The Music of the Hattons

Abstract

The core of the historical collection of printed and manuscript music at Christ Church, Oxford derives from a generous bequest in the year 1710 by the late dean of the college, Henry Aldrich. Generosity of other donors is not in question, but Aldrich was more than primus inter pares. An almost contemporary bequest by Richard Goodson senior pales in comparison: printed books from before 1670 (for example) that were contributed by him number barely one-fifteenth of those from the Aldrich bequest. The means whereby Aldrich amassed his musical treasures were lost to direct investigation through the destruction of his personal papers at his express request. It is the aim of this essay to show the extent of evidence for a new claim on the origins of a large part of the collection: that Aldrich acquired shortly after the year 1670 a musical library built up by the first Baron Hatton of Kirby on the basis of his own father's collection. By correlating printed and manuscript contents, it will be shown that a further group of more widely scattered manuscripts was copied for use by Hatton's musicians, and can thus be considered as directly or indirectly dependent on his patronage.