4

THOMAS MARSDEN’S COLLECTION

othing seems to be known of this author except what we may see from his book; that he was an accomplished violinist in the traditional style, and a prolific, if not very imaginative composer of variations. His name, of course, suggests a Northern background.’ So said Roderick Cannon in 1972, and nothing more has emerged regarding the publication since. The only surviving copy is in the British Library, bound between hard boards measuring 21cm by 16cm. It has been stained in the top right corner of the recto throughout by grease or oil, and has some ink staining on page 5/6 but is otherwise in good condition.

We are told in the title that this is ‘the first of this kind’, and must assume therefore that it was printed before John Walsh’s lost 1705 collection. Chappell, who admits he has not seen the book, speaks of a 1697 edition. If such a thing existed it would suggest that Marsden may have brought to London a kind of music hitherto unfamiliar in the city. Playford first published his Cheshire Rounds in 1701; his previous triple-time hornpipes, and those by the likes of Purcell from the 1690’s have a harmonic structure similar to the earlier art music hornpipes; many of Marsden’s are of structures typical of drone music, for which the equivalent of a tonic-dominant harmony is the so-called ‘double-tonic’ one. Whether from bagpipe or from the old ‘vielle’ with its drone strings and flat bridge, this music belongs to a genre that speaks of having had drones in its origins.

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