The Henry VIII Book (British Library, Add. MS 31922) ed. David Fallows (review)

This facsimile edition is the fourth in the series by the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (DIAMM), which aims to publish facsimiles of the highest quality at a reasonable price. The first three editions in this series have likewise all been of English sources ( The Eton Choirbook, The Dow Partbooks, and William Byrd’s Masses for 3, 4, and 5 Voices), although future volumes will include sources that originated in other countries. The facsimile is a lavish, fullcolor reproduction of the manuscript’s 128 folios, as well as its binding.

Because The Henry VIII Bookis not nearly as well known as its more famous contemporary sources— The Eton Choirbookand The Fayrfax Book, both compiled approximately one decade earlier—a brief description is in order. It is the main surviving source of secular music from the court of Henry VIII. It was most likely copied between 1510 and 1513 for someone in the king’s circle, though not the king or his immediate family. It contains 109 pieces in a variety of genres, both vocal and instrumental, including “consorts” (pieces with no title or cue), rounds, carols, theatrical songs, freemen’s songs, and a few larger works. “Freemen’s songs” is a disputed term, as David Fallows admits, and may be roughly defined as a cappellasongs for male voices on a “convivial text, often with hunting themes” (p. 17). The composers represented in this manuscript are predominantly English, including Robert Cooper (Cowper?), William Cornysh, William Daggere, John Dunstable, Thomas Ffaredynge (Farthing), Robert Ffayrfax (Fayrfax), John Fflude (Flude), John Kempe, William Pygott, and Henry Rysbye; except for Ffayrfax and Cornysh, this manuscript has no composers in common with either The Fayrfax Bookor The Eton Choirbook. The composer with the largest number of compositions, however, is King Henry VIII himself (hence the modern sobriquet of this manuscript), with thirty-three pieces; some of the anonymous works have also been attributed to Henry by modern scholars, although Fallows doubts these ascriptions. The manuscript also contains at least twelve compositions from the Continent, including some very well-known pieces such as Hayne van Ghizeghem’s Alles regretand De tous bien plane, plus other works by Alexander Agricola, Jacobus Barbireau, Loyset Compère, Felice di Giovanni Martini (or, less likely, Antoine Busnoys), Antoine de Fevin, Henricus Isaac, Pierre Moulu, and Denis Prioris.

The value of any facsimile edition can be significantly enhanced by its introduction, and Fallows’s eighty-five-page prolegomenon does not disappoint in any way. It is divided into six chapters that deal, respectively, with the book (the composers and its context), a physical description, the repertory, Henry VIII, history, and a commentary on the compositions. This is followed by an extremely helpful four-page bibliography and three indexes: a general index, an index of related manuscripts, and an index of song texts. Finally, three tables complete the introduction: an inventory of the manuscript; differences between the body of the volume and the original index (table of contents); and a summary of the scoring, texting, and cleffing of each of the pieces. Fallows’s writing is, as always, both engaging and erudite, and occasionally makes use of the wry humor we often associate with British scholarship (“I spent a bit of time wondering whether Farthing [a possible copyist] had no serious interest in either the meaning or the metrical design of the texts; but later thought that viewpoint rather too much influenced by the classical music singers of today” [p. 25]).

The manuscript remained in private hands until bought by the British Museum in 1882. Although it was occasionally discussed in the literature, the most important and thorough discussion was by John Stevens, who provided a critical edition of the texts (John Stevens, Music & Poetry...