We recently came across this article by Andrew Woolley
concerning a collective manuscript in Bergamo (I-BGi
XIV 8751 H 1, RISM ID no. 850014351):
Andrew Woolley, “New light on William Babell’s
development as a keyboard composer,” Early Music 46,
no. 2 (May 2018): 251–270. Short title in RISM:
WoolleyB 2018, available online.
Woolley writes that “the holdings of the Biblioteca
Musicale Gaetano Donizetti in Bergamo have recently
been brought to wider attention thanks to...(+)
We recently came across this article by Andrew Woolley
concerning a collective manuscript in Bergamo (I-BGi
XIV 8751 H 1, RISM ID no. 850014351):
Andrew Woolley, “New light on William Babell’s
development as a keyboard composer,” Early Music 46,
no. 2 (May 2018): 251–270. Short title in RISM:
WoolleyB 2018, available online.
Woolley writes that “the holdings of the Biblioteca
Musicale Gaetano Donizetti in Bergamo have recently
been brought to wider attention thanks to RISM’s
expanding online catalogue” (p. 253). And it is
thanks to scholars such as Woolley that close studies
of music manuscripts are carried out, leading to new
insights and enabling us to enhance the RISM
database.
This article packs a punch. Woolley argues that this
music manuscript—containing eleven toccatas, two
suites, seven preludes, and two other pieces—has up
to now been falsely attributed to Georg Friedrich
Händel: it is in fact an important source of music by
William Babell (1688–1723).
William Babell was a London-based keyboard player,
violinist, and composer, and he arranged numerous opera
arias for keyboard. RISM has fourteen printed editions
by Babell, including the Suits collections for
keyboard, and manuscripts preserved in England,
Germany, and Sweden. In Woolley’s view, concordances
with the Suits as well as with authenticated autograph
manuscripts at the British Library and the Foundling
Museum, plus other musical characteristics, point to
authorship by Babell.
One might wonder what the purpose of this manuscript
was, which includes, at the very end, a fragment of the
song “Sally in our alley” by Henry Carey. The
manuscript has numerous pencil corrections that suggest
it might have been Babell’s own composing manuscript;
in any case, it shows a familiarity with Babell’s
hand, which points to the possibility that a close
member of his family was involved in its creation: his
father Charles, or maybe his sister Elizabeth?
More details can be read in the full article, including
Babell’s relationship with Handel’s music and the
music of other composers such as Jean-François
Dandrieu. We have updated the RISM entries for the
Bergamo manuscript in accordance with Woolley’s
findings.
PARTITION