1 Details from the entry on Iver Brink in Holger Ehrencron-Müller, Forfatterlexikon omfattende Danmark, Norge og Island indtil 1814, 12 vols. (Copenhagen 1924–35), ii (1925), 67–70 (pp. 68–9). The title can be loosely translated as A Christian's Thought-Bridle (see also note 18 below). In this article, we have followed the convention in Danish academic publications whereby pre-1948 Danish titles retain their original capitals for most substantives (familiar from German practice), but titles from 1948 onwards normally use lower case except for proper nouns. All translations from Danish are by the authors.

2 Details in note 40 below.

3 This is how he spelt his own name, but in the sources one also finds the form ‘Ivar’ for the forename and both ‘Brinch’ and ‘Brinck’ for the surname. Authoritative summaries of Brink's life and career are given in Bjørn Kornerup, ‘Brinck (Brink), Iver’, Dansk biografisk leksikon, 3rd edn, ed. Svend Cedergreen-Bech, 16 vols. (Copenhagen, 1979–84), ii (1979), 520–1, and Sophus Vilhelm Wiberg, Personalhistoriske, statistiske og genealogiske Bidrag til en almindelig dansk Præstehistorie, eller alphabetisk ordnet Fortegnelse over alle Sognekald, Sognecapellanier, Hospitalspræsteembeder o.s.v. i Danmark med Anførelse af Præsterne i dem siden Reformationen, og Efterretninger om deres Personalia, 3 vols. (Odense, 1870–1), ii (1870), 171 and 189.

4 These and other details are taken from the biography contained in an eighteenth-century manuscript, ‘Velædle Höyærværdige og Höylærde H^r Mag: Iver Brinch, Fordum Sogne-Præst ved St: Nicolai Kirke i Kiöbenhavn, Hans Liv og Levnets Beskrivelse’, Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek (The Royal Library; hereafter DK-Kk), Ny Kongelig Samling 1991, 4^o. According to the library catalogue, this was copied from a funeral obituary; the manuscript contains some drawings by Brink's daughter Martha Brinck Holmsted (who identifies herself at the end of the volume).

5 The episode is related in detail in Louis Bobé, Operahusets Brand paa Amalienborg den 19de April 1689: Et Mindeskrift, samlet efter trykte og utrykte Kilder (Copenhagen, 1889).

6 See Nils Schiørring, Det 16. og 17. århundredes verdslige danske visesang, 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1950), which mentions the composition (i, 364) and transcribes the melody and bass (ii, 126–7). The original, which has six stanzas, is in DK-Kk, Håndskriftafdelingen, Thott 1529 I, 4^o, pp. 24–7. The Danish word ‘vise’ (cognate with German ‘Weise’) or ‘visesang’, as used in Schiørring's title, is a song or tune, but the term may also be applied to verse for singing independently of the melody or melodies to which it is sung.

7 DK-Kk, Håndskriftafdelingen, Rostgaard 20, 8^o (‘Brevis sed vera delineatio incepti læte sed tragicè conclusi dramatis, quod hic Hafniæ d. 19. Aprilis anni M DC IXC penes arcem Amalienburg institutum est, facta à participe tam dramatis quàm periculi I. Brinchio’). The library possesses another eighteenth-century copy of the account shelfmarked: Ny Kongelig Samling 677, 4^o. Brink and Rostgaard probably met while studying together at Copenhagen University in 1687–9. When Rostgaard embarked in 1690 on a foreign tour that lasted nine years, they remained in contact, at least while Rostgaard was studying in Paris in 1697; see Rostgaard's letter to Arne Magnusson dated 28 June 1697 in Arne Magnussons private Brevveksling, ed. Kristian Kålund (Copenhagen, 1920), 396–9. Brink later collaborated with Rostgaard on a Danish dictionary that never reached publication.

10 ‘Hvor dejlige ere vore Salmer og Kirke-Musik frem for deris? Hvad krafft og fynd har vore Hymner og aandelige Sange saasom besukkrede med vore Søde Melodier? Heraf vide de Engelske intet. De bruge Davids Salmer, men i fleng; Ti mange iblant dem bekvemme jo ingenlunde vor Trang, Vj har Gud at bede for. I dend stæd har vi heligeret dem, som ere mæst applicable af denne Guds Mands Salter, og bruge dem effter Tidens Udkrævelse. Herover har jeg ogsaa hørt Engelske Church men, ja Calvinisterne selv at klage, og at ønske, at de herudj havde vor Kirkis maner.’ Brink's own copy-book of letters for the years 1691–3 is preserved in Landsarkivet for Sjælland m. m., Sjællands stifts bispearkiv, 755, Den danske kirke i London, kopibog 1691–93. The book contains copies of 107 numbered letters to and from Brink, which occupy 114 closely written folio sides. The quoted extract comes from letter no. 6. The seven preserved letters (plus an inserted petition to the king) from Brink to the powerful count Conrad Reventlow unfortunately shed no light on Brink's interest in music (Rigsarkivet, Conrad Reventlows privatarkiv, nr. 6202, breve, A I 3, breve fra private).

8 On this period of Brink's life, and especially his time in London (1692–1701), see Ernst Fridrich Wolff, Samlinger til Historien af den danske og norske evangelisk-lutherske Kirke i London (Copenhagen, 1802), passim, and Harald Faber, Danske og norske i London og deres Kirker (Copenhagen, 1915), 13–74. Poul-Erik Fabricius, Den danske Kirke i London 1692–1992 (Herning, 1992), relies for the London church's early history entirely on the two sources just cited.

9 On Meidel's life and activity, see Henry J. Cadbury, ‘Christopher Meidel and the First Norwegian Contacts with Quakerism’, Harvard Theological Review, 34 (1941), 7–23.

11 See, for example, Faber, Danske og norske i London og deres Kirker, 15 and 54–7, and Kornerup, ‘Brinck (Brink), Iver’, 521.

12 William King, Animadversions on a Pretended Account of Danmark (London, 1694). When the Animadversions were republished in 1709, the author explained in his preface: ‘The Animadversions on the Account of Danmark were wrote at the request of the Reverend Mr. Brink, Minister of the Danish Church in London; a Person whose Merit, Travels, and Knowledge of the World have deservedly gain'd him the Favour of the present King of Danmark, upon whom he is now an Attendant at Venice. From him, assisted by his Excellency Monsieur Scheel, who resided here as Envoy Extraordinary, I had the Memoirs which compos'd those Papers, which had the Honour not to be unacceptable to his Royal Highness Prince George; and when sent to Danmark, were by the late King's Order turn'd into French, and read to him as fast as they could be translated.’ William King, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (London, [1709]).

13 Bernard Smith, born in Germany in 1630; see Faber, Danske og norske i London og deres Kirker, 60–2.

14 Bruudgommens og Brudens Jesu Christi Og Hans Kirkis Aandelige Kiærligheds Sange; Det er/ Salomons Høje Sang Til Christ-Elskende Siæles Lyst og Opmuntring Eenfoldelig forklaret og Sang-viis forfattet af Een/ som priser det sit højeste Gode/ i Deelagtighed med de andre Christi Lemmer/ at kunde være Jesu Bruud. Tillige med en liden Tilgift/ af nogle aanderige Tydske Sange fordanskede (Copenhagen, 1695). The forward slashes in this title are punctuation marks having the force of commas.

15 On sacred and secular collections of song texts (viser) with their melodies from seventeenth-century Denmark, including the important editions of tunes by Kingo and Engelbretsdatter, see Nils Schiørring, Det 16. og 17. århundredes verdslige danske visesang, i, 180–297 and 354–91, and Thomas Kingos Samlede Skrifter, ed. Hans Brix, Paul Diderichsen and F. J. Billeskov Jansen, 7 vols. (Copenhagen, 1939–75), iii (1939) and vii (1945). It is surely not by accident that the Kingo and Engelbretsdatter collections turn up in the Brink sale catalogue, where they are, respectively, lot 1225 in the ‘octavo’ section and lot 515 in the ‘libri in duodecimo et forma minori’ section.

16 On the church itself, see Jan Steenberg, ‘Sankt Nicolai Kirke’, Danmarks Kirker, 1: København, 6 vols. (Copenhagen, 1945–87), i, 459–621.

17 Brink's former student of Latin, Count Ulrik Christian Gyldenløve, was the patron of this church, which still stands today and is a favourite venue for recitals of organ and other music.

18 Full title: En Christens Tancke-Tøyle, Eller og saa Aandelige Sange, Hvormed hand mange gange Fordrev hans Tanker mange, og holdt dem I Bidsel. See also note 1 above.

19 ‘Jule-Leeg’ (‘Christmas Play’) is how Brink refers to the activity that took place in the traditional, non-religious Christmas parties (‘Jule-Stuer’ in Danish), in which people wore fancy dress, danced, played games and drank spirits. The festivity was so familiar and the object of so much discussion that Ludvig Holberg wrote a comedy about it – Jule-Stue (1724).

20 As early as 1704 Brink's songs had become so popular that two of them are found inscribed in a private songbook. An otherwise little-known manuscript songbook copied out by a certain Hans Thomæson and perhaps originating from his days as a student in Copenhagen contains the already-mentioned ‘Hvor er Jeg vendt’ (with the same tune as in DK-Kk, Thott 1529 I, 4^o) and also ‘Ej, hvi stæde så mit hjerte’ (words only). See Nils Schiørring, ‘Et dansk visehåndskrift i UB Oslo’, Hvad Fatter gjør … Boghistoriske, litterære og musikalske essays tilegnet Erik Dal, ed. Henrik Glahn et al. (Herning, 1982), 403–12.

21 Ephesians v. 19 (translation from the Revised Version). The function of the forward slashes in the Danish text is explained earlier, in note 14.

22 See Kornerup, ‘Brinck (Brink), Iver’, 521.

23 Steenberg, ‘Sankt Nicolai Kirke’, 594.

24 On the influence of Pietism in Denmark, see Johannes Pedersen, ‘Pietismens Tid 1699–1746’, Den danske kirkes historie, ed. Hal Koch et al., 8 vols. (Copenhagen, 1950–66), v (ed. Hal Koch and Bjørn Kornerup, 1951), 11–229.

25 Niels Friis, Holmens Kirkes orgel 1646–1956 (Copenhagen, 1956), 7; Louis Bobé, Bremerholms Kirke og Holmens Menighed gennem tre Aarhundreder (Copenhagen, 1920), 67–8 and 154–5.

26 See Lars Berglund, ‘Geist, Christian’, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, rev. edn, ed. Ludwig Finscher, 28 vols. (Kassel, 1999–2007), Personenteil, vii (2002), cols. 694–6; idem, Studier i Christian Geists vokalmusik, Studia musicologica Upsaliensia, new series, 21 (Uppsala, 2002).

27 In Denmark, civic musicians (stadsmusikanter) were public employees with regulated terms of employment (rather like city waits in England, except that in Denmark the institution extended to rural communities). The most comprehensive work on this subject is Jens Henrik Koudal, For borgere og bønder: Stadsmusikantvæsenet i Danmark ca. 1660–1800 (Copenhagen, 2000).

28 Bobé, Bremerholms Kirke, 67–8. In seventeenth-century parlance, ‘aria’ and ‘arie’ are generic terms that can be applied to purely instrumental pieces (especially those employing repetition or variation) as well as to ones for solo voice, so the nature of this composition remains undefined.

29 Frederik Weilbach, Frederik IV's Italiensrejser (Copenhagen, 1933), 93–160.

30 Vivaldi's op. 2 was advertised as forthcoming by the publisher, Antonio Bortoli, already by the end of 1708. In order to maintain the king's incognito status (that is, his assumption, for the purposes of the tour, of a lower rank – Count of Oldenburg – which enabled him to be freer of the restraints of protocol), Frederik's visit was announced to the Venetian government at very short notice, so Vivaldi's success in securing his patronage just at the point when his sonatas were due to appear seems almost miraculous.

31 See Irmgard Becker-Glauch, Die Bedeutung der Musik für die Dresdener Hoffeste (Kassel and Basle, 1951), 91–7.

32 A book celebrating eminent Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic clerics from the Reformation onwards (Christopher Giessing, Nye Samling af Danske, Norske og Islandske Jubel-Lærere, med Slægts-Registrere og Stam-Tavler samt hosføyede Anmærkninger til vor Danske Histories Oplysning, 3 vols. (Copenhagen, 1779–86)) contains an anecdote (ii/2 (1781), 294) relating how Ambrosia died – apparently from excessive joy, half an hour after greeting her husband on his return from Italy, having heard earlier from two members of the king's retinue, playing a cruel joke, that he had died on the homeward journey. Ambrosia's funeral was held in Holmens kirke on 2 August 1709 (Landsarkivet for Sjælland, Holmens sogns kirkebøger, døde 1698–1713). According to Weilbach (Frederik IV's Italiensrejser, 155), the king reached Frederiksborg on 27 July 1709, so the chronology of the anecdote looks possible, even if its details need corroboration. MS 163 in the city museum of Bergen, Norway, is a funeral elegy in Latin for Ambrosia by Thomas von Westen.

33 Kornerup, ‘Brinck (Brink), Iver’, 521.

34 Niels Friis, ‘Nikolaj Kirkes orgler, organister og klokkespillere’, Historiske meddelelser om København, 4th series, 2 (1949–52), 417–81 (esp. pp. 444–8).

35 ‘Velædle […] H^r Mag: Iver Brinch, […] Hans Liv og Levnets Beskrivelse’ (see note 4), 26: ‘kort for sin död, sang med sin Sviger-Sön Mag: Kiærup, saa lydelig, som hand kunde, den Psalme, med sær Andagt: Jeg beder Dig, min Herre og Gud, etc’.

36 Carl S. Petersen, ‘Holberg i samtidens bogsamlinger’, Afhandlinger til dansk bog- og bibliotekshistorie (Copenhagen, 1949), 192–275 (p. 213).

37 Bobé, Bremerholms Kirke, 154: ‘en af de mest tiltalende Præsteskikkelser’.

38 ‘Sidste Æres Minde Over […] Magister Jver Brink […] Da Hans Salige Liig og Legeme […] udi en Høi-anseelig og meget Folkeriig Forsamling, […] blev nedsat’. Example in DK-Kk, Småtryksamling, Ældre personelle lejlighedsdigte A1.

39 Strictly speaking, church cantatas are pieces for liturgical performance that appropriate the style and structure of the ordinary (that is, secular) cantata – an innovation that occurred only at the start of the eighteenth century – but by extension the term can also be used for the functionally identical sacred concertos of the seventeenth century.

40 Catalogus Librorum B. M. Viri Nobilissimi at plur. Venerandi M. Ivari Brinckii ad Ædem Sacram Divi Nicolai Pastor. Primar. Qvorum Auctio habebitur die 27 Junii Anni 1729. in Pastoralib. Ædibus à B. Viro habitatis (Copenhagen, 1729; example in DK-Kk, Danske Afdeling, I, 4240, 4^o, og Hielmstierne 1306, 4^o). The title page of the catalogue is shown as Figure 6. The erudite historian and professor of Greek at Copenhagen University, Hans Gram, poked fun at the library's contents in a letter, finding them too disparate: ‘There is good and bad, oats and barley, in all varieties, subject-areas and languages’ (‘Der er got og ondt, Rips og Raps, af alle Sorter og Faculteter og Sprog’). This criticism did not, however, prevent Gram from buying some of Brink's rarer books. He also asked the widow's manservant to send copies of the sale catalogue to potential buyers in Norway. See letters to Bishop Bartholomæus Deichmann in Christiania, 11 June, 2 July and 30 July 1729, Breve fra Hans Gram, ed. Herman Gram (Copenhagen, 1907), 9–11.

41 Petersen, ‘Holberg i samtidens bogsamlinger’, 210–12: ‘latin, italiensk, fransk, engelsk, tysk og dansk, i mindre grad spansk og hollandsk, optræder i broget blanding. Der er musikalier og bind med kobberstik, derimellem portrætter; franske, tyske og danske tidsskrifter og andre periodica; meget af geografi og rejsebeskrivelser; inden for historie pjecer om engelske politiske forhold, enkelte af de store udenlandske historikere som Commines, Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Juan de Mariana, Pufendorf og Lord Clarendon, dog i rigere mål bøger vedrørende fædrelandets historie. Matematik og naturvidenskab har derimod ikke interesseret Brink, og indenfor filosofi træffes vel Montaigne, Pascal, La Bruyère, Bayle (‘Dictionnaire’) og Balthasar Bekker, men ellers iagttages en forsigtig tilbageholdenhed: der er skrifter mod Hobbes og Spinoza, [men] selv er de der ikke, [lige] så lidt som Descartes, Newton eller John Locke.

Sin egentlige styrke havde biblioteket dog på to, fjernt fra hinanden liggende felter. Det ene er teologi med vidtstrakt rummelighed over for alle afskygninger indenfor de protestantiske kirkesamfund […]. Det andet hovedobjekt for Iver Brinks bogkærlighed var skønlitteraturen. Den er mindst fyldestgørende for Spaniens og Hollands vedkommende, anselig derimod for Italiens, Frankrigs, Englands og Tysklands. En ganske særlig interesse er viet dramaet […]. Sin interesse for skønlitteratur udstrakte Iver Brink til også at gælde fædrelandets. Han var en varm ven af modersmålet’.

42 Lots identified only by number refer to the contents of the ‘Musicalia’ section, while for all other lots the relevant section of the catalogue is specified.

43 The presence of Danish words (such as the ‘musicaliske’ – as distinct from German ‘musicalische’ – in the description of lot 26) is very often a sign of an informal paraphrase.

44 Many of the ‘adskillig’ (miscellaneous) volumes are likely to have been compilations of music copied by hand from sources outside Brink's own collection and therefore by their nature hard to describe succinctly.

45 The oldest identifiable item among the ‘Musicalia’ is Erasmus Widmann's Geistliche Psalmen und Lieder (Nuremberg, 1603, lot 46), but the ‘octavo’ section contains a hymn book of 1569 (lot 1083).

46 The fact, evidenced by the catalogue, that several items existed in duplicate in Brink's library hints that some of its accessions were fortuitous.

47 Harald Ilsøe, Biblioteker til salg: Om danske bogauktioner og kataloger 1661–1811 (Copenhagen, 2007), 12.

48 Because Bortoli's publications, on the evidence of their present-day preservation, circulated little outside Italy, it would be an astonishing coincidence if any of these four publications were acquired by Brink independently of his visit to Venice. While in Venice, Brink may also have picked up Marino's op. 7 sonatas (lot 81) and Balbi's op. 1 sonatas (lot 82). The cantatas and arias by C. F. Pollarolo in manuscript (lot 85) and the ‘small Italian pieces’ (lot 60) may be other souvenirs of the same sojourn. Lot 67, the book of cantatas by Agostino Bonaventura Coletti published at Lucca, was very probably also acquired during the visit to Italy, since Lucca was on the king's homeward itinerary. Similarly, the collections of cantatas by Bassani (lots 72, 73 and 79) and Grossi (lot 89) could have been acquired while Brink was passing through Bologna with the king. As we saw, the sonatas by Vivaldi were dedicated to the monarch, so Brink quite possibly had an opportunity to meet the composer.

49 If Brink was a practitioner of accompaniment on the harpsichord, this would explain the strong presence, in his library, of primers dealing with the subject (by Niedt, Heinichen, Werckmeister, etc.). But the apparent absence of music – at least, of printed music – for solo keyboard suggests that its solo repertory was of little interest to him. The presence of music for, or with, lute in his collection is perhaps insufficient evidence that he himself played the instrument, but it certainly raises that possibility. On the other hand, the notoriously difficult suites for unaccompanied violin by Westhoff (lot 4) are too isolated in their context to encourage any thought that Brink was also expert on the violin. It is unfortunate that the catalogue does not specify the sizes of the three viols owned by Brink, but at least one of them is likely to have been a bass instrument, which by 1700 was the dominant type. One must of course allow the possibility that either or both of his wives, rather than he himself, was an instrumentalist.

50 ‘Non-liturgical’ is not used here in the sense of having no place in the service, but in that of not being set to a liturgically prescribed text. Motets belong by definition to this category.

51 ‘Brevis sed vera delineatio’, p. 10: ‘Placuit demum jucundum illud actionis dramaticæ genus, quod non ità pridem ab acutissimis Italis inventum, artem tam Musicam, quàm Scenicam complectitur, suavissimàque non minus modulantium vocum atque instrumentorum harmonià aures, quàm viva Historiæ alicujus aut Fabulae ripræsentatione oculos permulcet, et utrinque uberrimà circumstantium animos hilaritate perfundit.’

52 See lot 2310 of the ‘quarto’ section of the catalogue. On the Hamburg Pietists’ opposition to opera, see Sieghart Döhring, ‘Theologische Kontroversen um die Hamburger Opera’, Festschrift Klaus Hortschansky zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Axel Beer and Laurenz Lütteken (Tutzing, 1995), 111–23. The actual expression ‘Satans-Capelle’ comes from a polemical tract by Marcus Hilarius Frischmuth (pseudonym of Martin Heinrich Fuhrmann) entitled Die an der Kirchen Gotts gebauete Satans-Capelle, published in Cologne in 1729 (‘Brevis sed vera delineatio’, p. 10: ‘Placuit demum jucundum illud actionis dramaticæ genus, quod non ità pridem ab acutissimis Italis inventum, artem tam Musicam, quàm Scenicam complectitur, suavissimàque non minus modulantium vocum atque instrumentorum harmonià aures, quàm viva Historiæ alicujus aut Fabulae ripræsentatione oculos permulcet, et utrinque uberrimà circumstantium animos hilaritate perfundit.’, 112).

53 Nils Schiørring, Musikkens historie i Danmark, 3 vols. (Copenhagen, 1977–8), i, 329–31; see also Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, rev. edn, ed. Finscher, Personenteil, ix (2003), col. 1607.

54 Faber, Danske og norske i London og deres Kirker, 54–6.

55 See note 7 above.

56 According to Franz Josef Ratte's article on F. E. Niedt in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, rev. edn, ed. Finscher, Personenteil, xii (2004), col. 1076.

57 See the table in Weilbach, Frederik IV's Italiensrejser, 92.

58 The Latin school in Copenhagen – whose pupils participated in church music – owned in 1666 at least two of the works in Brink's possession: Hammerschmidt's Geistliche Symphonien and Profe's ‘concerten’ (presumably one or more of the four Geistliche Concerten und Harmonien collections published at Leipzig between 1641 and 1646). In addition, Danish Latin schools customarily included in their collections at the very least Pedersøn's Pratum spirituale and works by Briegel. Hammerschmidt is the composer most strongly represented in the preserved inventories of music owned by Danish Latin schools in the seventeenth century. See Bengt Johnsson, Den danske skolemusiks historie indtil 1739 (Copenhagen, 1973), 65 and 112–14. Some of the collections described in this note (and others similar to them) may have been acquired by Brink during his school days.

59 The concerts of Lorentz the younger were praised also by visiting foreigners, and the Dane Holger Jacobæus in 1671 called him ‘Organista ipse nulli in Europa secundus’. See Friis, ‘Nikolaj Kirkes orgler, organister og klokkespillere’, 436, and Bo Lundgren, ‘Lorentz, Johan’ (father and son), in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, rev. edn, ed. Finscher, Personenteil, xi (2004), cols. 461–2.

60 See Jens Henrik Koudal and Michael Talbot, ‘Stephan Kenckel's Collection of Music and Musical Instruments: A Glimpse of Danish Musical Life in the Early Eighteenth Century’, RMA Research Chronicle, 43 (2010), forthcoming. The whole of vocal music is, for Kenckel, almost a closed book, so he offers no competition to Brink in that respect.