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Book of the Month

The treasury of musick - May 2005

Henry Lawes. The treasury of musick: containing ayres and dialogues to sing to the theorbo-lute or basse-viol . London: printed by William Godbid for John Playford, 1669. [Rare Books Collection FOL. M1623.5L4]

By Katie Sambrook, Special Collections Librarian

Book of the month archive

Title page of: Henry Lawes. The treasury of musick: containing ayres and dialogues to sing to the theorbo-lute or basse-viol. London: printed by William Godbid for John Playford, 1669. [Rare Books Collection FOL. M1623.5L4]

The musical reputation of Henry Lawes (1596-1662), one of the leading English composers of his time, has suffered eclipse in the centuries since his death. Charles Burney, writing in the late eighteenth century, summed up contemporary opinion when he described Lawes as "Languid and insipid, and equally devoid of learning and genius". Only in recent years, with the explosion of interest in the lesser known composers of the Baroque period, has there been a recognition of the value of his work and of his place in England musical history. Commercial recordings and performances have been made of a number of his works, often on period instruments. During and immediately after his lifetime, however, Lawes was highly regarded, as indicated both by the re-publication of many of his compositions in 1669 in The treasury of musick and by the various poems in his praise that form its prefatory material.

Henry Lawes: his life and work

In his recent study of Lawes Ian Spinks refers to him as the "Cavalier songwriter" and his life and career were indeed closely intertwined with the fortunes of the Stuart court. Henry Lawes served his musical apprenticeship at the Chapel Royal, before joining the household of the Earl of Bridgewater. This position provided him with an entry into courtly and literary circles and he soon numbered poets such as Thomas Carew, Robert Herrick and James Shirley among the admirers of his musical talents; settings to music of their works and those of their contemporaries represent a substantial proportion of his oeuvre. Perhaps the best known of his literary associations was with John Milton; in 1634 they collaborated in the composition of the masque Comus, Lawes writing the music and Milton the words. This masque was written for the Earl of Bridgewater and was first performed at his residence, Ludlow Castle. The Earl's three children, Lord Brackley, Thomas Egerton and Lady Alice Egerton, played leading parts in the performance, while Lawes himself played the part of Thyrsis, the attendant spirit.

Decorated initial from: Henry Lawes. The treasury of musick: containing ayres and dialogues to sing to the theorbo-lute or basse-viol. London: printed by William Godbid for John Playford, 1669. [Rare Books Collection FOL. M1623.5L4]

The outbreak of the Civil War brought Lawes's courtly appointments to an end and he was obliged to become a singing master in order to make his living. His younger brother William, also a notable composer, joined the Royalist army and was killed in 1645 at the siege of Chester. Henry Lawes was re-appointed to the Chapel Royal and to the king's band after the Restoration of the Stuarts in 1660 and when he died, in 1662, the high esteem in which he was once more held was reflected in his burial in Westminster Abbey.

Lawes's musical output can be said to fall into two main categories: serious songs and dramatic monodies composed for a serious and musically knowledgeable audience and light ephemeral pieces, written largely with his pupils in mind and suited to their musical capabilities. Most of his better music is secular in theme. His contemporaries valued him particularly for what they saw as his ability to match words to music; he was seen very much as a poet's composer. In the words of William Barker's laudatory verses that preface The treasury of musick:

Poetts themselves do owe their Lives to you;
Whose Phansies soon would stifle, and declare
They could not breath unlesse you lent them Ayre...
Your Art such Motion to our Verses brings
We can but give them Feet, You give them Wings.

Lawes's careful settings to music of the poems of his contemporaries explain in part both his contemporary popularity and the failure of much of his work to achieve lasting renown. The artistic culture of early seventeenth century England was literary, rather than musical, in its emphasis and Lawes's songs, which sought to mirror faithfully in the rise and fall of their melodies the rhythms and literary sense of the verse, were likely to meet with a favourable response from his contemporaries. Later ages, however, which placed a higher value on music for its own sake and which witnessed an increasing complexity and sophistication of composition, were less likely to be in sympathy with his work. Lawes did not seek to set emotions to music; his aim was rather to match through melody the meaning and sound of individual words and phrases. His approach suited the work of the Caroline poets, with their love of puns and conceits, and his settings of Thomas Carew's poems, for example, are skilful and successful. His works shows the influence of both English and Italian composers, such as Campion, Caccini and Monteverdi.

The treasury of musick and the printing of music

Publisher's device from: Henry Lawes. The treasury of musick: containing ayres and dialogues to sing to the theorbo-lute or basse-viol. London: printed by William Godbid for John Playford, 1669. [Rare Books Collection FOL. M1623.5L4]

The treasury of musick, printed seven year after Lawes's death, is a re-publication of his earlier volumes of Ayres and dialogues (1658) and Select ayres and dialogues (1659), together with some later material and songs by other composers. The book was printed by William Godbid for John Playford, the leading publisher and bookseller of musical scores in Stuart England, and is of interest as much as an example of seventeenth century music printing as for its musical content.

The printing of musical scores was a complex and problematical area of book production throughout the hand press period. The earliest printers had struggled to find an efficient method of printing scores and had resorted to over-printing; the lines of the stave were printed first, the type was then changed from stave-lines to musical notes, the paper was re-inserted in the press and a second impression was taken. In the early sixteenth century a single impression method was developed; single pieces of type containing both a section of the stave and a musical note or notes were cast. This method, which dominated the printing of music for well over a hundred years, worked well provided that the notation required was relatively simple. Once more complex musical compositions became common, its limitations led to the increasing use of engraved copper plates for the printing of music. In England, however, the printing of music from type persisted for quite a long time and Playford, who was a conservative publisher in his approach to printing techniques, remained one of its advocates.

An example of table-book printing from: Henry Lawes. The treasury of musick: containing ayres and dialogues to sing to the theorbo-lute or basse-viol. London: printed by William Godbid for John Playford, 1669. [Rare Books Collection FOL. M1623.5L4]:

An imaginative development in music printing was the table-book, of which The treasury of musick is a good example. First developed by the printer Jacques Moderne (ca. 1495-1562) in the book Parangon des chansons, printed at Lyon in 1538, the table-book aimed to meet the needs of performers seated at different sides of a table. The scores for each part of a song were printed to face in different directions on the page, enabling each performer to read his or her part with ease. Table-books were very popular and the survival in Germany of actual stone tables with musical scores carved on their edges indicate how universal was the practice of sitting around a table to sing.

As well as publishing and selling musical scores, Playford also acted as a musical stationer, selling in his shop "all sorts of Rul'd Paper for Musick, and Books of all sizes ready Bound for Musick", and as a supplier of musical instruments. His advertisement (leaf A31v of the second book of The treasury of musick) also states that he sells an "Excellent Cordial ... admirable for all Coughs and Consumptions of the Lungs", an illustration of the diversification of activity common among booksellers of the time. However, music was his main concern; he was himself a competent composer and it is likely that some of the alterations made to Lawes's scores in the The treasury of musick were of Playford's own devising. He describes himself, in the preface to the first book, as "A Faithfull Servant to all Lovers of Musick".

An intriguing provenance

Jeremiah Clarke (1673?-1707) was himself a noted composer, best remembered today for his popular Trumpet Voluntary. He received his musical education at the Chapel Royal under John Blow and later became its organist, as well as Vicar Choral of St. Paul's. Found dead in his lodgings with a bullet in his brain, he was believed to have committed suicide as a result of a failed love affair. His death caused the poet Edward Ward, author of The London spy, to observe:

Let us not therefore wonder at his fall,
Since 'twas not so unnatural
For him who liv'd by Canon to expire by Ball.

Was Clarke the composer the "Jer. Clarke 1705" who owned and annotated our copy of The treasury of musick? In the absence of any further information about the book's provenance, it seems at least a reasonable working assumption to make. The book also contains the bookplate of the orientalist and collector William Marsden (1754-1836), whose library was given to King's shortly before his death, but there is in fact no evidence that Marsden ever owned it; his bookplate seems to have been affixed fairly indiscriminately to books in our collections by the library staff of King's in the nineteenth century. Any other bookplates or manuscript evidence as to the book's ownership history that may have existed were lost when the book was re-bound in the 1960s.

Further reading

Charles Burney. A general history of music. New York; Dover, [1957] [Maughan Library ML159.B93G28]

Bruce Pattison. Music and poetry of the English Renaissance. London: Methuen, 1948 [Maughan Library ML286.2P27]

Ian Spink. Henry Lawes: Cavalier songwriter. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Ernest Walker. A history of music in England. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1952 [Maughan Library ML286.W15W52]

Patricia J. Willetts. The Henry Lawes manuscript. London: The British Museum, 1969 [Maughan Library, Humanities Store ML134.L41A4W66]

J.T. Wisely. The literary relations of Henry Lawes. [Unpublished typescript]. [S.l.]: [s.n.], [ca. 1970] [Foyle Special Collections Library, Miscellaneous Collection, FOL. ML410.L41A5W75]

Also of interest

Matthew Locke. Melothesia, or, Certain general rules for playing upon a continued-bass: with a choice collection of lessons for the harpsichord and organ of all sorts: never before published. London: printed for J. Carr, 1673 [Rare Books Collection MT252.L7]

John Milton. Poems both English and Latin, compos'd at several times: printed by his true copies. The songs were set in musick by Mr. Henry Lawes. London: printed by Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Moseley, 1645 [Rare Books Collection PR3552 R19]

John Milton. Comus: a mask presented at Ludlow Castle 1634, before the Earl of Bridgewater, then President of Wales by John Milton. With notes critical and explanatory by various commentators, and with preliminary illustrations; to which is added a copy of the mask from a manuscript belonging to His Grace the Duke of Bridgewater ... Canterbury: printed by and for W. Bristow, 1798 [Rare Books Collection PR3557.A1D98]

John Playford. Musicks recreation on the viol, lyra-way: being a collection of new lessons lyra-way: to which is added, a preface containing some brief rules and instructions for young practitioners. London: printed by W.G. [i.e. William Godbid] for J. Playford, and are to be sold at his shop, 1661 [Rare Books Collection MT338.P6]

George Sandys. A paraphrase upon the Psalmes of David and upon the hymnes dispersed throughout the Old and New Testaments. London: at the Bell in St. Pauls Church-yard [for Andrew Hebb], 1636 [Rare Books Collection BS1424.Sa5]. The music is by Lawes.