Instrumental Music for London Theatres, 1690 - 99

Facsimile: Royal College of Music, MS 1172
Introduction by Curtis Price

Among the largest collections of late seventeenth-century English theatre music, Royal College of Music MS 1172 is a carefully selected anthology of virtually every type of instrumental music required by the London theatres in the 1690s – overtures, act-tunes, dances and music for special effects. MS 1172 is of considerable interest to drama historians, especially as it provides evidence of lost or unrecorded plays and supplements the calendar of première and revival dates given in The London Stage 1660-1800.