred Latin polyphony produced in England just before the Reformation. Given the editorial decision to omit from these two volumes those works from the Gyffard partbooks that have already appeared in the composer-based volumes of Early English Church Music (EECM)—everything by Taverner and Tye, for example—the present edition might perhaps be more accurately described as "selections" from the Gyffard partbooks. The decision to reproduce the remainder of works in manuscript order is an excellent one that stays close to the source itself. Noting where works previously published in EECM volumes would appear in a complete, continuous edition of the partbooks would be a welcome inclusion, however, if only in the table of contents. This would allow readers a complete overview of the content and organization of the source, which one would assume is the reason for presenting the editions in manuscript order.

Mateer's introductory essay dates the manuscripts to the relatively late window of "the 1570s and early 1580s" (1:x). By relying heavily on watermarks, biographical evidence, and the ownership of the manuscripts, he dispels common misconceptions and flawed theories that date the sources to the 1550s, and offers the more recent dates as a convincing alternative. In tracing the Gyffard partbooks' provenance and ownership, Mateer offers an engaging narrative that also draws the reader into a world of political intrigue in both the government and the academy. He begins by disputing early attributions of the partbooks' ownership to a certain Dr. Philip Gyffard, asserting that this "incorporeal figure" (1:x) was a conjuration of misinterpreted evidence. Instead, a flesh-and-blood Dr. Roger Gifford (ca. 1536-1597) is identified as the likely owner of the partbooks, and his biography fills the bulk of the introduction. Mateer compares Gifford's biography to the repertoire contained in each layer of the partbooks, linking Gifford's time in Oxford to the earliest layer of the manuscripts. The second layer contains many works by composers working in or connected to London; Gifford was appointed one of the Censors of the Royal College of Physicians there in 1570. Mateer successfully links the repertoire of the final layer to the social circles in which Gifford traveled, in spite of the challenges presented by the large number of anonymous works. The scribes of the Gyffard partbooks cannot yet be identified conclusively, but the editor suggests that Roger Gifford was not one of them (though he likely instructed them on what repertoire to copy), pointing to Latin mistakes that the learned doctor would certainly not have made. He identifies two scribes, the second of whom likely began work on the partbooks much later than the first. The discussion that follows details the qualities of both hands and the role each scribe played in text underlay, music copying, and other responsibilities. Taken as a whole, the introduction provides a compact overview of the Gyffard partbooks and their contents, as well as a persuasive argument for rethinking the dating, provenance, and ownership of the manuscripts.

Mateer's editorial decisions consistently highlight the source itself, and the spelling and text underlay are no exception. In those rare cases where a concordant source differs from that in the Gyffard partbooks (many of the works are unica), he...