Panmure Violin Manuscript 2
Location: GB-Enr
Reference: GD45/26/104
Date: 1670 - 1680 [circa]
Size: Oblong octavo
Extent: 16 folios
Notes:
Short violin book in the collection of the Maules of Panmure, Earls of Lothian. In contrast with the rest of the Panmure manuscripts, this volume is unbound, with both front and back leaves showing considerable signs of wear. Its sixteen folios were evidently once part of a larger volume, with the stubs of several missing leaves at the front. The manuscript seems to have been separate to the main part of the Panmure music library. It was not listed in Harie Maule’s Ane Catollogue of Books left at Edr Agustt 1685 (GB-Enr GD45/27/30) and does form not part of the Panmure collection now held at the National Library of Scotland, but is held within the family papers at the National Records of Scotland.
Panmure Violin MS 2 has chiefly been of interest to scholars for its attributions to Jafery Banister, possibly the “Panmure scribe” (see notes to Panmure violin MS 1), a distinctive script used in this manuscript, along with Panmure violin MS 1, the Panmure Ensemble Part-books, the two Newbattle violin manuscripts, and the Cockburn MS. Not previously noted is this manuscript’s similarity in contents to Newbattle Violin MS 2, possibly indicative of its use as another teaching volume by the Panmure scribe in lessons undertaken by Harie or James Maule in the 1670s.
The manuscript’s 22 musical items are divided into three separate sections, roughly matching the tri-part division of Newbattle MS 2. The first consists of nine court dances (ff. 1-7) in the hand of the “Panmure scribe”, with music attributed to Jafery Banister, Robert Smith, and [John?] Banister, including several concordances with other Newbattle and Panmure volumes.
The central part of the manuscript (ff. 11-14v) features another hand, not otherwise seen in the Panmure or Newbattle volumes, with a careful and neat script, possibly another professional or experienced amateur. This section’s nine pieces all appear to be the top or inner parts of ensemble music, written in alto and tenor clef, with one piece copied twice side-by-side in alto and treble clefs. Finally, the manuscript closes with three vernacular tunes.
Bibliography:
Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers, 365-6.
McCart, The Kers and the Maules.
McCart, “The Panmure Manuscripts"
McGregor, Violin and Violin Music in Scotland, 221-5, 229-230, 397.
Includes transcription of the three vernacular tunes from Panmure MS 2.
Stell, Sources, 159-163.