Early Music Printing in German-Speaking Lands edited by Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl, Elisabeth Giselbrecht, and Grantley McDonald Routledge 2018 (in press)

Contents

Introduction Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl, Elisabeth Giselbrecht, and Grantley McDonald

I. Music Printing and Publishing in the Fifteenth Century

Early Music Printing and Ecclesiastic Patronage Mary Kay Duggan

German-Speaking Printers and the Development of Music Printing in Spain (1485–1505) Margarita Restrepo

II. Printing Techniques: Problems and Solutions

‘Made in ’: The Dissemination of Mensural German Music Types Outside the German- Speaking Area (and vice versa), up to 1650 Laurent Guillo

Printing Music: Technical Challenges and Synthesis, 1450–1530 Elisabeth Giselbrecht and Elizabeth Savage

‘Synopsis musicae’: Charts and Tables in Sixteenth-Century Music Textbooks Inga Mai Groote

III. Music Printing and Commerce

Melchior Lotter: a German ‘Music Printer’ Elisabeth Giselbrecht

Bad Impressions = Good Return on Investment: the Music Books of Christian Egenolff in a Socio- Economic Context John Kmetz

The Music Editions of Christian Egenolff: A New Catalogue and its Implications Royston Gustavson

IV. Music Printing and Intellectual History

The Cult of Luther in Music Grantley McDonald

Theobald Billican and Michael’s Ode Settings in Print: Notes on an Exceptional Transmission Sonja Tröster

Polyphonic Music in Early German Print: Changing Perspectives in Music Historiography Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl

Abstracts

Early Music Printing and Ecclesiastic Patronage

Mary Kay Duggan, University of California, Berkeley

The Council of Basel ended in 1449 with a goal of creating a reformed set of liturgical books for the clergy of the Catholic Church, a goal that included several genres for which plainchant music was integral. The accomplishment of that visionary goal by the new technology of printing depended in large part on the financial support and patronage of the prince-archbishops of German-speaking lands. A few of those princes managed to hire some of the finest printers of the day in exclusive monopolies to create music and text types to print graduals, antiphonals, missals, agendas, psalters, obsequiales, and vigiliae for particular dioceses. This article reviews contractual arrangements, printing programs, and music types of Georg Reyser (Würzburg, for Prince-Bishop Rudolf of Scherenberg), Michael Reyser (Eichstätt, for Prince-Bishop Wilhelm von Reichenau), Erhard Ratdolt (Augsburg, for Prince-Bishop Friedrich II of Zollern), Johann Sensenschmidt (Bamberg, for Prince-Bishop Philipp von Henneberg) and Steffan Arndes (Schleswig, Lübeck).

As early as 1479, Rudolf of Scherenberg persuaded Strasbourg printers Georg and Michael Reyser to relocate to Würzburg, giving them a monopoly on printing there but limiting their publishing program to diocesan liturgy and government printing. From 1481 to 1499 Georg used two new gothic plainchant types to print thirteen liturgical editions for the bishop. A proposal that it may have been Michael Reyser who was the music type designer and printer uses a recently discovered letter of 1481 from Rudolph to the magistrate of Strasbourg pleading that Michael be released from prison because the important work of printing missals for Würzburg could not be completed without him. Michael not only was extricated from prison but soon secured a contract for himself in Eichstätt with Prince-Bishop Wilhem von Reichenau.

While ecclesiastic patronage provided unlimited subsidized capital for high quality printing and innovative type designs as well as printing shops and equipment and diocesan monopolies on liturgical titles, it also limited printers to programs of approved content and kept them in isolated diocesan seats away from centers of technical improvements and skilled laborers.

Not all bishops could afford to bring printers to their dioceses. The next stage of music printing saw the rise in urban centers with international distribution networks of entrepreneurial printers who were able to handle the complexities of contractual arrangements with ecclesiastic entities for liturgical music as well as to seek wider audiences for printed music of other genres. Selected examples include Conrad Kachelofen (), and Johann Prüss (Strasbourg).

Melchior Lotter – innovator, businessman, music printer

Elisabeth Giselbrecht, King’s College London

The printer Melchior Lotter the Elder, who lived and worked in Leipzig in the first half of the sixteenth century, never published any polyphonic music. Consequently, he is not remembered in music history – a fate he shares with many others, who did not follow the model of Petrucci or Gardano with their evident emphasis on polyphony. However, his omission from major encyclopedic works and studies of music printing belies his contribution to musical life during his time. In fact, he personifies what we should potentially consider a ‘real’ music printer in the earliest phase of German music printing, if we define a music printer as someone, who brings notation to the printed page.

Three main aspects shaped the landscape for early music printers: First, the technical challenge of how to print notation, which they often met with a high degree of flexibility and innovation. Secondly, the need to make a viable business, which resulted – in contrast to other countries – in music often being a by-product for German printers in a wider publishing program. And finally, the impact of the followed by a time of confessionalisation, forcing many printers to adapt to both new types of publications as well as new authorities and business models.

The works of Melchior Lotter demonstrate these three aspects like few others. He was evidently willing to experiment with different techniques, formats and type fonts throughout his career to achieve the desired visual outcome. He, and later his sons, tested these techniques in their varied publications to include music, ranging from liturgical books to music theory publications and hymn books, and yet books that included music only remained a very small aspect of their business. And finally, Melchior Lotter personifies the religious turmoil in sixteenth century Germany most strikingly. Having made good money by publishing Catholic liturgical works, including missals and breviaries with music, he started to print Luther’s writings in 1517 and was then asked by the reformer himself to open a branch of his business in . There, Lotter’s sons continued their father’s work and published, among many other Lutheran editions, the German mass with music.

This chapter gives, for the first time, a detailed overview of the works of Melchior Lotter and his sons, demonstrating the variety of publications that included music and the different business strategies these required. Furthermore, an analysis of the techniques used by Lotter to print music shows the fluidity between different approaches that was still evident in the 1520s and 1530s. At the same time as providing an in-depth study of Lotter’s work, this chapter also raises some broader questions on what it meant to be a ‘music printer’ in German-speaking areas in the first half of the sixteenth century and puts music printing into the wider context of how a successful printing press operated in this period.

‘Synopsis musicae’: Charts and tables in 16th-century music textbooks

Inga Mai Groote, Universität Heidelberg

Charts and tables are a typical feature of music textbooks in which theoretical issues are arranged for pedagogical presentation; books of this type were produced in high number especially in the German- speaking regions in the 16th century. In several cases, these books contain larger-scale charts and tables, or such charts were issued separately as broadsheets. These charts and tables can be understood as a special tool for the circulation of musical knowledge, but have so far received little attention. From a book historical point of view, they show links with the use of visual elements for textbooks for music and other disciplines as well as with traditions of visualisation established in music theoretical writings since long and sometimes taken over from manuscript into print culture.

Different categories (synoptic, stemmatic, and pictorial charts) are discussed. A first peak in production is situated in the years around 1550 with highly elaborate ‘divisiones musicae’ (e.g. Johannes Frisius, Gregor Faber, Johannes Voigt). Paralleling and overtaking this form of synopsis in the following decades, a growing number of strictly dichotomic representations is to be found under the influence of Ramist schematismi (e.g. Christoph Praetorius, Friedrich Beurhusius, Valentin Götting). Furthermore, some designs circulate between several publications and show the establishment of illustration traditions by a printer/editor. The charts thus illustrate the elaboration of different levels of pedagogical material in different kinds of printed media and are, in a more general perspective, prominent examples for the adaption of at that time ‘modern’ pedagogic tools for music.

“Made in Germany”: the use of German music types outside the German-speaking area until 1650

Laurent Guillo, chercheur associé IReMus, Paris

Between 1500 and about 1650, the number of music types used in Europe to print polyphonic music can be estimated between 150 and 200. Despite the availability of several specific studies on this topic, no definitive census of these music types has yet been made. The descriptions and measurements of these types, scattered in many studies, are therefore somewhat difficult to compare.

Starting from contributions by Berz, Krummel, Schaefer and others on German music types, other studies on English and Scandinavian types, as well as my own studies on music types used in Lyon, Geneva, Paris and the Low Countries, this paper aims to identify and describe the music types originating in the German- speaking area which were used abroad (sometimes as far as Copenhagen, London or La Rochelle). Maps will show the routes these types have followed from Germany to such distant destinations.

The Music Editions of Christian Egenolff: A New Catalogue and its Implications

Royston Gustavson, The Australian National University, Canberra

Christian Egenolff is well known to music scholars as the first German printer to print music from moveable type by single impression However, studies of his output and its influence have been hampered by the difficulty in producing a definitive catalogue of his music editions. This difficulty has been caused by many factors: the circumstance that so many of his Lied publications have survived in an incomplete state without either title or date of publication; that multiple states or issues have been cited as separate editions; and by the existence of hypothesized lost editions. This chapter draws on a variety of evidence, especially early catalogues and extant exemplars of the editions themselves including two Tenor partbooks recently discovered by the author, to present a new catalogue of Egenolff’s music editions that includes the titles of the five editions that have gone nameless in earlier Egenolff catalogues, and a significantly revised chronology. This forms the basis of an examination of the internal structure of Egenolff’s music publishing program and its relationship to contemporary trends.

Bad Impressions = Good Return on Investment: The Music Books of Christian Egenolff in Context

John Kmetz, New York

Unlike Johannes Gutenberg who died poor, the Frankfurter publisher and printer Christian Egenolff died rich. In 1555, the year of his death, Egenolff’s estate was valued for tax purposes at 16,000 gulden. It included no less than 16 houses in downtown Frankfurt, many of which were located in the city’s business district or on its most fashionable residential streets. His estate also included vineyards and open fields of land in the Frankfurt countryside and even a paper mill, which was storing no less than 1,400 reams of paper worth 4,200 gulden. Bottom line, Christian Egenolff was a successful businessman, even when one compares his net worth to that of the richest man in the western world in the sixteenth century, Jacob Fugger.

I will argue that Egenolff made his fortune by deploying a business strategy that few of his fellow publishers did. That strategy entailed reprinting, editing or anthologizing books and pamphlets issued by other publishers in order to release “new” books with his name on them. This he did for at least four of the 12 music books he released in the 1530s, and for many of the remaining 500 other books he published that had nothing to do with music. Aside from shamelessly pirating and reprinting other publishers’ books, even ones holding an imperial privilege, his strategy entailed issuing books in the cheapest way possible: using poor quality paper, deploying single impression type that was unnested, and then featuring that type within the confines of a tiny print frame, which in the case of his music books, many measuring no larger 7.5 by 10.5 centimeters, meant that Egenolff could print a complete set of partbooks in sestodecimo with no more than five sheets of paper. By using this strategy, Egenolff, unlike many of his competitors, got a much better return on investment (ROI) then he would have printing large, elegant, expensive books, the later of which often required funding from authors, patrons, or venture capitalists.

How much an Egenolff music book cost, how large an Egenolff print run of a music book was, and who bought his music books will be discussed. In the final analysis, Egenolff was a shrewd businessman who funded most books himself. And those books, regardless of whether they contained music or not, were either targeted to students attending a local Latin school or university, or to the parents of students who were looking for inexpensive books and pamphlets about personal health and hygiene, the preparation and cooking of a meal, the vagaries of pregnancy, the raising of a child, or on the martial arts and personal defense. Egenolff’s music books, however, were clearly intended to accommodate the pocket, if not the pocketbook, of a student looking for cheap print, yet looking for hours of wonderful entertainment.

Polyphonic music in early German print: A changing perspective in music historiography

Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl, Universität Salzburg

Polyphonic art music, both vocal and instrumental, stands in the centre of musicological study, and comprises the backbone of the regnant historical narrative transmitted since the beginning of our discipline. However, there has never been a serious examination of the adequacy of this narrative as a reflection of the historical data of the musical life of earlier times, at least as far as this can be determined from the surviving musical sources.

Our research project on early music printing in German speaking lands between 1501 and 1540 focuses not on repertoire, but on the challenge of rendering notes and staff lines together in print. When we began, we knew that we would be working not only with polyphony but also with a variety of “different” kinds of music: short examples in theory treatises and textbooks, tablatures, monophonic songs, humanist ode- settings and simple dramatic choruses, as well as chant and congregational hymns for liturgical and devotional purposes. But as we brought all the data together, it became increasingly clear that these “different” kinds of music constituted the overwhelming majority of what was printed during the period of our investigation. Sources that transmit polyphony make up not quite eight per cent of the total number of sources.

In this paper I try to explore why this is the case. I address the following questions: Why was the market for polyphonic music so limited, and why was there a greater demand for other kinds of sources? Which polyphonic genres were printed? What was the relation between polyphonic sources in manuscript and those in print, and what did this mean for the dissemination of the kinds of music that were rarely available in print? And finally, how did the musical production of printing workshops in German-speaking lands compare with those in Italy and France?

Finally, the effect of the protestant reformation on the printing of polyphonic liturgical music is discussed. Due to our data, the traditional narrative that polyphony was in a triumphal procession from the end of the 15th to the 16th century has to be challanged. The predominance of polyphonic liturgical music was nothing to be granted in religious turbulent times. In a case study on Nuremberg the complex political and religious situation in the advent of reformation and its consequences for publishing embellished church music is demonstrated on the basis of the changing printing program of the city.

The cult of Luther in music

Grantley McDonald, Universität Salzburg

The relationship between the Reformation, music and the printing press is complex. While the the doctrinal or liturgical changes brought about by the Reformation caused major shifts in the production and consumption of music, the present paper deals with an aspect of Reformation music that has hitherto attracted little notice: music that engages with the events of the Reformation as they happened: the apparent abduction of Luther to the Wartburg in 1521, Luther’s marriage in 1525, his attacks on the papacy and the customs of the Roman Catholic church, and finally his death in 1546. Some of these pieces are written by friends, others by enemies. The persistent imagery of angels and demons in these pieces reflects the widespread belief that the events of the Reformation were playing out not merely in the world, but also on a supernatural level.

German-Speaking Printers and the Development of Music Printing in Spain (1485-1505)

Margarita Restrepo, Walnut Hill School for the Arts, Natick, MA

A large group of printers who identified themselves as “German,” their “nationality” a distinctive feature advertising their expertise on an invention of German origin, began to arrive in Spain as early as 1472 and soon came to dominate the industry. Spain, with its lack of printers coupled with a strong need for printed material, offered the potential for employment and possible financial success that German-speaking provinces, with a saturation of competent printers, could not afford.

Among the newly-arrived were sixteen printers who produced the thirty-six liturgical books and eight theoretical treatises that contain the first examples of musical notation printed in Spain. Juan Hurus, a native of Constance, printed the Missale Cesaraugustanum (Zaragoza, 1485), the first known publication containing musical notation, whereas “Cuatro Compañeros Alemanes,” Pablo de Colonia, Tomás Glockner, Magno Herbst and Juan Pegnitzer, coming from a variety of German-speaking towns, produced the first theoretical treatise, Domingo Marcos Durán’s Lux bella (Seville, 1492).

While their production has been the focus of extensive research, this article examines these printers as a cohesive group, considering the available evidence on their lives and careers in order to better understand their role in establishing and developing musical printing in Spain. Not surprising for a large group, their careers are characterized by diversity. Some set up shop in one place, while others moved around looking for better job opportunities. The success of some led to printing empires, while others ran small operations. A few returned to their places of origin, while others remained in Spain. Some printed both staff and musical notation, while others filled in the musical notation by hand on a printed staff. Their shared contribution, however, besides the beautiful music books they produced, was the training of a new generation of Spanish printers who took over their businesses and eventually produced the first examples of vocal and instrumental books intended for amateur musicians living in major urban centers.

Printing Music: Technical Challenges and Synthesis, 1450–1530

Elizabeth Savage, University of London, and Elisabeth Giselbrecht, King’s College London

Before the invention of so-called single-impression printing, i.e. from moveable type comprising staves and a note, in the 1530s, music had to be printed in register, that is, by superimposing impressions of different formes. At least two formes were required (one for the staff lines and one for the notes), but up to five or six could be used. Achieving good register, or alignment, has been considered a specialist skill unique to so- called ‘music printers’, but it was instead a basic competency for effectively all hand-press printers. It was neither rare nor specific to music. Instead, it was required to produce many other kinds of content, including multi-colour images and text in red and black, and it is attested from the very start of letterpress printing.

The development of printing from multiple formes has been studied in particular in the growing scholarship on colour printing. Music printing has been absent from the history of colour printing, both conventionally and in recent scholarship in art history and bibliography. However, the examination of musicological evidence from these perspectives sheds much light on the development of printing in register in general and printing in colour in particular, especially in the crucial years of the late 1490s and early 1500s. The reverse is also true, as research in those fields have significant implications for the history of music printing. Presenting new evidence derived from the close examination of early printed music, the techniques for printing music were commonplace, not unusual and exceptional, and music was only one of many kinds of content in which they were used.

This chapter explores for the first time the technical connections between early music printing and the printing of other material in register, in particular colour printing. After outlining the technical challenges and solutions to printing in register, it investigates the processes used to print music. It focuses on the work of Erhard Ratdolt (1442–1528), who has been celebrated by musicologists as one of the leading early music printers, by art historians as a pioneering colour printmaker, and by bibliographers as the most accomplished book printer in turn-of-the-sixteenth-century Augsburg, if not in all of the German-speaking lands. It demonstrates that his innovations in printing text, images and music in colour were, from the printer’s perspective, effectively the same.

Theobald Billican and Michael’s Ode Settings in Print – Notes on an Exceptional Transmission

Sonja Tröster, Universität Wien

In the German speaking lands the year 1507 marks the birth of printing anthologies of polyphonic music from movable type. Two of the three music prints that appeared in this year published polyphonic settings of selected examples from Horace’s carmina by Petrus Treibenreif (Tritonius). One is a representative edition in folio format, the other a handy book destined for practical use. In the succession of this influential humanist project initiated by Conrad Celtis, further collections of Horace’s texts in four voice settings were published in the following decades, most renowned today are those with compositions by Ludwig Senfl (1534) and Paul Hofhaimer (1539). Only mentioned in passing is usually the first of those music books that followed Tritonius’ collection. The ode settings included in this book were composed on behalf of Theobald Gerlacher (Billicanus) by a certain ,Michael N.‘, a composer that has been identified as the Augsburg cleric Michael Rautenweiler. The print was issued 1526 in Augsburg, and most likely prepared by Simprecht Ruff in the former Grimm and Wirsung workshop. The music is laid out beautifully and set with one of the most elegant music fonts of the time. Besides this technological and aesthetic achievement, also the repertoire of the print deserves more attention than it obtained in musicological research. Michael’s ode settings are still not available in a modern transcription and Rochus von Liliencron excluded them from an edition of Tritonius’, Hofhaimer’s and Senfl’s settings of Horace with the harsh judgement: “unbedeutender und meistens recht trocken”. But this obviously does not comply with the opinion of Michael’s contemporaries. Five years after their first publication, a second edition of Michael’s ode settings appeared in Marburg, which was reprinted in 1533, and also the humanist Petrus Nigidius took interest in them and presented the settings side by side with Tritonius’ compositions of the same texts in his Geminae undeviginti odarum Horatii melodiae in 1551. The article traces the different stages of dissemination and selection of the ode settings and their varying contexts, as well as analysing the influences of the printing techniques employed on the divers appearances of the repertoire.