This front paste-down of the sketchbook is inscribed in pen and brown ink with two musical staves at the top, annotated with the letters of the scale, notes of varying lengths numbered ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘4’, ‘8’, ‘32’, ‘16’, and (in pencil) with the notes of the scale from middle E to F an octave above, annotated ‘8’, ‘7’, ‘6’, ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘[?11]’. Below, down the left-hand side, are a treble clef and staves containing four notes (E to A above middle C), annotated ‘F# | E F G A F | b | [natural sign] | Nat’ and ‘G [?less] or Female [?Voice]’; a soprano stave with four notes annotated ‘G D E B’ and ‘Soprano’; a mezzo soprano D clef and stave with four notes, annotated ‘A C G D’ and ‘Mezzo Sop’; an alto C clef inscribed ‘Alto’; a tenor clef inscribed ‘Tenor’; and a bass C clef.
Turner’s interest in music seems to have been stimulated by his connection with the family of John Danby, a Catholic musician who was a composer of glees and sacred music, and organist at the Spanish Embassy Chapel. He died in May 1798, and Turner took on the housing of Danby’s widow Sarah and children. A childhood friend, Ann Dart, claimed that Turner ‘had for music no talent’; nevertheless throughout his life he enjoyed the theatre, attending musical performances as well as ‘straight’ plays.
1In the lower right quadrant of the page, left empty by Turner, is the sketchbook’s endorsement by the Executors of the Turner Bequest, Henry Scott Trimmer, Charles Turner, John Prescott Knight and Charles Lock Eastlake, in ink ‘No 391 contains | 4 Pencil & Pen & Ink | Sketches – | H S Trimmer | C Turner’ and in pencil ‘JPK’ and ‘C.L.E.’
