Some questions concerning Handels early London copyists

This article questions Winton Dean's classification of Handel's early London copyists, arguing that his methods of distinguishing musical handwritings are unreliable. Dean was misled by the testimony of Elizabeth Legh that her copy of Teseo in the Malmesbury Collection was 'Transcribed by M^r Linike', a viola player who acted as a copyist for the Haymarket Theatre. Dean compiled a list of 'Linike Copies' he dated from October 1712 to c.1725.

The Malmesbury Teseo was actually copied by William Babell, the scribe known as rm1 and h2. Several manuscripts listed in Dean's 'Table 4: rm1 Copies' exhibit detailed similarities with manuscripts supposedly written by Linike, Beta, rm4, J. C. Smith Sr and others. These similarities include decorative act and scene titles which Dean admits could all be by the same scribe. That scribe, I conclude, was William Babell, who also copied the musical text of many of these manuscripts.

Since Babell's hand is extremely variable, I avoid the usual methods of identifying copyists by shapes of clefs, notes, rests etc. and instead draw attention to idiosyncrasies of spelling and graphic decoration and similarities of binding which indicate that Babell acted as Handel's principal copyist from c.1711 until his death in 1723.

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