Description
A project planned during the course of 20 years, Anne Dawson, Her Book first came to the attention of its editor when he was researching the contents of the Henry Watson Music Library in Manchester. It contains one of the most remarkable known collections of early eighteenth-century keyboard music, including transcriptions of eleven Vivaldi concerti (opp. 3 and 4), opera overtures, instrumental works and occasional pieces written for the harpsichord. These are the earliest known English transcriptions of Vivaldi’s music. Other content includes the famous A major Toccata, which has been attributed to Purcell, Michelangelo Rossi and J. S. Bach, which the editor has concluded to be an unknown work of Dietrich Buxtehude. A central section of eleven soprano arias, one of which needed reconstruction, provides material not known in other sources.
