The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music

Volume 28 (2022) No. 1

Early Printed Music and Material Culture in Central and Western Europe. Edited by Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl and Grantley McDonald. London and New York: Routledge, 2021. [333 pp, ISBN 978-0-367-35953-9.]

Reviewed by Rudolf Rasch*

1.1 For me, the core business of musicology involves the musical score and the musical performance, giving rise to musical analysis and musical performance studies. But around this core, there is a plethora of auxiliary disciplines, such as music theory, the biography of composers, the history of musical life, musical notation and paleography, musical acoustics, music psychology, and so on. We study these disciplines because we believe that their output will add something to our understanding of specific compositions or repertoires, whatever we conceive as “understanding.” To this ring of surrounding disciplines also belongs the field of “music printing and publishing,” and indeed, within musicology, a whole library could be filled with works written about music printers, publishers and sellers, printing methods, music typography, and the business involved. These works serve to provide a background for interpreting the printed musical score, and is, as a matter of fact, of direct importance for interpreting musical works.

1.2 The book being reviewed here is a recent addition to the corpus about music printing and publishing (and it will not be the last one). It contains thirteen chapters by fourteen authors—one chapter has double authorship—covering nearly all aspects of the field. It mostly deals with the sixteenth century, the first century with a widely developed practice in the field. The chapters are case studies; they do not intend to cover the complete field or even parts of it. There are studies on individual printers and publishers (two categories difficult to separate in the period discussed), on music printing in particular cities, on repertoires printed, on the distribution and dissemination of the output of the music presses, and on miscellaneous topics related to the field.

1.3 Individual music printers and publishers discussed are Georg Rhau (by Moritz Kelber), Tylman Susato (Martin Ham), Madeleine and Marie Phalèse (Maria Schildt), Montanus & Neuber (Royston Gustavson), and the Officina Plantiniana (Louise Huntler-Bradley). Other chapters deal with the printing and publishing of music in such specific cities as Augsburg, Basel, Mainz, and Vienna (Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl), and Seville (Iain Fenlon). Repertoires studied are Strasbourg Protestant hymnals (Beat Föllmi) and Protestant polyphonic masses (Carlo Bosi). Other essays deal with specific publications such as the Melopoiae (Augsburg, 1507; Elisabeth Giselbrecht) and Marin Mersenne’s Harmonie universelle (Leendert van der Miesen). Some deal with specific topics, such as music paper (John Milsom) and privileges (Grantley McDonald and Stephen Rose). This all is preceded by an introduction by Kate Van Orden, giving a useful, very readable overview of the field in just a dozen pages.

1.4 Although the book is not a systematic history of music printing and publishing in the sixteenth century (let alone the seventeenth century), after reading the whole, one has a very good understanding of what is at issue in this field of research. The book is well provided with illustrations (see the list on pp. vii–xii), as is perhaps to be expected considering the subject. There are also many tables and appendices (see the list on pp. xiii–xiv). In particular, the tables are most welcome: providing information in tabular format ensures that it is complete and systematic, whereas text is (nearly always) selective.^[1]

1.5 One aspect of the book that pleases me less is the title. First, the phrase “Early Printed Music” suggests that music is discussed, particularly the music that was printed. That is not the case, however: only in particular instances is the music itself part of the argument. While it is true that one could read “printed music” in the sense of “music prints”—that is, printed editions of music—this still does not cover the contents. Tellingly, there is only one music example in the book apart from the reproductions of early music printing.

1.6 Then: “Material Culture.” What is “material culture”? If I attempt a definition, it would be something like “how human beings (people) deal, interact, or behave with matter, material things, or objects.” But nowhere in the book is this really discussed. It is always the contents of the music editions that is being talked about. Kate van Orden, in her introductory essay, tries to help the case a bit by noting that presses, music fonts, paper, etc., are material objects, something one needs to keep constantly in mind, but none of the chapters that follow pays any attention to the material qualities involved in the printing and publishing of music. In other words, a term like “Material Culture” sounds good in a title, but it is not reflected in the contents.

1.7 Finally: “Central and Western Europe.” This phrase is correctly applied. The studies included in the book cover Spain, France, the British Isles, the Low Countries, and the German-speaking territories, a nice geographical range. Only Italy is not included, the birthplace of music printing and publishing, and one wonders why that is the case.

1.8 A book should, however, be judged according to its contents, not by its title. And as far as the contents are concerned, one could have only praise.