A Purcell manuscript lost and found

This article reports the rediscovery of a large English manuscript mostly containing music for violin, recorder or flute and continuo. It was begun by the viola player William Armstrong (d.1717) in the first decade of the 18th century, apparently working for the aristocratic clergyman and amateur musician Edward Finch (1663–1738), who contributed most of the contents, including many of his own compositions. It was owned successively by Finch, Granville, William and James Sharp, James Bartleman, George Pigott and Thomas Taphouse, and before its recent discovery in a private collection was last heard of at the 1935 Sotheby's sale of the effects of the botanist and amateur musician Ellen Willmott. The manuscript has been chiefly known for containing the unique copy of Henry Purcell's so-called 'Violin Sonata in G minor' Z780 (which, Thurston Dart argued, was originally scored for violin, bass viol obbligato and continuo), though this preliminary study shows it to be of much wider significance. It hints at connections between Finch and composers such as Purcell, Gottfried Finger (his probable composition teacher), John Loeillet (perhaps his flute teacher), John Baptist Grano, Thomas Roseingrave and Francesco Geminiani, as well as musicians at York Minster, where Finch was a prebendary.