ALC 0074 Keyboard Music from Codex Vienna, Minorite Convent, 714

Among the treasures of the music archives the friars of the Vienna Minorite Order have been able to shield against the perils of over four centuries is a manuscript codex, now catalogued under call number XIV.714, that with its over 500 pieces makes for one of the largest collections of early 17th-century keyboard music. While we know next to nothing about its provenance, Codex 714 is the venue of a unique encounter between a fascinating variety of composers, genres, and styles around 1600.

On the one hand we find original compositions in the typical genres of the time copied from some of the latest publications such as Girolamo Frescobaldi’s Fantasie. A similar case could be assumed for Claudio Merulo’s Toccata primi toni, but a closer look reveals that it is not the well-known version from the 1598 first book of Toccate. Rather, Codex 714 seems to be a rare example for a manuscript dissemination of Merulo’s work similar to the Toccata quinti toni by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, for which the codex constitute one of only two surviving sources. We can assume that the two variations on a tune known as “Die flüchtige Nymphe” made it into Codex 714 through similar avenues deriving from the circle around Sweelinck and Samuel Scheidt.