Eighteenth-century Hybrid Hymn Book

Giuseppe Antonio Silvani (1672–ca. 1728).
Hymni pro toto anno.
[Southern Germany, perhaps Munich], 1763.
Manuscript on paper with 13 printed pages from a German hymnal pasted onto 10 leaves.
(BRMS 173)

Possibly compiled for choir use, this hybrid manuscript hymn book combines manuscript copies of Catholic hymns first published in Italy in the early eighteenth century with excerpts from a printed Catholic hymnal published in Germany in the later eighteenth century. The largest section of the volume includes in manuscript the canto or treble portion of a collection of Silvani’s four-part Latin hymns, Inni sacri per tutto l’anno a Quattro voci pieni da cantarsi con organo e senza, published at Bologna in 1705. A music publisher as well as creator of both sacred and secular compositions, Silvani’s works here include hymns for the major saints and other feasts of the liturgical year. Complementing this manuscript content is a collection of German hymns, including printed pages of verse and prose from the Munich 1761 edition of Anruffung des Heiligen Geistes . . . . Each text is followed by the manuscript musical setting for single voice, with partial verses written beneath the music.