The Making of Louise Hanson-Dyer Manuscript 244

Abstract

The Australian philanthropist Louise Hanson-Dyer (1884-1962) is known as the founder, in 1932, of Editions de l'Oiseau-Lyre, the press responsible for some of the most iconic editions of early music, including the CEuvres completes of Frarn;,:ois Couperin, the Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century series and the multi-volume Magnus Liber Organi. 1 Possibly less well known is that during the years leading up to the establishment of L'Oiseau-Lyre, Hanson-Oyer assembled a library of 250 rare books and manuscripts that now form part of Special Collections, Rare Music, in the University of Melbourne Library, Australia. For Medieval, Renaissance and even early Baroque music scholarship, MS Louise Hanson-Oyer 244 (hereafter LHD 244) stands out for several reasons. Above all, it contains the only known copy of a treatise ascribed to Nicolaus de Aversa, a late fourteenth-century music theorist and composer previously known only from references to his notational innovations by another author from around 1400.2 It also preserves portions of known treatises by Nicolaus de Capua, Nicolaus Burtius, and Marchetta da Padova, as well as numerous unique anonymous writings on counterpoint and keyboard harmonization.