The tunebooks of J. B. Malchair, Oxford, c.1760-1812

From at least 1760, when he moved to Oxford, the German-born musician and artist, John Malchair (1730-1812), collected tunes of various nations. His sources ranged from printed books to acquaintances at the University and even, on one occasion, the whistling of a man in the street. Over the next thirty-five years, Malchair assembled four volumes of tunes, only the third and fourth of which are extant. Malchairâs third tunebook is titled âVol. 3d: The Third Collection of Tunesâ; his fourth tunebook is called âThe Arrangementâ, and in it he âarrangedâ about 500 tunes already known to him into three categories: Welsh, Irish and Scottish. This thesis will describe Malchairâs collecting habits in the context of collecting in Britain in the eighteenth century, and the publication of collections of tunes, as well as providing a more detailed focus on these activities in England. Malchair created a title page for âEnglish Tunesâ within âThe Arrangementâ but added no music to this section of the manuscript, yet there are several âEnglishâ tunes that have been included in other sections. In addition, there are a number of apparent contradictions, such as where the same tune is included under two different national headings. I will explore a range of examples in order to explain Malchairâs scheme of national categorisation, and consider Malchair in relation to those among his contemporaries and near-contemporaries who also addressed questions of national categorisation in music. Malchairâs tunebooks are different from most others, while also growing out of a shared pre-existing and widespread culture of tunebook-keeping and personal music-collecting. I will argue that this difference stemmed from the fact that his tunebooks were not for personal music-making, as was usually the case, but instead formed a âcollectionâ. I will posit two hypotheses: first, that Malchairâs purpose in collecting was to compare tunes as he found them (rather than editing them) and thereby to identify the âbestâ version; and, second, that Malchairâs aim in categorising his tunes was to demonstrate the characteristic music of each nation, and that in categorising he was primarily concerned not with geographical origins, but rather with national style.