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The Interpretation of Musica Ficta in English Music c. 1490–c. 1580

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1970

Roger Bray
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Extract

‘The evidence now accumulating indicates that a true picture of English style has long been delayed by incredulous editorial pens.’ ‘Such evidence as we have … tends to the conclusion that accidentals should be added, in cases of difficulty, rather than subtracted.’ These two remarks, both made during the last decade, indicate the increasing concern over the correct performance of musica ficta. Both writers express degrees of dissatisfaction with the evidence available, although it is the interpretation of the evidence that has so far proved inconclusive, the evidence itself having remained largely unchanged for several years. The immediate question is whether the main body of evidence lies in the contemporary theoretical treatises or in the music as preserved in contemporary manuscripts; if it proves to lie in neither, then the problem must be regarded as insoluble. Yet the surviving treatises are written in (reasonably) plain English which must surely defy more refined interpretation than that to which they have already been subjected, and we are therefore left with the music. By carrying out a careful study of musica ficta as demonstrated in the accidentals which appear in the manuscripts of the period, we should be able to arrive at a series of rules which were well known by the contemporary musicians, and which should therefore form the basis for modern performance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 97 , 1970 , pp. 29 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 Bergsagel, J. D., Editorial Commentary to Early Tudor Masses, i (Early English Church Music, i), London, n.d., p. xv.Google Scholar

2 P. le Huray, Music and the Reformation in England, London, 1967, p. 103.Google Scholar

3 See Brown, H. M., Instrumental Music Printed before 1600: A Bibliography, Harvard, 1965, pp. 339, 359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 From Chapter IV (unpaginated).Google Scholar

5 Ibid.Google Scholar

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

7 Ibid., pp. 243–4.Google Scholar

8 Collected by Marsh and entitled Pithy, Pleasant and Profitable Works.Google Scholar

9 In the Fleete made by ma William Cornishe, otherwise called Nysewete, chapelman with the most famose and noble king Henry the VII his reyne the xix yere the moneth of July. A treatise betwene Trouth and Informacion, vv. 11, 13, 15, 16.Google Scholar

10 Skelton Laureate Agaynste a Comely Coystrowne, that curyoucly chawnted, and currishly cowntred, and madly in hys musykkys mokkyshly made agaynste the ix Musys of polytke poems and poettys matriculat, London, c. 1526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 John Skelton, Poems, ed. R. S. Kinsman, Oxford, 1969, p. 6.Google Scholar

12 See the ‘Table of Cliffes’ in Bathe's treatise, where all subsemitones are called ‘mi’.Google Scholar

13 Skelton, Poems, p. 7.Google Scholar

14 Further see Bray, ‘Sixteenth Century Musica Ficta the Importance of the Scribe’, Essays in Plainsong and Medieval Music, ed. D. Wulstan (in the press).Google Scholar

15 Clearly there is room in this paper for only a few examples. Full details will be found in my unpublished thesis, The Interpretation of Musica Ficta in English Music, c.1490 to c.1580, Oxford University, 1970.Google Scholar

16 British Museum, Add. MSS 17802–5 (c.1550), No. 66. No modern edition. Musical examples are at the original pitch and in the original note values except where there is a modern edition, in which case the note values of that edition are generally used in order to facilitate reference. In some examples the single voice part is given before the full score, so that the problems of the singer can be clearly seen.Google Scholar

17 Eton College, MS 178 (c. 1500), No. 4. See The Eton Choirbook, iii, ed. F. Ll. Harrison (Musica Britannica, xii), London, 1961, p. 137, bar 73. The manuscript gives a clear B♯ (B) for the last note of this bar.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 101, bars 137–8. The E♯ in question is the first note of bar 138 in the lowest voice. This work is found in the Lambeth Choirbook (Lambeth Palace, MS 1, c.1510), No. 16; the Caius Choirbook (Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 667, c.1520), No. 9; the Henrican Peterhouse Partbooks (Cambridge, Peterhouse, MSS 40, 41, 31, 32, c.1540), No. 52; two isolated partbooks originally from the same set (Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd xiii 27 (Contratenor), and Cambridge, St. John's College, MS 234 (Bassus), c.1540), No. 17; and a bass partbook (British Museum, Add. MS 34191, 1540s).Google Scholar

19 The Caius Choirbook, No. 11. See Early Tudor Magnificats, ed. P. Doe (Early English Church Music, iv), London, n.d., p. 93, bars 30–34. The bass E in bar 34 is clearly marked with a sharp.Google Scholar

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21 The Gyffard Partbooks, No. 88. No modern edition. The key signature applies only to the pitch indicated.Google Scholar

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28 For further discussion of the dating of the various scribes of this manuscript see Bray, ‘Sixteenth Century Musica Ficta’.Google Scholar

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33 The Lambeth Choirbook, No. 15; the Peterhouse Partbooks, No. 54; St. Michael's College, Tenbury, MSS 34'-4. 354–8 and 1469–71. See Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, xvii/1 (Rome, 1959), 12, and Early English Magnificats (Early English Church Music, iv), p. 36.Google Scholar

34 In the Lambeth Choirbook, No. 3, the Caius Choirbook, No. 15, the Forrest-Heather Partbooks, No. 5, and the Peterhouse Partbooks, No. 30. See Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, xvii/1. 50.Google Scholar

35 Printed in Tudor Church Music, x.Google Scholar

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37 Baldwin's Partbooks (c. 1580), No. 147. See Tudor Church Music, vi (London, 1928), 293.Google Scholar