page_title: Drexel 4041
section_title: Content
hierarchical_section_title: Drexel 4041 / Content
caption_attribution_description: English: Folio 143 verso, showing additional royalist lyrics from the song "Joyne thy inameld Checke to myne" from Drexel 4041, a music manuscript in the Music Division of the New York Public Library
context_page_description: Drexel 4041 is a 17th-century British music manuscript commonplace book. As described by musicologist John P. Cutts, Drexel 4041 "is a treasure-house of early seventeenth-century song and dramatic lyric worthy of the attention of any student of seventeenth-century literature and drama." It is also a major source for the work of English composer William Lawes. Belonging to the New York Public Library, it forms part of the Drexel Collection, housed in the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Following traditional library practice, its name is derived from its call number.
context_section_description: The contents of the manuscript suggest the owner liked the theatre, as there are lyrics to at least 30 plays. The collection is unusual in that most of the texts can be identified. 
  Cutts surmises that these compilations of music manuscripts, while giving the impression of commonplace books, also suggest that the music and poetry of theatre musicians were circulated among each other, influencing their compositional development.
  Evans remarks upon the song "Why soe pall and wan fond louer" and notes that it was probably written and known prior to its appearance in John Suckling's play Aglaura, based on the character Orsames's comments to it: "I little foolish counsel, Madame, I gave / a Friend of mine four or fives years ago / When he was falling into a consumption." Evans notes that the song was easy to perform, so that it could be sung by regular members of the acting company (rather than a professional singer).  L.A. Beaurline states that this  setting of "Why So Pale and Wan" is the earliest existing musical setting of this lyric.
  Cutts remarks that "it is virtually impossible to be certain that particular songs are not actually separate songs but sections of others." Clearly some songs gave Cutts trouble; where he saw two songs beginning at folio 89 verso ("Come from the dungeon to the throne" followed by "Thou O bright sun"), Jorgens renders these as a single song.
  Musicologist Vincent J. Duckles notes the first song, "Beauty which all men admire" must have had some currency as it is found in two other contemporaneous manuscripts.  He calls it a "tour de force" of harmonic experimentation work, showing the early Baroque range of harmonic freedom to an extent rarely found in English music.
  The song "Oh let us howl" from John Webster's play The Duchess of Malfi has received attention.  An unnamed reviewer commented that it is the only source that provides a satisfactory thorough bass for the work.  Duckles finds it "particularly interesting because it is written for a tenor voice, joined by the bass in a 2-part chorus in the last section "At last when as our quire wants breath . . . ", an arrangement which may well have been the one employed in the original  production of the play. Furthermore, it bears a contemporary attribution to Robert Johnson as the composer. What Mr. Cutts has been able to conjecture on stylistic grounds is thus confirmed by solid documentary evidence."
  Cutts regarded the marginal note on 124v "he/my/King/too" as evidence that the compiler was royalist in sympathy and identified himself with the song's denunciation of the adversaries of King Charles I of England.  This evidence led Cutts to believe the collection was assembled prior to the execution of Charles I in 1649.
  Evans notes that the text of "A Loose Sarabande" by Richard Lovelace offers textual variants.
caption: Folio 143 verso - the lyrics provide evidence of royalist sympathies
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