Printed Books

During the 15th century, printers experimented with several methods for printing music with wood blocks, and by about 1473 success had been achieved, as evidenced by a single surviving gradual (part of the liturgy). As printers began to market musical works during the latter 15th century, the diversity of local religious usage, for example, in the Offices, necessitated books in which the Latin text was issued without music with space left for the local text to be inserted by hand. There were also books of sacred music in which only the music appeared, allowing a vernacular text to be inserted if desired. In this stage of early printing, the musical notes were created by wood blocks, in a separate impression from the text. When staves were added, three impressions were required. Ottaviano Petrucci in Venice originated a method for printing music in movable type rather than with wood blocks, reducing the passes through the press. Finally, in 1527/28,

6.5 Three musicians with books of music. By the Master of the Half Figures, between 1500 and 1533. (Hermitage, Saint Petersburg, Russia/Bridgeman Art Library)

Music

The first music book executed in one impression was produced by Pierre Attaingnant in Paris: Chansons nouvelles en musique a quatre parties (New songs in music for four parts). His achievement helped to make books of music more easily affordable.

With the spread of printed books during the first half of the 16th century, Protestant churches were able to supply their congregations with personal copies of hymnals and other devotional works. Instead of a trained choir gathering around one gigantic manuscript choir book or sharing a few smaller handwritten books of music, sacred music could be performed by individual worshipers participating personally in the church service. This was only one way in which the art of printing helped to popularize the Protestant religion in Renaissance Europe.

In addition to books discussed previously, the titles described in the following sections are among the printed works that were especially important in the history of Renaissance music. In 1536 Luis de Milan (c. 1500-c. 1561), a Spanish composer living in Valencia, published his Libro de musica de vihuela de mano intitulado El maestro (Book of music for the vihuela entitled The master). This publication, which includes dance music, was significant because of its indications of tempo. The Trattado de glosas (Treatise of glosses) by Diego Ortiz (c. 1510-c. 70) included instructions for ornamentation. Director of the chapel orchestra and choir for the Spanish viceroys in Naples, he wrote this didactic manual about stringed instruments played with a bow. As we have learned, the tonal values of this music permitted the information about ornamentation to be transferred to voice training.

The Dialogue on Ancient and Modern Music by Vincenzo Galilei is a good example of how printed information helped to disseminate ideas that otherwise might have remained within a small circle of specialists. Many of the ideas in Galilei’s treatise were based on his collaboration with the humanist Girolamo Mei (d. 1594), who had extensively studied ancient Greek musical modes but never published the part of his studies that concerned contemporary music. Most important among these ideas was Mei’s criticism of polyphony, which he found musically disordered and inferior for projecting textual meanings. He supported, however, the cantus firmus (fixed song), which he further developed with an emphasis on textual content of the song. Through Galilei’s book, Mei’s advocacy of monodic music (sung in a single melodic line) helped bring about an innovation in Western music that contributed to the birth of opera.