Giovanni Varelli, ed., Disiecta Membra Musicae: Studies in Musical Fragmentology (original) (raw)

Fragmenta Manuscriptorum Musicalium Hungariae Mediaevalis: From Traditional Methodologies Towards a Digital Corpus

Disiecta Membra Musicae. Studies in Musical Fragmentology, 2020

The paper focuses on the latest results and achievements of the research group Digital Musical Fragmentology established at the Department of Early Music History of the Institute for Musicology in Budapest. The research is closely related to the decades-long musical, liturgical and palaeographical examination of sources, repertories, melodic and notation systems of the cantus planus in Hungary and Central Europe. After discussing the main principles of describing, systemising and analysing notated manuscript fragments on the website Fragmenta Manuscriptorum Musicalium Hungariae Mediaevalis two case-studies are presented in detail: fragments of a fifteenth-century Graduale Strigoniense and those of the Sequentionale Waradiense. Both are contributing to a virtual reunification of disseminated groups of fragments, dispersed in different libraries, towns, countries.

Lost & Found: Traces of Early Music An International Colloquium on Fragmentology

The Stammbuch, an accessory that from the mid-sixteenth century onwards accompanies the student along his or her journey of study and discovery, has proved to be a valuable tool for the biographical reconstruction of figures who sometimes remained “in the shadows”. It has, moreover, proved to be an important source for musicological research, thanks to the presence among its pages of numerous accounts of notated music and a general reference to musical practice. The paper aims to explore the profiles of two musicians, Christoph Buel and Christoph Thomas Walliser, both of whom lived between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, through the liber amicorum that belonged to the law student from Hersbruck Michael Pönlein. In the heavily damaged Stammbuch, two pages contain as many autograph pieces of music. So far the two subscriptions have not been attributed to Buel and Walliser, but they are important for investigating the figures of the two musicians. The lost lives of these two composers are now being connected thanks to the in-depth study of this liminal document that in previous decades would have had no value to be recognized by scholars, let alone investigated.

Publications of the ICTM Study Group on Music Archaeology, vols. 1-3 (2013-2020)

Publications of the ICTM Study Group on Music Archaeology is a book series published by Ekho Verlag, Berlin. The ICTM Study Group on Music Archaeology was founded in the early 1980s and has a prolific history of publications. The volumes of the new series are anthologies of peer-reviewed chapters focused around a specific topic. In reflecting the wide scope of music-archaeological research world-wide, the series draws in perspectives from a range of different disciplines, including related newly emerging fields such as archaeoacoustics, but particularly encouraging both music-archaeological and ethnomusicological perspectives.

Preparing a Late Period Medieval Music Manuscript: Deus in Aujitorium

For the Anno Societatis 50 Artisan’s Challenge I chose to prepare a later period medieval musical manuscript page (folio) with illumination and musical notation. The “scroll” was prepared in the period style using period materials, methods and tools whenever feasible. After choosing an exemplar, a digital reproduction of high quality provided by the museum (University of Montpellier, France) holding the original was examined as closely as possible using a magnifying glass and making detailed notes. While constantly consulting references listed as well as society Laurels and Grant-level award recipient, the following was taken into consideration: page layout, calligraphy hand, musical notation and layout, illuminated figures and other decoration (materials and pigments, techniques used for modeling and brushwork, the iconography (subject, composition, symbology) and style), as well as the relationship between text and images. Latin text was transcribed. I found recordings of “Deus in Aujitorium” and listening to the recordings of the exemplar motet before and during preparation of the project, as well as making the recordings available during the Artisan Challenge sessions at events, enhanced the creative process.