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WILLIAM BABELL AS A PERFORMER-COMPOSER AND MUSIC COPYIST
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2020
Extract
The career of William Babell (1688–1723), an English composer of German birth, has recently been reassessed by me following identification of a manuscript source in Bergamo, which appears to be a collection of his harpsichord music. The manuscript shows he was an important keyboard composer active in Britain immediately prior to the publication of Handel's Suites de Pieces pour le Clavecin (1720), and it has provided insights into his working methods. The major items – eleven substantial toccatas mostly in prelude–fugue form together with two suites – are replete with the cadenza-like passagework familiar from his arrangements of arias from operas produced at the Haymarket Theatre between 1706 and 1714, which were published in three collections in his lifetime (in 1709, 1711 and 1717). They also reveal the range of influences on his keyboard style, illustrating how he adapted material from music by French, Italian, German and English composers. Though the source is not an autograph, it was copied towards the end of Babell's life by an individual close to him, to judge from the large number of pencil corrections that appear to be the composer's own. The manuscript therefore has biographical implications, suggesting that there was a composer-supervised project to bring together his keyboard music, perhaps in order to prepare some of it for publication, which never saw completion.
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Footnotes
This essay uses RISM sigla to refer to manuscript sources; see Online Directory of RISM Library Siglahttp://www.rism.info/en/sigla. I am grateful to Michael Talbot and to the anonymous reviewers for reading and commenting on earlier versions.
References
1 See Woolley, Andrew, ‘New Light on William Babell's Development as a Keyboard Composer’, Early Music 46/2 (2018), 251–270CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 The arrangements are discussed extensively in Mangsen, Sandra, Songs Without Words: Keyboard Arrangements of Vocal Music in England, 1560–1760 (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2016), 59–155CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Ashbee, Andrew, ‘Babell, William’, in A Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians 1485–1714, two volumes, compiled by Andrew Ashbee and David Lasocki, assisted by Peter Holman and Fiona Kisby (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), volume 2, 44–46Google Scholar. See also Gerald Gifford with Terence Best, ‘Babell [Babel], William’, in Grove Music Online http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com (15 August 2019). Newly identified sources for Babell's biography will be discussed in my edition ‘William Babell, Toccatas and Suites for Harpsichord’ (forthcoming).
4 Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer (28 September 1723).
5 Babell, Twelve Solos for a Violin or Oboe with Basso Continuo, ed. Charles Gower Price, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era 140 (Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2005); Peter Holman, ‘Did Handel Invent the English Keyboard Concerto?’, The Musical Times 144 (Summer 2003), 13–22; William Babell, Concertos in 7 Parts, Op. 3 (London: Walsh, c1726); Gifford with Best, ‘Babell [Babel], William’.
6 Babell's versions of ‘Sulla ruota di fortuna’, ‘Hor la tromba’ and ‘Vo’ far guerra’ from Rinaldo (1711), ‘Si t'intendo’ from Croesus (1714), ‘Questo conforto solo’ from Antioco (1711), ‘Se in ombre nascosto’ from Il Pastor Fido (1712) and ‘Si, t'amo o caro’ from Teseo (1713), all of which were published in the Suits of the Most Celebrated Lessons, have written-out repeats of ‘A’ sections. The same is the case with Babell's versions of ‘E vano ogni pensiero’ and ‘Faro che si penta’ from Hydaspes (1710) and ‘Per te sol perduto ho bello’ from Almahide (1710), all of which were published in The 4th Book of the Ladys Entertainment (1711), and his version of ‘Dir può il labro’ from the pasticcio Ernelinda, unique to Babell's autograph manuscript from the Hornby Castle library (GB-Lfom, Coke 1257, pages 3–7).
7 Sammlung verschiedener Instrumental-Werke für Orgel und Klavier, Orchester- und Kammer-Musik, ed. Friedrich Chrysander, Georg Friedrich Händel's Werke, volume 48 (Leipzig: Händel-Gesellschaft, 1894), viii; English translation as given in William C. Smith, ‘Handel's “Rinaldo”: An Outline of the Early Editions’, The Musical Times 76 (August 1935), 695.
8 Gifford with Best, ‘Babell [Babel], William’.
9 Pont, Graham, ‘An Early 18th-Century Manuscript of Harpsichord Music: William Babell and Handel's Vo’ far Guerra’, British Library Journal 21 (1995), 176–183Google Scholar; Pont, Graham, ‘Reminiscences of “Rinaldo”: The Keyboard Transcriptions of “Vo’ far Guerra”’, Ad Parnassum 9/1 (2011), 7–35Google Scholar.
10 The Songs in Rinaldo was part of a series of songbooks devoted to operas performed at the Haymarket. These are described in Hunter, David, Opera and Song Books Published in England 1703–1726: A Descriptive Bibliography (London: Bibliographical Society, 1997)Google Scholar.
11 See Sammlung verschiedener Instrumental-Werke, ed. Chrysander, 206–209, and Smith, ‘Handel's “Rinaldo”’, 691.
12 Pont (‘Reminiscences of “Rinaldo”’, 17) has suggested that the attribution of the cadenzas to Babell stems from an edition published c1775, but their attribution to him on the title-page of the 1717 Walsh edition is in fact unambiguous.
13 See, for example, Barnett, Gregory, ‘Handel's Borrowings and the Disputed “Gloria”’, Early Music 34/1 (2006), 75–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar and 84.
14 Pont, Graham, ‘Handel's Keyboard Sonatas’, in The Early Keyboard Sonata in Italy and Beyond, ed. Stewart-MacDonald, Rohan H. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), 145–190Google Scholar.
15 Pont, ‘Handel's Keyboard Sonatas’, 177.
16 Pont, ‘Handel's Keyboard Sonatas’, 164.
17 For a detailed discussion of the points made in this paragraph see Woolley, ‘New Light’.
18 For inventories see Archives and Manuscripts http://searcharchives.bl.uk and Gerald Coke Handel Collection https://foundling.soutron.net/Portal/Default/en-GB/RecordView/Index/1255. The Dandrieu movements are identified in Woolley, ‘New Light’, 262.
19 An earlier, temporary binding could have been of flexible card similar to the binding of GB-Lbl, Add. MS 52363, an English keyboard manuscript copied c1704–1707.
20 Pont, ‘An Early 18th-Century Manuscript’, 179, shows Babell's signature as it appears in a copy of his will. Examples of Babell's signature in court records are illustrated in Woolley, ‘New Light’, 268.
21 These include not only a version of Babell's cadenzas for ‘Vo’ far guerra’ but also the overture from Rinaldo (Add. MS 71209, fols 49v–54; Suits of the Most Celebrated Lessons, pages 4–7), ‘Caro Bene’ / ‘Cares when’ from Clotilda (1709) (Add. MS 71209, fols 22v–27; Coke 1257, pages 36–40; The 4th Book of the Ladys Entertainment, pages 29–31), ‘Sì, t'amo, oh caro’ from Teseo (1713) (Add. MS 71209, fols 57v–59v; Suits, pages 43–45), ‘Si t'intendo’ from Thomyris (1707) or Croesus (1714) (Coke 1257, pages 19–23; Suits, pages 17–21), ‘Se in obre’ from Il Pastor Fido (1712) (Coke 1257, pages 23–30; Suits, pages 28–31) and ‘Or lieto’ from Antiochus (1712) (Coke 1257, pages 32–35; Suits, pages 33–35).
22 On Charles Babel see Gustafson, Bruce, ‘The Legacy in Instrumental Music of Charles Babel, Prolific Transcriber of Lully's Music’, in Jean-Baptiste Lully: Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Heidelburg 1987, ed. La Gorce, Jérôme de and Schneider, Herbert (Laaber: Laaber, 1990), 495–516Google Scholar. A list of Babel senior's manuscripts with further references is given in Andrew Woolley, ‘English Keyboard Sources and Their Contexts, c.1660–1720’ (PhD dissertation, University of Leeds, 2008), 199–201. William signed his name ‘Babel’, but the Anglicized spelling ‘Babell’, which was used by Walsh, helps to distinguish him from his French-born, Francophile father, whose name was always spelt with one ‘l’.
23 Pont, ‘An Early 18th-Century Manuscript’, 181.
24 William Babell's ownership is indicated by a cover stamp. See London, British Library MS Add. 39569 (‘Babell MS’), facsimile with Introduction by Bruce Gustafson (New York: Garland, 1987), v.
25 On fols 134v–end (fol. 163v) of the dessus partbook. The manuscript, gilt-tooled ‘C. Babel’ on the binding and signed ‘par Ch. Babel’ and ‘End. / C. Babel’, is currently held in the British Library awaiting cataloguing (formerly GB-Chogwood, M1092); see Woolley, ‘English Keyboard Sources’, 205–210.
26 Pont, Graham, ‘Some Questions Concerning Handel's Early London Copyists’, Early Music 44/2 (2016), 289–305CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
27 Best, Terence, Georg Friedrich Händel: Klavierwerke I–IV. Kritischer Bericht, Hallische Händel-Ausgabe, series 4, volume 7 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2000), 26Google Scholar.
28 Pont, ‘Some Questions’, 296.
29 According to one authority, ‘the idea that deluxe bindings were individually bespoke may be dismissed out of hand’: Bennett, Stuart, Trade Bookbinding in the British Isles, 1660–1800 (London: British Library, 2004)Google Scholar, 127. Motifs similar to those on Coke 1257 can also be seen on a late seventeenth-century English binding illustrated in Pearson, David, English Bookbinding Styles 1450–1800: A Handbook (London: British Library, 2005)Google Scholar, 70 (Figure 3.66).
30 Pont, ‘Some Questions’, 289.
31 See Andrew Woolley, ‘Tunes for Violin or Recorder Collected in North-East England and London in the Late Seventeenth Century: The Provenance and Contents of the Blakiston Manuscript (GB-Lbl, Add. MS 17853)’, in ‘Music in North-East England before 1850’, ed. Stephanie Carter, Kirsten Gibson and Rosemary Southey (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, forthcoming).
32 Best, Georg Friedrich Händel: Klavierwerke I–IV. Kritischer Bericht, 37. Bound into the rear of the manuscript are copies of two Handel chaconnes, hwv442/2 and 484, copied by J. C. Smith the elder c1722.
33 See Jones, Peter Ward and Burrows, Donald, ‘An Inventory of Mid-Eighteenth-Century Oxford Musical Hands’, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 35 (2002), 63 and 125–126CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
34 The date of Loeillet's collection is identified in Cooper, Barry, English Solo Keyboard Music of the Middle and Late Baroque (New York: Garland, 1989)Google Scholar, Supplement. The pieces in the Walond manuscript from Sandoni's collections are on pages 64–67, 72–75 and 90–93. The ‘Minuetto’ is on pages [147–148].
35 A special issue of the Händel-Jahrbuch (volume 64, 2018) has been devoted to articles dealing with the reuse of existing material in Handel's music. Studies from the past twenty years relating to this area also include Winemiller, John T., ‘Recontextualizing Handel's Borrowing’, The Journal of Musicology 15/4 (1997), 444–470CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zohn, Steven with Payne, Ian, ‘Bach, Telemann, and the Process of Transformative Imitation in BWV 1056/2 (156/1)’, The Journal of Musicology 17/4 (1999), 546–584CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Barnett, ‘Handel's Borrowings’.
36 See Talbot, Michael, ‘A Busy Copyist and Shy Composer: Two Sides of Francesco Barsanti (ca. 1690–1775)’, De musica disserenda 11/1–2 (2015), 127CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 Dean, Winton, ‘Handel's Early London Copyists’, in Essays on Opera (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), 21Google Scholar.
38 See Herissone, Rebecca, Musical Creativity in Restoration England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 174, and Rebecca Herissone, Musical Creativity in Restoration England Appendix: Catalogue of Restoration Music Manuscripts, http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=16614, where a large number of manuscripts copied in Chapel-Royal style, whose copyists are unknown, is identified.