Early Sources [i]: The Wolfenbüttel Autographs

WB1, WB2 (Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 227 Musica-Hdschr. and Cod. Guelf. 8 Noviss. 2⁰.) In 1988, Katrin Kinder presented the discovery in the Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, of a volume (WB2) which unites several independent small tablature manuscripts, each containing a single piece, one of them being a hitherto unknown secular variation set by Heinrich Scheidemann, on the song Betrübet ist zu dieser Frist wv 104. ¹ She moreover demonstrated that in all probability it represents an autograph by Scheidemann, and that the same hand can be discerned in another manuscript from the same library (WB1), containing Scheidemann’s ‘Toccata auf 2 Clavier manualiter’ (Toccata in G wv 43). Most important in the present connection is the fact that WB2 bears the date 1630, which is the earliest-known date attached to a piece by Scheidemann. The latter source is a bifolium, intended in its unbound form as a playing score to be turned after the second variation (‘Verte’). WBl, on the other hand, is a small, independently bound fascicle. Its pages are held together by a small parchment strip about 4 cm wide which was taken from a tablature with writing similar to that of the toccata. (I have thus far not been able to connect the partly decipherable fragments with any known piece of his.) Thus Scheidemann himself may have been responsible for reusing a discarded page of his own tablature writing in the preparation of this manuscript.