VOICES AND VIOLS, BIBLES AND BINDINGS: THE ORIGINS OF THE BLOSSOM PARTBOOKS

The manuscript partbooks (CTB) preserved in the Special Collections Library at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, offer no obvious signs as to their origins. The contents are almost exclusively by London composers and are carefully laid out in an apparently unique alternation of texted and untexted works, as if in performance order. Using clues from the contents, as well as from the physical state of the books, a connection is proposed to events surrounding the death of Prince Henry in late 1612, and marriage of Princess Elizabeth and the Elector Palatine in 1613.