The circumstances surrounding the compilation of many seventeenth-century English keyboard manuscripts remain unknown. The most concrete information exists for the early-seventeenth-century repertory, and scholars have also identified several copyists from sources dating from the end of the century. Without considering the question of repertory, the focus on the earlier manuscripts can be explained in part for the following reasons. A few volumes are associated in some way or another with famous composers (for example, Thomas Tomkins and his autograph Conservatoire National de Musique (in Bibliothèque Nationale), Paris, (F-Pc) MS Rés. 1122), and others are noteworthy for their expansive contents (Fitzwilham Museum, Cambridge MS Mu 128, the famous ‘Fitzwilliam Virginal Book‘). Others are well known because their copyists are familiar personalities, such as British Library, London (Lbl) RM MS 23.1.4 and F-Pc MS Rés. 1185—both connected with Benjamin Cosyn, organist of Dulwich College and conspicuous for his knowledge of John Bull's music. However, the copyists of most mid-century keyboard manuscripts remain unidentified. Concrete information concerning the copyists of a few sources exists, but most identified copyists are unknown men or women—keyboard music in the hand of a prominent musician is quite rare.
Throughout the nineteenth century, the education of young gentlewomen almost always included music lessons, with piano lessons being the most frequently recommended. The social context for these young women pianists, "piano girls," has been described in several modern works, particularly since Arthur Loesser's seminal work Men, Women, and Pianos: A Social History. 1 In the 1980s, Judith Tick made the term "piano girl" a familiar one in musicological studies, and since that time the idea of the piano girl and her role in society has been explored by others. 2 Most of these studies describe the social phenomenon of the piano girl, but how she played, whether the repertory differed based on occasion, and the extent of application has yet to be fully considered. In order to fully appreciate the context, and by extension the performance practice, of the piano girl, she must be examined within her own culturally specific milieu. In her perceptive work on French women pianists of this period, Katharine Ellis has demonstrated the importance of isolating the phenomenon within a defined time and place, for values do not necessarily 1
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