Previously unknown or long-forgotten works by famous composers occasionally emerge from searches of archives. Recent examples: a little waltz by Frédéric Chopin found at New York’s Morgan Library and Museum, and two instrumental pieces and an aria for “Sémiramis,” a never-completed cantata by Maurice Ravel, found in Paris’ Bibliotheque National de France.
A local council office’s files are a far less likely source for old scores (at least of the musical variety), but that’s where researchers have found several pieces by two of the great names of 17th-century English music, Henry Purcell and John Blow.
A song that Purcell wrote for “Love for Money,” a play by Thomas D’Urfey, was found in a Worcestershire records office. A bound collection of keyboard works by Purcell and Blow turned up in Norfolk; its blank pages were “repurposed around 1810, with some of the blank music staves being used as lines for the index of Thetford town council records,” The Guardian’s Dalya Alberge reports.
The discoveries were made in “Music, Heritage, Place: Unlocking the Musical Collections of England’s County Record Offices,” a project of the Royal Holloway, University of London and Newcastle University. “Both discoveries show the crucial role of county council archives and their staff in preserving this musical heritage,” said Stephen Rose of Royal Holloway.
Alberge’s report:
Letter V 