College and Research Libraries 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 has been generally unexplored is their mel- odies . . . since the plays of the Church were actually sung, our know ledge of them cannot be complete until such of their music as exists has been published, eluci- dated and heard. I am not a specialist in the theory of plain-song or in musical palaeography . ... The adequate editing and exposition of the music associated with the dramatic texts might well require a separate treatise equal to the present one in extent. Such a study would undoubtedly aid in the interpretation of certain texts, would as- sist a demonstration of relationships, and would probably disclose unsuspected tra- ditional aims or originalities throughout the body of plays. These remarks by Karl Young, in the preface to his monumental Drama of the Medieval Church (Oxford, 1933 ), point Dr. Marco is Chairman of the Depart- ment of Library Science, Kent State Uni- versity, Ohio. up the interdisciplinary function which musicology was even then assuming. To- day it is not unusual for students of re- ligion, drama, poetry, linguistics, and numerous other fields to find themselves -when their researches lead into medie- val times-involved with musical doc~ uments. One is not surprised to find the facsimile of a fourteenth-century music manuscript used as frontispiece to a vol- ume of Chambers' Medieval Stage nor to see Speculum review books by musical specialists in the middle ages. A recent list of sources dealing with Tudor poetry and music permits easy observation of the considerable number of poetic rem- nants which contain «tunes," «bass-part of a set of part-songs," «lute tablatures," "plain-song Magnificats," and other "no- tational matter."1 Thus the reference or humanities li- brarian may well be confronted with 1 John Stevens, Music and Poetry in the Earl11 Tudor Court (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961). pp.461-68. /7 8 I College & Research Libraries • January, 1965 manuscripts that are musical at least in part, or with questions about them, though he himself is likely to have no deep knowledge about them; indeed such knowledge would hardly be a nor- mal part of his background: The librarian of a research library should be a musicologist with some training in library techniques whereas the librarian of a school or college library is first of all a librarian with a strong musical background. . . . The training required for the librarian of the public library's music department is essen- tially the same as that of the school librar- ian.2 The present essay is for this nonmusico- logical music, humanities, or reference librarian who needs to have an under- standing of the nature of music materi- als in the pre-printing era, whether or not he is actually charged with handling them. To profit from this presentation, the reader must expect to consult a fair number of the books and articles cited in footnotes, as the text itself touches only quickly on highlights and ignores numerous complexities entirely. These venerable documents pose prob- lems which are by nature quite formida- ble, since the music involved is gener- ally unfamiliar to nonspecialists and its bibliographical features are highly eso- teric. Yet it is hoped that this little sur- vey will offer some guides and points of departure, as well as a collection of ref- erences which may later prove useful. The reader who follows the thread at- tentively will discover that the labyrinth is not hopeless, and at the exit he might be equipped to classify, date (to the century), and to some extent interpret typical survivors of the music manu- script period. Certainly he will be able to offer guidance to patrons in need of basic or specialized readings. It has seemed preferable to make re- peated citations to a limited number of particularly valuable works with strong 2 Leste r Asheim, The Ilttm anities and th e Librarf!l (Chicago : ALA, 1957) , pp.173-74, 177. bibliographies-such as those of Reese- rather than to compound the number of footnote references unnecessarily. Both of the great contemporary musical en- cyclopedias, Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians and M usik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, are worthy of consulta- tion at nearly any point, but in the inter- est of space conservation specific refer- ences have not as a rule been made to them. The music manuscript period begins in Hellenic Greece and ends with the application of printing techniques to the setting down of music in the late fif- teenth century. Musical scores were still hand produced, at least in part, after the printing of books had become wide- spread. The Psalterium printed by Fust and Schaffer at Mainz in 1457 is the earliest extant printed book containing music, but the music seems to have been manually inscribed. Later practice in- volved printing either the notes or the staff lines and completing the score by hand, this procedure arising from an inability to achieve accurate imposition in printing notes on staves. Not until the mid-1470's are there examples of printed notes and lines. 3 In the survey which follows , these subdivisions are utilized: antiquity, early Christian through sixth century, seventh through tenth centuries, eleventh through thirteenth centuries, and fourteenth • 3 For concise information about early music print- Ing,. see ~- . Hyatt King, Four Hundred Years of Mustc Pnnttng (London: British Museum 1964) · Kathi Meyer and Eva Judd O'Meara, "The 'Printin~ of Music," Th e Dolphin, II ( 1935), 171-207 ; Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance (New York: Nor- ton, 1954), pp.154-56 (hereinafter cited as Reese R ena:issance ) ;. Willi Ape}, Harvard Dictionary oi Muste ( Cambndge: Harva rd University Press 1951) P~-6?1-603 ; or Hubert Foss, "Printing," ' Grove'; Dw twnary of Music and Musician s (5th ed.; Lon- don: Macmillan, 1954), VI, 928-34. For facsimiles of ~arly_ printing see Georg Kinsky, A History of Music tn P w tures (London and Toronto: Dent; New York: Du~ton, 1930) ; and A. Beverly Barksdale, The Prtnted W ot e (Toledo, Ohio: Toledo Museum of Art 1957 ). A guide to other facsimiles is provided i~ ~uy A. Marco, Th e Earlies t Music Printer s of Con- t~nental Europe (Charlottesville: Bibliographical So- c_Iety of the University of Virginia, 1962). A recent hs~ ~or further reading is A. D . Walker, "Music Prmti_ng. and Publis hing : a Bibliography," Library A ssocmtwn Record, LXV (May 1963), 192-95. Study of the Music Manuscript Period I 9 through fifteenth centuries. The discus- sion of each of these periods will be fur- ther divided into four sections: charac- teristics of the music, notation, principal manuscripts, and contemporary litera- ture on music. ANTIQUITY With the possible exception of one apparently indecipherable Babylonian tablet of ca. 800 B.c.4 no examples of pre-Greek music have survived. Fewer than twenty fragments of Greek music are extant; two on marble, one on a stone slab, and the remainder on papy- rus. 5 Characteristics of the Music. The prin- cipal function of music in Greece was that of adjunct to the drama and the dance. While the surviving examples are monodic (or monophonic: consist- ing of a single unaccompanied melody) further parts were probably improvised. The theoretical basis of Greek music is highly complex and hardly relative · to this discussion. 6 It may be mentioned that music to the Greeks had a moral, ethical significance which is not yet en- tirely explained. 7 Notation. Musical paleography or handwriting, usually termed notation, assumed numerous forms before devel- 4 A photog raph of the tablet, in conjunction with the most recent analysis of its possible musical con- tent, appears in Curt Sachs, "The Mystery of the Babylonian Notation," Pap ers of the International Congress of Musicology, 1939 (New York: American Musicological Society, 1944), 161-67 ; als~ printed in Musical Quarterly, XXVII January, 1941), 62-69. For a recent analysis of music in ' this period see Henry G. Farmer, "Music in Ancient Mesopotamia," N ew O x fo r d History of Music, Vol. I: A ncient and Oriental Music (London: Ox ford University Press, 1957). 5 Gustave Reese, Music in the Middl e Ages (New York: Norton, 1940), pp.48-49, offers brief descrip- tions of all of them, and provides a g uide to tran- scriptions and facsimiles. This book by Reese will hereinafter be cited as Reese, Middle A ges . 6 For a notable summation of Greek theory, see Cecil Torr, "Greek Music," Ox ford History of Music, Introductory Volume (London: Oxford University Press, 1929), pp.1-22. More detail in Reese, Middle A ges, pp.ll-51. A good recent survey is Isobel Hen- derson, "Ancient Greek Music," N ew Ox ford History of Music, I. 7 See Louis Harap, "Some Hellenic Ideas on Music and Character," Musical Quarterly, XXIV (April 1938 ) , 153-68. oping into our familiar system of notes and staves. The Greeks utilized what is known as letter notation, through which each pitch can be represented by a let- ter from one or more alphabets . Letter notation does not require a staff and is a simple, satisfactory way of writing down monophonic music if the rhythmic patterns are known to the performer or communicated to him by means of sup- plementary symbols; one Greek frag- ment includes such symbols. Two sets of letters were in use: one set for vocal music and the other for instrumental music. 8 Principal Manuscripts. Three items among the small number of survivals are of particular interest because of their age, length, and state of preservation. All are stone inscriptions discovered in the late nineteenth century. The first Delphic Hymn to Apollo is our most ex- tensive piece of Greek music; it dates from ca. 138 B.c. The second Delphic Hymn to Apollo, also of considerable length, is about ten years younger. The Song or Epitaph of Seikilos is of uncer- tain date: between the years 200 B.c. and 100 A.D. 9 Contemporary Literature on Music. More can be learned of Greek music from the eighteen extant treatises about it than from the few fragments of actual music preserved. Since Reese provided a commentary on these writings as' well as a guide to texts and translations, it seems sufficient here only to mention the most important authors. These may . be divided into three groups: those fol- lowing the theories of Pythagoras ( sixth · century B.c.), those pursuing the some- what conflicting views of Aristoxenos (born ca. 354 B.c. ) , and those not partie- s Both groups are shown, with modern eq'uivalents, in Reese, Middle Ages, pp.26-27. 9 Transcriptions, not mentioned in Reese, Middle A g es, of the first Hymn a nd of the Seikilos appear in Archibald Davison and Willi Ape!, Historical Antholog.y of Music (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1946), I , 9-10. This two-volume compilation ' is a highly valuable s ources of musical e x amples from preclass ical times. Variant transcriptions are given in Henderson, op. cit., pp.364-73 . 10 I College & Research Libraries • January, 1965 uHuly associated with either of these theorists.10 The Pythagoreans were Eu- clid, Nicomachos, Ptolemy of Alexan- dria, and Porphyry; the Aristoxenians were Aristoxenos himself, Kleonides, and Bakcheios; the independents were Plato, Aristotle, Quintilianos, and Alyp- ios. EARLy CHRISTIAN THROUGH SIXTH CENTURY This is truly a dark age for the study of western music manuscripts, for there are no surviving examples. From numer- ous contemporary allusions and trea- tises, and from later copies of pre-700 music, it has been possible to derive .considerable knowledge about these ~ost documents. The music of these centuries is largely religious in nature, and it may appear strange that the monasteries did not preserve copies of it. Two reasons may be advanced for their failure to do so: the prevalence of oral tradition and the subsequent Gregorian reform. Both factors will receive further attention shortly. Characteristics of the Music. So little is known about the secular music of this period that it is necessary to confine the discussion to liturgical music. Most of this sacred music falls into one of two categories: music written for the Mass (texts in the Roman Missal; music in the Gradual), and music written for the Daily Hours (texts in the Breviary; music in the Antiphonary). The char- acter and, in some cases, the actual mel- odies11 of pre-700 liturgical music have been preserved by the Roman Catholic to The essence of Pythagorean harmonics (and Pythagorean philosophy generally) has long eluded satisfactory analysis. The first exposition of the roots of esoteric Pythagoreanism is Hans Kayser, Lehr- buch der Harmonik (Zurich: Occident Verlag, 1950). Kayser's research derived largely from study of a rare volume by Albert Thimus : Die harmonikale S11mbolik des Altertums (Koln: Dumont-Schawberg, 1868-76). The less obscure Aristoxenian tradition is well expounded by Henry S. Macran, The Harmonics of Aristoxenos (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902). u Listed speculatively in Amedee Gastoue, L'Art Gregorien (Paris: F. Alcan, 1911), pp.121 f. Church, which still considers the so- called Gregorian chant to be the ideal music for divine services. These chants are monophonic, rhythmically free, and sung by cantor and unison choir. The melodies are intended solely as orna- mentations of the texts: they are re- stricted in range, sparing in use of wide intervals, and free from dissonance or sharp contrasts. Authentic performance does not admit instrumental accompani- ment.12 Pope Gregory I ( 590-604) appears to have instigated a reform and codifica- tion of the chant repertoire, which re- sulted in a curtailed but collated body of melodies. It seems reasonable to sup- pose that any manuscripts bearing su- perseded versions of a chant would not have merited preservation, and indeed the corpus of extant chant examples dates from the seventh century on. About three thousand chant melodies remain in the present day repertoire. 13 Notation. Apparently not much need for a precise notation was felt during this period. In its stead there was a strong oral tradition; chant melodies were transmitted from master to pupil and from monastery to monastery with remarkably few corruptions; it was con- sidered sacrilegious . to alter a sacred melody. Nevertheless ~here were inev- itable local variants, and doubtless it was a principal aim of the Gregorian reform to purify them. There is evidence that a certain sys- tem of signs, known as ekphonetic nota- tion, had its beginnings in Byzantium during this period. Originally these 1 2 There is a vast literature on the chant. Harvard Dictionary, pp.304-10, offers a concise introduction and brief bibliography; Reese, Middle Ages, pp.57- 197, is a more detailed study, with comprehensive bibliography, pp.431-45. The biggest and finest mod- ern compendium is Willi Ape!, Gregorian Chant (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1957). Higini Angles has two useful chapters in New Ox- ford History of Music, II. 1s The official versions of these melodies appear in the Liber Usualis, ed. by the Benedictines of Solesmes (Boston: McLaughlin & Reilly, 1950). Study of the Music Manuscript Period I 11 signs were but accents indicating a rise or fall in pitch; later they came to rep- resent stereotyped melodic formulas. The first extant manuscript containing these signs dates from the ninth century. Contemporary Literature on Music. The patristic writings are a source of much information regarding attitudes toward music and the function it had in early church services. 14 Three men served to extend the tra- dition of Greek theory: Boethius (d. 524) ,1 5 Cassiodorus ( 4 79-515) ,1 6 and Isidore of Seville ( 565-636) .17 Boethius continued the Pythagorean school and Cassiodorus that of Aristoxenos. Their writings, with those of Isidore, formed the basis of academic music study until the ninth century. SEVENTH THROUGH TENTH CENTURIES Now the music manuscript period be- gins to flourish. There is an abundance of examples, and improved notation ren- ders them more or less readable. Characteristics of the Music. Gregory's codification of the plainchant became the norm fot all western churches. This standardized body of melodies was not long untouched, however, for in the 14 The standard source for this material is Jacque Paul Mi g ne, Patrologiae Cursus Com pletus . . . (Paris , 1857-66), but it is conveniently summarized in Th eodore Gerold, L es P er es de l'Eglise et la Musique (Paris: F. Alcan, 1931). For guidance through Migne's 161 volumes there is a table of con- tents in the Catalogue of the L ibrary of the P eabody Institute (Baltimore: Isaac Friedenwald, 1883), IV, 2908-28 ; and an Index Musicae to the Latin series in Vol. CCXXI, col. 625 ff. Reese, Middle Ages, 61-67, is a brief survey of patristic writings in the area. 1 5 De Institutione Musica . . . modern ed. by Gott- fried Friedlein (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1867). Ger- man translation: Oskar Paul, Boethius ; Fii.n Bii.cher ii.ber die Musik (Leipzig: E. C. Leuckart, 1872). 1 6 Treatise on music reprinted in Martin Gerbert, Scriptores Ecclesiastici de Musica . . . (facsimile reprint, Milan: BoUettino Bi bliografico Musicale, 1931; first published, 1784), I, 14-19; and in Roger A. Mynors, Cassiodori Senatoris Institutiones . . . (Ox- ford: Clarendon Press, 1937). Partial English trans- lation in Oliver Strunk, Sourc e Readings in Music His t ocy (New York: Norton, 1950). 17 De Ecclesiastis Officiis, Migne 'Latin series LXXXIII, 743 f. Etymologies, III, chapter 14-22, Migne Latin series, LXXXII ; modern edition by Wallace M. Lindsay, Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum . . . (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911). eighth or ninth century it was enriched by the development of tropes. These were interpolations made in the autho- rized texts, ranging in extent from a few amplifying words to lengthy . sentences and even entire poems. The new text was either fitted to a pre-existing musi- cal pattern which had previously been sung on a single syllable-a so-called melismatic pattern-or sung to a new melody. Tropes which took the form of dialogues were forerunners of the litur- gical drama. 18 A second innovation of this period was the rise of the secular song, but there is a dearth of manuscripts in readable notation before the eleventh century. The most important development of these four centuries was that of polyph- ony: the sounding and writing of two or more simultaneous melodies, in con- trast to the single line monophony found earlier. 19 In addition to the artistic sig- nificance of this new kind of music, we can observe a considerable impact which it had upon manuscript produc- tion and notation. The increased com- plexity resulting from extra voices ren- dered less satisfactory the practice of retaining compositions in the memory and was a reason for the larger number of manuscripts; and further, the neces- sity for two singers or groups of singers 18 The history of the trope is sketched in Reese, Middle Ages, pp.185-97, and in Jacques Handschin, "Trope, Sequence and Conductus," 'New Oxford His- tory of Music, II. There are four examples in the Davison and Apel, op. cit. (numbers 15b, 16, 27b and 37 of Vol I). 19 The phys ical, physiological, psychological, and artistic factors which led to polyphony have been studied by many scholars. Some of the noteworthy contributions are: Armand Machabey, Histoire et Evolution des Formules Musicales . . . (Paris: Payot, 1928) ; Joseph Yasser, "Medieval Quartal Harmony," Musical Quarterly, XXIII, XXIV (1937-38); Amedee Gastoue, "Moyen Age II (La Musique occiden~ale), .. Encyclop edie de la Musique ... ed., A. Lavignae (Paris: C. Delagrave, 1913-31), I, I, 556 ff; Anselm Hughes, "The Origins of Harmony," Musical Quar- terly, XXIV (1938) ; Marius Schneider, Geschichte der Mehrstimmigkeit (Berlin: J. Bard, 1934-35). A somewhat onesided summary of these and other views is given by Hughes in New Oxford History of Music. II. Further bibliography in Reese, Middle Ages, pp.451-52. 12 I College & Research Libraries • January, 1965 to perform different melodies simulta- neously militated against improvised performance, for objectionable disso- nances might be the res~lt. Notation. It was inevitable that nota- tion of a sort should develop to keep pace with the changes taking place in composition; the interesting point is the direction taken by those who sought to write down music. The choice lay be- tween the adaptation of one of the two radically different systems already known, and the invention of something completely new. The existing methods were the letter notation ( originating with the Greeks; promulgated by Boeth- ius) and the vague ekphonetic symbols. While letter notation is found in the most valuable musical document of the period, the "M usica Enchiriadis," this fairly accurate and unequivocal scheme was not generally adopted. Instead there was developed, perhaps from the ek- phonetic symbols20 or Hebrew cantilla- tion signs, 21 or possibly from the Greek and Latin grammatical accent signs, a system of neumes which seemed to sat- isfy the practical musician, if not the the- orists, for several centuries. The neumes were stylized versions of the acute, grave, circumflex and (artificial) anti- circumflex accents, and indicated respec- tively (as the accents did) a rise in pitch, a drop, a · rise and drop, a drop and rise. These signs22 were placed over the points in the text where pitch change was desired. Used in combination as well as singly, they were capable of indicat- ing fairly complex melodic patterns and, as the system was elaborated, a number of subtleties in performance. The great 20 See Jean Baptiste Thibaut, Origine Byzantine · de la Notation N eumatique .•. (Paris: A. Picard, 1907). 21 Amedee Gastoue, Cours Theorique et Pratique de Plainchant ... (Paris: Scola Cantorum, 1904), p.15. On the relationships among all these signs see Eric Werner, The Sacred Bridge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959). 22 Illustrated, with modern equivalents, in Harvard · Dictionary, p.487. flaw in neumatic notation was felt only later: it was that the size of the interval was not specified with the direction. An acute, for instance, signified a rise in pitch but did not designate how much of a rise. To musicians who knew the repertoire and its idiom this fault was perhaps not serious, but it prevented the learning or singing of an unfamiliar mel- ody "at sight." Although the earliest extant manu- script containing neumes dates from the eighth century, 23 . . . The history of Gregorian Chant would seem to support the assumption that neumes existed as early as the sixth cen- tury. For it is difficult to conceive how the complex task of codifying plainsong mel- odies could have been undertaken during the time of Gregory without the aid of some system of notation. 24 In any case there is a large number of manuscripts dating from the ninth cen- tury on. 25 , Principal Manuscripts. The outstand- ing musical work of the period is the ninth-century manual "Musica Enchiri- adis," the precise date and authorship of which remain in dispute. 26 This trea- 23~roit Ad Te Levavi, Brussels Codex 10127- 10144. Facsimile in Gregorio Suiiol, Introduction a la Paleographie Musicale Gregorienne (Paris: Societe de St. Jean L'Evangeliste, 1935), p.33. 24 Reese, Middle Ages, p.133. In fact the sixth- century palimpsest, Codex 912 of St. Gall, bears traces of neumelike symbols. See Suiiol, op. cit., p.480. 25 An extensive collection of facsimiles with com- mentaries has been compiled by the Benedictines of Solesmes, under the title Paleographie Musicale (Tour- nai: Desclee, 1889- ) in 17 volumes. Contents of the set are given in Reese, Middle Ages, p.441, and Harvard Dictionary, p.233. 26 Note the title of A. H. Fox-Strangways' informa- tive article about it: " A Tenth-Century Manual," Music and L etters, XIII ( 1932), 183-93. The treatise is reprinted by -Gerbert, op. cit., I, 152-212, who attributes it to Hucbald. Locations of the numerous manuscript versions are given in Robert Eitner Biographisch-bibliographisches Quellen-Lexik on de; Musiker und Musikgelehrten ... (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hartel, 1900-1904), V, 218-19. Although much in need of revision, Eitner remains the best guide to library locations of music manuscripts; it is how- ever being replaced by the R epertoire International des Sources Musicales ( 1960- ) , a series described in a review article by Daniel Heartz, Journal of the American Musicological Society, XIV-2 (Summer 1961)' 268-73. Study of the Music Manuscript Period I 13 tise is a primer of practice for early po- lyphony, with musical examples in let- ter notation. 27 Contemporary Literature on Music. Two names predominate: Hucbald and Odo. Hucbald, a monk of St. Amand (ca. 840-930), is perhaps better known for things he did not write than for those he did: he was formerly thought to have been author of the "Musica Enchiriadis," and Gerbert gives him credit for the "Alia Musica" as well (see below). He is actually the author of "De Harmonica Institutione," a summary of earlier thought. 28 Odo, head of the abbey of Cluny (d. 942), is responsible for a num her of important writings on music, chief of which is the "Dialogus."2 9 A composite work of the tenth cen- tury is "Alia Musica," of great value for the study of medieval theory.ao ELEVENTH THROUGH THIRTEENTH CENTURIES In this period the manuscripts begin to look like music as moderns think of it, for the staff makes its appearance to revolutionize notation. The number of manuscripts containing music reaches high into the thousands. Characteristics of the Music. This is the earliest period for which we are able to recreate secular music. The most important body of material comes from the two groups of French minstrels: the troubadours (southern France, eleventh- thirteenth centuries; 2,600 poems and 264 melodies extant) and the trouveres (northern France, twelfth- thirteenth 27 Davison and Ape], op. cit., ex. 25b, is a tran- scription of two examples. 28 Printed in Gerbert, op. cit., I , 103-25. See also Rembert Weakland, "Hucbald as Musician and The- orist," Musical Quarterly, XXXXII (January 1956), 66-84. 29 Text in Gerbert, op. cit., I, 251-64 ; English trans- lation in Strunk, op. cit., pp.103-16. 80 Text in Gerbert, op. cit., I, 125-52. German trans- lation: Wilhelm Miihlmann, Die Alia Musica (Leip- zig: 0. Brandstetler, 1914). centuries; 4,000 poems with 1,400 melo- dies). Though monophonic, this music generally differs from plainchant in sev- eral respects: ( 1) it has a metrical basis and is more strongly rhythmic, ( 2) its melodies have a wider range and depart from the strict modal~ty of the chant, ( 3) it was doubtless performed with improvised instrumental accompaniment (not in the manuscripts), and ( 4) with the exception of the famous Goliard Latin songs, the texts are usually in the vernacular. The German counterpart of the troubadour was the Minnesinger of the twelfth-fourteenth centuries.31 Two great schools of sacred composi- tion highlight these centuries with their achievements in organum. "Organum" is the name given to a polyphonic com- position in which the principal melody (the tenor) is a liturgical chant. The first of the schools was that of St. Mar- tial (Limoges, early twelfth century). Its specialty was organum duplum, in which each tone of a plainchant melody was greatly extended and accompanied in a second voice by a melodic passage. The school of Notre Dame (Paris, late twelfth century) brought forth two ex- cellent composers, among the first im- portant composers we know by name: Leonin and Perotin. The latter added a third and fourth voice to the chant tenor (organum triplum and quadruplum), and devised a method of regulating and no- tating rhythmic values. Frequently their a1 Details on these minstrels and their music may be found in Reese, Middle Ages, chapters 7 and 8 ; Pierre Aubry, Trouveres et Troubadours (Paris: F. Alcan, 1909) ; F. Gennrich, Rondeaux, Virelais und BaUaden (Dresden: Gesellschaft fiir Romanische Literatur, 1921-1927) ; H . J. Moser, Geschichte der Deutschen Musik (Stuttgart und Berlin: J . G. Cotta, 1928-30). An excellent survey, with numerous tran- scriptioDs, is J. A. Westrup's " Medieval Song," New Oxford History of Music, II. It may be noted that the theories of Gennrich have been the subject of considerable controversy; for the most recent re- evaluation see Willi Ape], "Rondeaux, Virelais and Ballades in French 12th-Century Song," Journal of the American Musicological Society, VII-2 (Summer 1954)' 121-130. 14 I College & Research Libraries • January, 1965 voice parts clash in sharp dissonances.32 Notation. The manuscripts show sev- eral fruitless attempts to solidify the equivocal neumatic notation or to pro- vide a substitute for it.33 But the one significant forward step was the devel- opment of the staff. Staff notation was an outgrowth of an earlier attempt to make de:Snite the intervals represented by the neumes, in which dots were placed in the manuscripts above the text, separated vertically from one another by relatively large or small distances, in accordance with the size of the interval. As a guide to writing the copyist scratched a line across the page horizon- tally, with a dry pen, and this line was soon taken to represent a degree of the scale. The line came to be inked in; and presently another line, representing a higher scale degree, was added above it, and the neumes were grouped on and between the two lines. Guido of Arezzo is the person most closely associated with the introduction of staff lines; he recommends three or four lines. The four line staff was adopted for liturgical music and remains today the vehicle for plainsong notation.3 4 When at the end of the twelfth cen- tury the neumes began to assume more definite, square shapes, they began to look like the notes and ligatures of mod- 3:1 Reese, Middle Ages, has an excellent chapter (11) on organum, as does New Oxford History of Music, II. See, for details, William G. Waite, The Rhythm of Twelfth-Century Polyphony (New Haven: Yale Uni- versity Press, 1954). Examples illustrating the chang- ing style appear in Davison and Apel, op. cit., I, exx. 25-31. 33 They are discussed in Reese, Middle Ages, pp.136- 37. u Several standard works on the history of notation 1Ilay be consulted for details of these and other pale- <>graphical developments, as well as plentiful illustra- tions: .Johannes Wolf, Handbuch der Notationskunde ·(2 vols.; Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hartel, 1913-19); Willi Apel, The Notation of Polyphonic Music 900- 1600 (5th ed. ; Cambridge : Mediaeval Academy of America, 1961) ; Carl Parrish, The !Notation of Medi- eval Music (New York: Norton, 1957). For a special study of Guido and the staff see .T. Smits van Waes- berghe, "The Musical Notation of Guido of Arezzo," Musica Disciplina, V ( 1951), 15-53, which includes facsimiles and lists of MSS utilizing the Guidonian system. Other facsimiles : ~'Paleographie Musicale. ern plainchant notation found in the Liber Usualis. Then in the thirteenth century a rapid development began, in which relative lengths or durations came to be ascribed to three of the square notes. This innovation is regarded as the beginning of notation's most prolonged phase, one which was perfected by Vitry in the following century, that of "men- sural notation."35 Principal Manuscripts. There is a rich body of material from this period. All the manuscripts are in legible notation except the well known Winchester Tro- per, a collection of 164 organums in the eleventh-century neumes, decipherable only in general contour. It is nonetheless of value in the study of techniques in early organum.36 From St. Martial the important sur- vivals are B.N. Lat. 1139, 3719, 3549; B.M. Add. MS 36881. From Notre Dame we have Wolfen- biittel 677; 37 Bibl. Laurenziana, Codex Pluteus 29,1; Madrid Bibl. Nac. Hh 167; Wolfenbiittel 1206.38 Three of the numerous secular song collections:_chansonniers, as they are called-may be mentioned as represent- ative: Bibl. de !'Arsenal 5198, "Chan- sonnier de l'Arsenal"; 39 B.N. 844, "Chan- sonnier du Roy"; 40 B.N. 25566. 41 Other collections are cited in Harvard Diction- ary, page 769. There are three extremely important 35 Harvard Dictionary, pp.494 f. The major study of notation in this period is .Johannes Wolf, Geschichte der Mensuralnotation von 1250-1460 . . . (3 vols.; Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hartel, 1904). 36 See W. H. Frere, The Winchester Troper (Lon- don: Bradshaw Society, 1884), for facsimiles and commentary. 37 Facsimile in .T. H. Baxter, An Old St. Andrews Music Book (London, 1931). 38 Facsimiles of the Madrid Hh 167 (or 20486) and the Wolfenbiittel 1206 (or 1099) by Luther Dittmer (Brooklyn: Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1957). 39 Facsimile and transcription by Pierre Aubry (Paris: P. Guenther, 1908). 40 New edition by .T. B. Beck, Les Chansonniers des Troubadours et Trouveres (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1927). 41 Published in E. de Coussemaker, Oeuvres Com- pletes du Trouvere Adam de la Halle (Paris, 1872). Study of the Music Manuscript Period I 15 codices of varied content which date from the thirteenth century: Montpellier, Fac. des Med., H 196;42 Bamberg Kg. Bib I. Ed. IV -6;43 and Burgos, Spain, "Codex Huelgas."44 The items mentioned appear to pre- dominate among a large number of im- portant sources.4 5 Contemporary Li.terature on Music. Guido is probably the chief theorist of the time. 46 Hermannus Contractus47 and John Cotton48 are authors of valuable treatises. Another work of moment, re- lating to mensural notation is the "De Musica Mensurabili Positio" of Johannes de Garlandia.49 42 Facsimile and transcription in Y. Rokseth, Po- lyphonies du xiiie Siecle (Paris: Editions de l'Oiseau Lyre, 1935-39). ~Facsimile and transcription in Pierre Aubry, Cent Motets du xiiie Siecle (Paris: Rouart, Lerolle, 1908). See also Friedrich Blum, "Another Look at the Montpellier Organum Treatise," Musica Dis- ciplina, XIII ( 1959), 15-24. .. Facsimile and transcription in H. Angles, El Codex Musical de las Huelgas (Barcelona: Biblioteca de Catalunya, 1931). 45 As guides to other MSS consult the index to Reese, Middle Ages (under "Manuscripts") ; Ape], op. cit., pp.201-03 ; Friedrich Ludwig, Repertorium Organorum R ecentioris ... (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1910) ; W. H. Frere, Biblioteca Musico-Liturgica ... Handlist of the Mus ical and Latin-Liturgical MSS of the Middle Ages . . . in the Libraries of Great Britain and Ireland (London: B. Quaritch, 1901-32). See also Lincoln B. Spiess, " An Introduction to the Pre-St. Martial Practical Sources of Early Polyph- ony," Speculum, XXII (1947), 16-17. For facsimiles the best source is Paleographie Musicale. Others are Apel, Notation ; H. M. Bannis- ter, Monum enti Vaticani di Paleografia Musi cale Latina (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1913); E. W. Nichol- son, Early Bodleian Music, III (London: Novello; New York: H. W . Gray, 1913); Johannes Wolf, Musikalische Schrifttafeln . . . (Biickeburg und Leipzig: F. Kistner & C. Siegel, 1927). 46 Works reprinted in Gerbert, op. cit., II, 2-61; Commentaries and partial translations into French in Louis Lambillote, Est heti que, Th eorie et Pratique du Chant Gregorien (Paris : A. LeClerc, 1855) . For two German translations see Reese, Middle Ages, p.127. 4T Definitive tex t with English translation in Leon- ard Ellinwood, Musica Hermanni Contracti (Roches- ter: Eastman School of Music, 1936). 48 Definitive text of his De Musica, ed. by van Waesberghe (Rome: American Institute of Musicol- ogy, 1950). German translation in Utto Kornmiiller, "Der Traktat des Johannes Cottonius iiber Musik, " K irchenmusikalisches J ahrbuch, XIII ( 1888) , I. 49 Text in E . de Coussemaker, Scriptorum de Mu- sica Medii Aevi Nova Seriem ... (Paris: A. Durand, 1864-76). Together, Gerbert, op. cit., and this collec- tion by Coussemaker include all the important medi- eval treatises on music. Summary of Garlandia in FouRTEENTH THROUGH FIFTEENTH CENTURIES As we near our own time we find more and more details available about musical theory and practice, and more and more extant manuscripts. It is in- evitable therefore that this, the final section of the survey, be the most con- densed of them all; and that the inter- ested reader will be even more depen- dent than heretofore upon the suggested references if he wishes to see beneath the surface. Characteristics of the Music. The four- teenth century has been given the name "Ars Nova," and indeed there was much novelty in the musical picture. For the first time secular music predominated and liturgical music was comparatively neglected; there was new rhythmic free- dom; dissonance was treated boldly. Principal composers were Guillaume de Machaut ( 1300-1377) and Francesco Landini ( 1325-1397). 5 0 A reaction against the new art began in the early fifteenth century, with the so-called Burgundian School, centered around Guillaume Dufay (ca. 1400- 1474). One accomplishment of this school was the final establishment of the third (rather than the fourth or fifth) as the basic interval of harmonic formu- lation. Sacred music returned to favor. Succeeding the Burgundians were the Flemish Schools, highlighted by Johan- nes Ockeghem ( 1430-1495), Jacob Obrecht ( 1430-1505), and Josquin des Prez ( 1450-1521). These men and their contemporaries preferred four-part writ- ing to the three-part texture of the Bur- Hug o Riemann, Geschichte der Musiktheorie im IX.- XI X. J ahrhundert (Leipzig: Max Hesse, 1898), which is also the standard study of the other theorists from the ninth century on. Riemann has been partly trans- lated: Raymond Haggh, History of Music Theory ; Books I and II, Polyphonic Theory from the Ninth to the Sixteenth Century [by] Hugo Riemann ; trans- lated with a preface, commentary and notes (Lin~ coin: University of Nebraska Press, 1962). 5° For a concise view of the fourteenth century, with bibliography, see Harv ard Dictionary, pp.56-58. 16 I College & Research Libraries • January, 1965 gundians, and made numerous other de- partures of a technical nature. 51 Notation. Phillipe de Vitry, considered by one authority to be the "father of modern notation,"52 expounded in the treatise "Ars Nova" (from which the century has been named; ca. 1320) a new approach to notation. It became possible to write in duple ( 2/4, 2/2, etc.) as well as in triple ( 3/4, 3/2, etc.) time, and each note value could be subdivided into two or three of the next smallest value. This system, the mensural nota- tion previously mentioned, remained the norm until ca. 1600 with one principal modification: the transition from black to white notes prior to the midfifteenth century. 53 One aspect of notation not yet men- tioned deserves some attention: the method of arranging the various voice parts in the manuscripts. Prior to 1225, the standard practice was to align si- multaneous tones vertically, as in a mod- ern score. Subsequent to that time, as some voice parts came to have many more notes than other parts, this ar- rangement was found to waste consid- erable space and writing material; and for it there was substituted the so-called choir book arrangement. In this plan there is no attempt at vertical align- ment: each part is written separately, from start to finish, then the next part is written in the same way, etc. The usual arrangement was for two voice parts to occupy one page of the manu- script, with the other one or two voices on the opposite page of the open book. A modern conductor or keyboard player finds this type of distribution exceed- ingly difficult 'to read, and doubt has been cast upon the ability of medieval ~1 For a thorough study of the period beginning with 1400: Reese, Renaissance, pp.3-287. Brief treat- ments in Harvard Dictionary, articles on the Bur- gundian and Flemish Schools. 52 Ape! in Harvard Dictionary, p.495. See also note 57. 58 Details and facsimiles in Ape], Notation. and renaissance musicians to do so. 54 In the fifteenth century, choir bc;>ok ar- rangement was gradually abandoned in favor of the part-book method, in which each voice is notated on a separate page, so that it is possible to bind together a set of tenor parts or bass parts for a number of compositions; a system cor- responding to present practice in orches- tral and sometimes on choral arranging. Score arrangement was revived toward the end of the sixteenth century, and has persisted since then. It should also be noted that bar lines as we know them are not found in the manuscript period. We find toward the end of this period the introduction of another kind of nota- tion-tablature. Its function was to serve as vehicle for instrumental music. Lute tablatures are of particular interest, for they serve as a guide to finger placement on the instrument, rather than to actual pitches. This system reproduces graph- ically the fingerboard of the lute, and indicates by signs which strings are ~o be depressed and where. The technique has certain advantages, and has been revived recently for the notation of gui- tar and ukulele music. 55 Principal Manuscripts. As there is a plethora of source material, and the im- portant representatives are given in the Harvard Dictionary, pages 702-03, only four codices will be mentioned here. Those chosen are certainly of very great, if not the greatest, value. For Landini and other fourteenth- century Italians: Bibl. Laur. Pal. 87, "Codex Squarcialupi."56 (Continued on page 48) 54 Pros and cons, with an interesting conclusion, in Edward Lowinsky, "On the Use of Scores by Sixteenth-Century Musicians," Journal of the Amer- ican Musicological Society, I (Spring 1948), 17-22. 55 For a brief article with illustrations see Harvard Dictionary, pp.728-30. There is a long discussion in Ape!, Notation, pp.21-81. 58 Modern edition by Johannes Wolf (Lipstadt: Kistner and Siegel, 1955).