Lowell Mason Codex
US-NH LM 5056 (also known as Ma21 Y2 L8, The Lowell Mason Codex, or "Codex E. B. 1688") is a manuscript which is held in the Yale University Library. It contains keyboard and organ works by Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Sebastian Bach, Alessandro Poglietti, and others.
This manuscript in Yale's Lowell Mason Collection provides the only extensive source of Buxtehude's organ music that survives from the seventeenth century. (Kerala Snyder)
Despite being only one of thousands of manuscripts in the Lowell Mason library that was donated to Yale University, it was dubbed the "Lowell Mason Codex" by Max Seiffert[Citation needed].
Description
Based on analysis of the paper used in this book, it can be traced to late 17th-century Saxony. The description of the first two sections of paper is as follows:
- Pages 1-124 contain a watermark and coat of arms related to Johann Georg III, who was the elector of Saxony from 1680-1691.
- Pages 125-228 contain a watermark reading Hainsbach and the year 1686. This could refer to the Heinsbach estate, located in Niedereinsiedel, east of Dresden.
A note written on page 228 states that Johannes Becker purchased this book at auction in 1776 and that he copied the following pieces. The section of the book starting on page 229 contains different paper from the first two, with an unidentified "ICB" watermark.
Furthermore, the date "1688" found on the cover of the book suggests the year it was bound. Even though the binding appears to have been rebound, the first part of the manuscript may have been finished before this date.
Scribe
Initially, the initials "E.B." which appear on the cover of the manuscript was conjecturally connected with Emanuel Benisch as he was the only known organist with these initials in Saxony in this time period. Later musicological findings and analysis of other documents known to have been written by him confirmed that the manuscript was in his hand. Johannes Becker stated that he was the scribe for the rest of the manuscript after he came into possession of it.
Date
Based on these findings, it can be concluded that the Lowell Mason Codex up to page 228 was copied from around 1680 to 1688 in Saxony. On the question of how pieces by composers from countries further away could have found their way into this book, Kerala Snyder suggested that they were rounded up by Nicolaus Adam Strungk, who is known to have travelled to Lübeck, Hamburg, Vienna, and Rome (However, it is known that the handwriting in this part of the Lowell Mason Codex is not Strungk's).
Some pieces in the manuscript are found in an earlier handwriting style by Benisch, suggesting that he had access to these pieces not only by Strungk but by other channels.
Links
US-NH LM 5056 Online facsimile: collections.library.yale.edu accessed 20 July, 2023, mirrored IMSLP880548.
References
Beckmann, Klaus (editor). Dietrich Buxtehude: Sämtliche Orgelwerke, Band I-II. Wiesbaden, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1997. 104.
Snyder, Kerala J.. Dietrich Buxtehude: organist in Lübeck. Revised edition. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2007. 331-333.