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The Music Manuscript Period; a Background Essay and Bibliographical Guide

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The Music Manuscript Period; a Background Essay and Bibliographical Guide GUY A. MARCO The Music Manuscript Period; A Background Essay and Bibliographical Guide The characteristics of music, notation, principal manuscripts, and con­ temporary literature on music are described briefly for each of five chronological periods; namely: antiquity, early Christian through the sixth century; seventh through the tenth centuries; eleventh through the thirteenth centuries; and the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The resulting outline is intended as an aid for the «non-musicological music, humanities, or reference librarian who needs to have an under­ standing of the nature of music materials in the pre-printing era, whether or not he is actually charged with handling them." ANOTHER ASPECT of these plays which up the interdisciplinary function which has been generally unexplored is their mel­ musicology was even then assuming. To­ odies . since the plays of the Church day it is not unusual for students of re­ were actually sung, our know ledge of them ligion, drama, poetry, linguistics, and cannot be complete until such of their numerous other fields to find themselves music as exists has been published, eluci­ -when their researches lead into medie­ dated and heard. I am not a specialist in the theory of plain-song or in musical val times-involved with musical doc~ palaeography . ... The adequate editing and uments. One is not surprised to find the exposition of the music associated with the facsimile of a fourteenth-century music dramatic texts might well require a separate manuscript used as frontispiece to a vol­ treatise equal to the present one in extent. ume of Chambers' Medieval Stage nor Such a study would undoubtedly aid in the to see Speculum review books by musical interpretation of certain texts, would as­ specialists in the middle ages. A recent sist a demonstration of relationships, and list of sources dealing with Tudor poetry would probably disclose unsuspected tra­ and music permits easy observation of ditional aims or originalities throughout the the considerable number of poetic rem­ body of plays. nants which contain «tunes," «bass-part These remarks by Karl Young, in the of a set of part-songs," «lute tablatures," preface to his monumental Drama of the "plain-song Magnificats," and other "no­ Medieval Church (Oxford, 1933 ), point tational matter."1 Thus the reference or humanities li­ brarian may well be confronted with Dr. Marco is Chairman of the Depart­ 1 John Stevens, Music and Poetry in the Earl11 ment of Library Science, Kent State Uni­ Tudor Court (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, versity, Ohio. 1961). pp.461-68. /7 8 I College & Research Libraries • January, 1965 manuscripts that are musical at least in bibliographies-such as those of Reese­ part, or with questions about them, rather than to compound the number of though he himself is likely to have no footnote references unnecessarily. Both deep knowledge about them; indeed of the great contemporary musical en­ such knowledge would hardly be a nor­ cyclopedias, Grove's Dictionary of Music mal part of his background: and Musicians and M usik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, are worthy of consulta­ The librarian of a research library should be a musicologist with some training in library tion at nearly any point, but in the inter­ techniques whereas the librarian of a school est of space conservation specific refer­ or college library is first of all a librarian ences have not as a rule been made to with a strong musical background. The them. training required for the librarian of the The music manuscript period begins public library's music department is essen­ in Hellenic Greece and ends with the tially the same as that of the school librar­ application of printing techniques to the ian.2 setting down of music in the late fif­ The present essay is for this nonmusico­ teenth century. Musical scores were still logical music, humanities, or reference hand produced, at least in part, after librarian who needs to have an under­ the printing of books had become wide­ standing of the nature of music materi­ spread. The Psalterium printed by Fust als in the pre-printing era, whether or and Schaffer at Mainz in 1457 is the not he is actually charged with handling earliest extant printed book containing them. To profit from this presentation, music, but the music seems to have been the reader must expect to consult a fair manually inscribed. Later practice in­ number of the books and articles cited volved printing either the notes or the in footnotes, as the text itself touches staff lines and completing the score by only quickly on highlights and ignores hand, this procedure arising from an numerous complexities entirely. inability to achieve accurate imposition These venerable documents pose prob­ in printing notes on staves. Not until the lems which are by nature quite formida­ mid-1470's are there examples of printed ble, since the music involved is gener­ notes and lines. 3 ally unfamiliar to nonspecialists and its In the survey which follows, these bibliographical features are highly eso­ subdivisions are utilized: antiquity, early teric. Yet it is hoped that this little sur­ Christian through sixth century, seventh vey will offer some guides and points of through tenth centuries, eleventh through departure, as well as a collection of ref­ thirteenth centuries, and fourteenth 3 erences which may later prove useful. • For concise information about early music print­ Ing,. see ~- . Hyatt King, Four Hundred Years of The reader who follows the thread at­ Mustc Pnnttng (London: British Museum 1964) · tentively will discover that the labyrinth Kathi Meyer and Eva Judd O'Meara, "The 'Printin~ of Music," The Dolphin, II ( 1935), 171-207 ; Gustave is not hopeless, and at the exit he might Reese, Music in the Renaissance (New York: Nor­ be equipped to classify, date (to the ton, 1954), pp.154-56 (hereinafter cited as Reese R ena:issance) ;. Willi Ape}, Harvard Dictionary oi century), and to some extent interpret Muste ( Cambndge: Harvard University Press 1951) typical survivors of the music manu­ P~-6?1-603 ; or Hubert Foss, "Printing," ' Grove'; Dw twnary of Music and Musicians (5th ed.; Lon­ script period. Certainly he will be able don: Macmillan, 1954), VI, 928-34. For facsimiles of ~arly _ printing see Georg Kinsky, A History of Music to offer guidance to patrons in need of tn Pw tures (London and Toronto: Dent; New York: basic or specialized readings. Du~ton, 1930) ; and A. Beverly Barksdale, The Prtnted W ote (Toledo, Ohio: Toledo Museum of Art It has seemed preferable to make re­ 1957 ). A guide to other facsimiles is provided i~ peated citations to a limited number of ~uy A. Marco, The Earliest Music Printers of Con­ t~n ental Europe (Charlottesville: Bibliographical So­ particularly valuable works with strong c_Iety of the University of Virginia, 1962). A recent hs~ ~or further reading is A. D. Walker, "Music 2 Lester Asheim, The Ilttm anities and the Librarf!l Prmti_ng. and Publis hing : a Bibliography," Library (Chicago : ALA, 1957) , pp.173-74, 177. A ssocmtwn Record, LXV (May 1963), 192-95. Study of the Music Manuscript Period I 9 through fifteenth centuries. The discus­ oping into our familiar system of notes sion of each of these periods will be fur­ and staves. The Greeks utilized what is ther divided into four sections: charac­ known as letter notation, through which teristics of the music, notation, principal each pitch can be represented by a let­ manuscripts, and contemporary litera­ ter from one or more alphabets. Letter ture on music. notation does not require a staff and is a simple, satisfactory way of writing ANTIQUITY down monophonic music if the rhythmic With the possible exception of one patterns are known to the performer or apparently indecipherable Babylonian communicated to him by means of sup­ tablet of ca. 800 B.c.4 no examples of plementary symbols; one Greek frag­ pre-Greek music have survived. Fewer ment includes such symbols. Two sets than twenty fragments of Greek music of letters were in use: one set for vocal are extant; two on marble, one on a music and the other for instrumental stone slab, and the remainder on papy­ music.8 rus.5 Principal Manuscripts. Three items Characteristics of the Music. The prin­ among the small number of survivals cipal function of music in Greece was are of particular interest because of their that of adjunct to the drama and the age, length, and state of preservation. dance. While the surviving examples All are stone inscriptions discovered in are monodic (or monophonic: consist­ the late nineteenth century. The first ing of a single unaccompanied melody) Delphic Hymn to Apollo is our most ex­ further parts were probably improvised. tensive piece of Greek music; it dates The theoretical basis of Greek music is from ca. 138 B.c. The second Delphic highly complex and hardly relative· to Hymn to Apollo, also of considerable this discussion.6 It may be mentioned length, is about ten years younger. The that music to the Greeks had a moral, Song or Epitaph of Seikilos is of uncer­ ethical significance which is not yet en­ tain date: between the years 200 B.c. tirely explained. 7 and 100 A.D.9 Notation. Musical paleography or Contemporary Literature on Music. handwriting, usually termed notation, More can be learned of Greek music assumed numerous forms before devel- from the eighteen extant treatises about it than from the few fragments of actual 4 A photograph of the tablet, in conjunction with the most recent analysis of its possible musical con­ music preserved. Since Reese provided tent, appears in Curt Sachs, "The Mystery of the a commentary on these writings as' well Babylonian Notation," Papers of the International Congress of Musicology, 1939 (New York: American as a guide to texts and translations, it Musicological Society, 1944), 161-67 ; als~ printed in Musical Quarterly, XXVII January, 1941), 62-69.
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