U of Ideas of General Interest -- April 2000
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Contact: Melissa Mitchell, Arts Editor (217) 333-5491; [email protected]
MUSICOLOGY
New book catalogs existing works of Renaissance music scribes
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- In addition to serving as a treasure trove for Renaissance music scholars, a new book edited by University of Illinois musicologist Herbert Kellman doubles as a fact-packed read for anyone interested in the music, art and cultural history that dominated the courts of northern and western Europe in the 16th century.
At the heart of "The Treasury of Petrus Alamire: Music and Art in Flemish Court Manuscripts 1500-1535" (University of Chicago Press) is a catalog of full-color reproductions of the 51 extant manuscripts and 10 fragments filled with music and miniatures, produced by the workshop of music scribe and designer Petrus Alamire. The catalog includes detailed source material and historical notes about each work. More general historical considerations pertaining to the manuscripts, their creators and commissioners are documented in eight scholarly essays, including one by Kellman, who co-founded the UI School of Music's Renaissance Archives and has directed it since 1975.
"While some of these books were known in the 19th century, and virtually all were known by the 1970s, the scholarship on them has appeared in little bits and pieces in various journals, and only a few manuscripts have appeared in facsimile," Kellman said. "But nowhere has there been a complete survey of every one of these books, describing them in detail, with illustrations of their art and calligraphy. Each individual description has a wealth of information, which makes the book an extremely valuable working volume" -- for scholars as well as Renaissance music ensembles seeking source material for performance.
The surviving manuscripts -- most of them copied onto parchment -- contain more than 600 musical compositions, including masses, motets and secular songs by some 70 northern composers, among them Josquin des Prez, Pierre de la Rue and Jean Mouton. Kellman said the oversized manuscripts functioned as choir books that could be placed at the front of a chapel on a lectern in view of the choir.
"Forty-two of the 51 surviving manuscripts are illuminated to one degree or another, the decoration of folios ranging from ornate initials to elaborate miniatures, borders and coats of arms," Kellman noted in his essay.
Highly valued, the manuscripts were created by the elite, for the elite. Kellman said the books were prepared for five categories of recipients attached to the Burgundian-Habsburg courts, among them members of the dynastic family and nobles who served in one of the courts, as well as foreign rulers with political or personal relations with the courts.
"The Treasury of Petrus Alamire" was issued in conjunction with an exhibition of the manuscripts and a scholarly conference organized last fall by the Alamire Foundation, Center for the Study of Music in the Low Countries, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. The activities were planned to coincide with the 500th anniversary commemoration of the birth of Habsburg Emperor Charles V.
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