When was music first printed?

Subject: When was music first printed?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 03:59 AM

When was musical notation first printed rather than written?

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 04:46 AM

Around 1500. The first important collection was by Petrucci.

Unless the Chinese got in first - notation for ch'in music was very old by then and there was enough of a demand for it that it might have been printed using woodblocks.

The interesting thing about music printing is that, unlike text, it was soon realized that movable type didn't work very well.   For a while in Britain in the late 17th and early 18th century, the really downmarket stuff (like Playford) was done with movable type while anything less disposable was engraved.

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 02:28 AM

Did rich people have musicians to play at social events like banquets and social dancing before the time of the printing press? I guess they would have to for dancing - stupid question really. Did these musicians play by ear and pass tunes around by ear or did they play from hand written music?

Any evidence out their?

Cheers

Les

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: GUEST,BobL
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 08:34 AM

Possibly both. Certainly by the 18th century, you used to get village musicians and singers setting down tunes (sometimes just their own parts) in manuscript books. Printed editions were too pricey for everybody to have one apiece, and variations between different books suggest that some at least were passed on by ear.

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 10:44 AM

Further to Jack Campin, you can normally tell simply by the quality of the printing whether a musical score has been taken from a single, engraved copperplate or from a block made up of movable, reusable notation; in the former case, the staves will appear as smooth, continuous lines, in the latter, there will be noticeable irregularities. I've read that it was a Scots engraver, James Johnson, late 1770s, who invented a method of stamping musical notation onto thin sheets of pewter, thus bringing down the price of printed music.

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 11:20 AM

Did William of Normandy (Ne William The Conqueror, Ne William The Bastard) have Court Musicians and if so did they have written music?

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Tootler
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 12:14 PM

Did William of Normandy (Ne William The Conqueror, Ne William The Bastard) have Court Musicians

Almost certainly. It was customary for both monarchs and for the major nobles to maintain a musical establishment at that time and for a long time afterwards.

and if so did they have written music?

Possibly not, though I suspect we will never know. Musical notation was in use in the church at that time but the first secular song we have notation for AFAIK is "Sumer is icumen in" which is in a manuscript dating from the mid thirteenth century. (about 100 years after Hastings) The notation used was surprisingly close to the modern form. You can see it here

Printing was invented in Europe in the mid 15th century and by the mid sixteenth century there was a steady output of books of music.

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 12:21 PM

Billy wasn't ne the conqueror, he got that by putting someone's eye out. I expect he liked music that sounded like twanging bowstrings and maces beating on heads, and wails of agony, so Margaret Barry with a banjo and a bodhran would be his sort of stuff.

People in the C13 certainly wrote down tunes and songs that they wanted to keep, for example the Robertsbridge Codex- that's how we know the estampies etc. that have come down to us and are the delight of such as the Dufay Collective and Joglaresa. We had a discussion about a song a few months ago- a C13 troubador song- someone found a PDF (sadly on the restricted JSTOR site) which apparently included photographs of the manuscript music. They appeared to be written on scrap legal documents, but whether the musical scribe was him(her?)self a lawyer we don't know.

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 12:30 PM

Medieval and Renaisance musicians in any 'Court' or important church would all have had manuscripts with musical scores; various systems are in Greek writings. See Cleonide's (2nd c.) and Ptolemy's systems- in Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and summarized in Grout, D. J. and Palesca, C. V., 1960 and later eds., A History of Western Music.

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 12:46 PM

Am I correct to assume that written music was precious before printing? Did printed music, whenever it took off, led to a rapid growth and dissipation of good tunes?

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 12:59 PM

See my post on the history of writing down music in When did 'sight reading' begin?

Mick

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 01:25 PM

What do you mean by 'precious'? In the sense that it was unknown to the public, that is true.
Written music, like all writing, was the preserve of the educated of the courts, church and a few wealthy elite. Of course most would have been liturgical.

Little is preserved, but a manuscript prepared c. 1250 for King Alfonso el Sabio of Spain preserves 400 cantigas which seem to resemble the music of the troubadours, although they are in praise of Mary. An illustration in the manuscript shows musicians playing hurdy-gurdies. Only court and important church musicians would have had access to this and similar manuscripts.
Secular manuscript fragments of the music of the Goliards are known from the 11th c, but the songs we know (Carmina burana, etc.) are reconstructions with later music.

Minstrels appeared about the 10th c., but they freely expressed the poems and would have known little of music notation in manuscripts of the time. Although they performed in the manors of the nobility, their access to manuscripts was probably nil.

Freely adapted and probably inaccurately from "A History of Western Music." Since this was a text used in music courses, it is available used, very cheaply. Mine was a 50 cent library discard. An excellent reference!

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 02:52 PM

Further to Q's post (and also from A History Of Western Music, 2000 ed) the troubadors and trouveres did have written music, but as I pointed out in my post in the Sight-reading thread I linked to above, this was largely melodic - it did not have note duration values as we think of them now (there are some conflicting theories of how to assign durations, but no concencus I think). You would have had to have had some familiarity with the tune.

As far as printing is concerned, as Jack said above round about 1500 is the date. Liturgical books of plainchant were printed in 1473. Petrucci's polyphonic music was printed in 1501 and by 1523 Petrucci had published (or repinted) 59 volumes. (His was a three stage process - staff lines on one pass, words on a second and notes on a third. Single impression seems to have started around 1520 in London, and large scale use from Paris 1528, Germany 1534, Netherlands 1538).

You can see some early examples of music writing at History of Music Printing.

It's also possible to find some thumbnails of troubador/trouvere music by searching for chansonnier at Digital Image Archive; none of them seem to have full sized images available, but you can get the impression.

Mick

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Crowdercref
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 03:34 PM

Another reason that Bill the bastard almost certainly retained musicians is because many of his predecessors and contemporaries did. Early English and Anglo-Nordic verse such as Deor and Beowulf have numerous references to the role of music both as a noble diversion and as a 'court' or household entertainment. The images in such verses give a context for the discovery of lyres in 8th century royal/noble burials such as Sutton Hoo and Prittlewell.

The 10th century Laws of Hywell Dda (of South Wales) make similar references to household and other bards.

In my (Cornish) neck of the woods the earliest mention of musicians are various 'harpurs' 'tabourers' and 'piperes' who are mentioned in assize rolls and account books from 1201.

The tablature of the Welsh harp music known as Cerdd Dant probably evolved in the 14th century, but we only have 16th century examples remaining.

Oll an gwella

Crowdercref

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 03:47 PM

Looking at practicing musicians' manuscripts from the past it's obvious that writing it yourself remained a cheaper option for many kinds of music long after printing - until about the middle of the nineteenth century, and well into the twentieth for bagpipe music, which has always been horrendously expensive. What made the big difference was cheap *paper*. Writing on dead sheep could only be justified for very important stuff.

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 05:42 AM

Did printed music, whenever it took off, led to a rapid growth and dissipation of good tunes?

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 06:00 AM

I think you mean dissemination, Les.... dissipation is the rag end of a good session.

It's probably impossible to say. Lots of other things were going on at the time, including the growth of moderately-well-off and relatively leisured middling classes as users of music for pleasure, and the desire to distinguish their pleasures from those of the peasantry and lower artisans. So art music and aristocratic music were freed from church and palace, and cheap printed editions would have helped them to get around. Hence all the lute and virginal music, and madrigals etc. of the 16th century.

I suspect that as far as the music of the lower orders is concerned- what we think of as the 'true' folk music*- it would have been relatively conservative, if only because of the lower literacy and geographical range available to them, and the cost of sophisticated instruments. But there are also church bands to take into account- when did these develop? There was a lot going on in Church liturgy in the 16th-17th centuries, from Reformation(s) and the Englishing of services, to Puritanism, iconoclasm and bluenosery.

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 08:06 AM

I think you mean dissemination, indeed I did

I guess its worth looking at the history of social dance since the tunes were written for that purpose?

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 08:43 AM

As an aside, a recent article "documents(?)" a specific "notation(?)" widely seen by multitudes of people, dating from the period 1494 to 1498 in Milan's Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, and only recently "recognized(?)" as being notation(?) for a piece of music(?).

Old Music Decoded

See it for yourselves.

John

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 09:43 AM

Ok, I have started a new thread in this trilogy.How far back does "Social dance" go then? I think that is wrapped up with tunes, dots and passing around of tunes.

Thanks

Les Jones

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: autolycus
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 11:35 AM

Mick's on the money.

"The earliest printed music is a book of plainsong issued in Esslingen near Stuttgart in 1473 by Conrad Fyner." ( Guinness Book of Music, 2nd ed [where I get a lil' mention in the acknowledgements, tho' not for that.])

Paul Griffiths agrees this date in his Penguin Companiob (aka as Companion) to Classical Music, 2005.

      Ivor

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Mr Red
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 01:36 PM

John Dowland's music was recorded in tablature I am told. He was court musician to Liz 1.

So how old is tablature?

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Kaleea
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 04:40 PM

Depends upon one's definition of "Music." In the far near & East, there are numerous examples of written Music from several thousand years back, but it is not the modern version of notation. The Music was composed & written down, then taught to students of particular Musical Instruments. Much of this Music is extremely complicated, & one could spend a lifetime studying Classical Music (of whatever culture) from a Master Musician. There have also been a great many works or art found in which Musicians were playing for various courts/royalty for various occasions. I have a copy of an ancient Persian miniature hanging in the Smithsonian in which Musicians are playing for the entertainment a prince. This is considered by Musicologists to be modern, as it is dated AD.

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: autolycus
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 05:13 PM

Griffiths says tablature in Spain and Germany goes back to the early 14th century.


   Ivor

Subject: RE: When was music first printed?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 05:31 PM

The first music printed with movable type was the plainchant, 1473, autolycus, above. A few works were done with wood blocks, slightly earlier.

Dowland (1562-1626); his work printed with movable type as most printing was done by that time.
Tablature is an instrumental notation indicating the string, fret, key or finger to be used instead of the tone to be sounded. It was in use in the 1500s.