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Another View of Musica Ficta in Tudor Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Paul Doe
Paul Doe*
Affiliation:
Exeter University
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Extract

The many researchers who have transcribed Tudor music during the last half-century or so have been acutely conscious of the problems of interpreting accidentals in sources. Few, if any, scribes seem to follow a completely consistent or determinable set of conventions, and the difficulties are compounded when manuscripts of different date give significantly different readings. Some editors of Henrician music have taken the principal sources of that period at, by and large, their face value. Others have preferred the evidence of later (mainly Elizabethan) manuscripts on the assumption that they attempt to spell out earlier unwritten practices of various kinds. In a paper published in the last issue of this journal Roger Bray offered a case for the second of these views. The present article seeks, not to disprove his case, but rather to question some of his premises and methods of deduction, and to enter a plea for caution. It does not claim to do more than touch on some of the issues involved.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 98 , 1971 , pp. 113 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © 1972 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 ‘The Interpretation of Musica Ficta in English Music c. 1490-c.1580’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, xcvii (1970/71), 29–45. A more extended statement of his views will be found in his unpublished doctoral dissertation of the same title (Oxford University, 1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 The Eton Choirbook, 3 vols., ed. F. Ll. Harrison (Musica Britannica x, xi and xii), London, 1956, 1958 and 1961.Google Scholar

3 Op. cit., pp. 35 and 40.Google Scholar

4 It is not possible in the space available to provide full statistics in support of assertions of this kind. In Nos. 1–48 of the Eton Choirbook there are 240 cadence chords which have a third, and which are followed by a barline in the manuscript. Of these 187 are major triads in any case; 36 are marked as major but would otherwise be minor; 14 are unmodified minor triads; and three are editorially completed by Harrison.Google Scholar

5 Musica Britannica, x, p. xxi.Google Scholar

6 Op. cit., p. 37.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., p. 43.Google Scholar

8 Missa de Beata Virgine, Kyrie I. See Josquin dis Prés, Werken: i, Missen, ed. A. Smijers (Amsterdam, 1921–56), No. 16. In Exx. 2–7 note-values are halved.Google Scholar

9 Quoted by Bray, op. cit., p. 31.Google Scholar

10 Thomas Morley, A Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music (1597), ed. R. A. Harman, London, 1952, p. 167.Google Scholar

11 It is to be hoped that more light will be shed on this matter by Roger Bray's forthcoming article, ‘Sixteenth-Century Musica Ficta: the Importance of the Scribe’.Google Scholar

12 Taverner, Te Deum. Oxford, Christ Church, MSS 979–84 (c.1580). See Tudor Church Music, lii (London, 1924), 29.Google Scholar

13 Parsons, In nomine. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Mus.Sch. d. 212–6 (c.1600), No. 4. No modern edition.Google Scholar

14 Taverner, ‘Western Wind’ Mass. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Mus. Sch. e.1–5 (c. 1600). See Tudor Church Music, i (London, 1923), 24. And Tye, ‘Western Wind’ Mass. London, British Museum, Add. MSS 17802–5 (c.1560). See edition by Nigel Davison (London, 1970), p. 28. The three ‘Western Wind’ Masses of Taverner, Tye and Sheppard represent something of a cause célèbre in respect of leading notes, being variations on a tune which itself rises stepwise to the ‘final’ at the end of each variation. All are probably pre-Reformation works, but survive only in post-Reformation sources (with the possible exception of a tiny fragment arranged for keyboard). The scribes have sharpened this leading note in some situations where it ‘works’ without difficulty; in some (e.g. Exx. 5 and 6 above, and several others) they have done so where it appears not to work; and elsewhere they have left it alone. It is unlikely that the composers would have treated the tune so inconsistently, and still more unlikely that they would have relied on the singers' intuition. The present writer believes that, in these works at least, it is justifiable to ignore almost all the manuscript sharps and to sing the music ‘in plain keys’.Google Scholar

15 London, British Museum, Add. MSS 17802–5, No. 78. No modern edition.Google Scholar

16 Op. cit., p. 39.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., p. 41.Google Scholar