Why do we need scholarly editions of music?

SOURCES SHOWN IN THE VIDEO (in order of appearance):

• Anonymous, The Carlo G Manuscript (MS, ca. 1610-1620) [imslp]

• Emilio de' Cavalieri, Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae (Biblioteca Vallicelliana MS 0 31, end of 16th cen.) [imslp]

• Dario Castello, Sonate concertate in stil moderno, libro secondo (1629, Venice) [imslp]

• Orlando di Lasso, Psalmi Davidis poenitentiales (BSB Mus.ms. A I, 1565) [BSB]

• Chansonnier cordiforme de Montchenu [c.1470] (Paris, BnF, Ms. Rothschild 2973) [Gallica]

• Ludvig van Beethoven, Piano sonata No. 30 in E major, op. 109 [1820] (Library of Congress, MS ML30.8b .B4 op. 109) [loc.gov]

• Graduale from St. Katharinental (Schweizerisches Nationalmuseum, MS LM 26117) [ecodica]

• Jean-Henri D'Anglebert, Pièces de clavecin (Paris, 1689) [imslp]

• Henry Purcell, A Choice Collection of Lessons, (London, 1696) [imslp]

• Johannes Ockeghem, Missa Mi-Mi (MS I-Chig.C.VIII.234) [DIAMM]

• Antonio Vivaldi, Concerto for Strings in C minor RV 118 (MS I-Tn Giordano 30) [imslp]

• Marco Facoli, Il Secondo Libro d’Intavolatura di Balli d’Arpichordo (Venice, 1588) [imslp]

TRANSCRIBED PIECE:

"Chi t'ama e chi t'adora" by Marc'Antonio Mazzone [cpdl].  It is the first piece from the collection: (ed.) Marc'Antonio Mazzone di Miglionico, Corona delle Napolitane a tre et a quattro voci, Di diversi eccellentissimi Musici (Venice, 1570) [onb] [cpdl].

FOOTNOTES

1. [05:10] Full scores of vocal pieces were rarely published. The extremely special case of a printed score shown in the video is Carlo Gesualdo, Partitura delli sei libri de’ Madrigali a cinqve voci (Genoa, 1613) [imslp]. Otherwise, full scores (or scores which are unnecessarily full) appeared as short excerpts in theory treatises, as organ scores (see our episode The Italian keyboard partitura [YouTube]), and scores for accompaniment. To learn more about scores for accompaniment see Augusta Campagne & Elam Rotem, Keyboard Accompaniment in Italy around 1600: Intabulations, Scores and Basso Continuo (Forschungsportal Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, 2022) [link].

2. [05:17] For general information about intabulations see our episode Intabulations in the 16th and 17th centuries [YouTube]. About Girolamo Diruta’s instructions for how to intabulate for keyboard see our episode Tutorial: intabulating vocal music into keyboard notation [YouTube]. 

3. [07:30] See for example James Grier, 'Musical Sources and Stemmatic Filiation: A Tool for Editing Music', in: The Journal of Musicology, Winter, 1995, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1995), pp. 73-102 [jstor]. 

4. [07:57] Two interesting articles that discuss these problems: 1. Tim Carter, 'Some notes on the first edition of Monteverdi's Orfeo', in: Music & Letters, Vol. 91, No. 4 (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 498-512 [jstor]; 2. John Milsom, 'Tallis, Byrd and the "Incorrected Copy": Some Cautionary Notes for the Editors of Early Music Printed from Movable Type' , Music and Letters, 77/3 (1996), 348–67 [jstor]. 

5. [9:19] [Alon Schab:] Purcell died in 1695 and his widow, Frances, published his keyboard suites the following year. Thus, it is unclear if the instructions were compiled by Purcell himself during his lifetime (in which case, they are earlier than 1696) or by someone from the composer’s circle in 1696. In any case, they are roughly contemporaneous with D’Anglebert’s instructions. Andrew Woolley, 'English Keyboard Sources and their Contexts, c. 1660-1720' PhD Dissertation (Leeds, 2008), pp. 186-196. 

6. [09:40] For a discussion of this example see Edward Wickham, "Realization and Recreation: Texting Issues in Early Renaissance Polyphony", in: Journal of the Alamire Foundation 3(1), January 2011, pp. 147-166 [Researchgate].

7. [09:50] As we suggested in the episode Musica ficta [YouTube, 20:10’], one way to search for historical solutions is in other contemporary sources such as instrumental intabulations.

8. [12:19] We mentioned the difference between C and cut C in our episode Tactus and Proportions around 1600 [YouTube, 2:36']. 

9. [17:44] Ludovico Zacconi, Prattica di musica (1592) [TMI, Imslp], Ch. 73: In che modo le Villanelle. See a translation of the relevant passage in Donna G. Cardamone, The canzone villanesca alla napolitana (Ashgate, 2008), p. 91.

10. [19:22] In our episode Gaudete! And what happened to it in the 20th century [YouTube, 11:56'] we showed how a 20th-century music editor retained the old looking note shapes of a 16th century publication.

11. [19:38] [Alon Schab:] The edition shown in the video is the 2009 edition of Henry Purcell’s opera The Fairy Queen, edited by Bruce Wood (the music) and Andrew Pinnock (the libretto) (Vol. 12 of the Purcell Society Edition). Bruce Wood’s many editions are excellent models for studying the craft of critical editing, and they are to be found in most music libraries. These include three volumes of John Blow’s anthems (Musica Britannica Vols. 50, 64 and 79), Blow’s Venus and Adonis (Purcell Society Edition Companion Series Vol. 2) and many volumes the Purcell Society Edition, including the most up-to-date and comprehensive edition of Dido and Aeneas (Vol. 3). Bruce Wood, a model of a meticulous and prolific editor, passed away in December 2023, several weeks before the production of this episode. We hope this modest tribute conveys something of Bruce’s serious approach to, as well as joy of, critical editing. 

CREDITS

Created by Elam Rotem and Alon Schab, February 2024.

Special thanks to Uri Smilansky and Anne Smith.