Dissemination, Ownership, and Reading of Music in early modern Europe

Lead Research Organisation: King's College London
Department Name: Music

Abstract

This project rewrites the history of the printed musical source from the perspective of its consumption - the owners and readers of music books. Operating in the intersection of musicology, book history (in particular, the history of reading) and bibliography, it offers new ways of assessing who owned music in early modern Europe and how they read it, bringing music into the discourse around early modern literacies.
It does so by bringing together a team of specialists from different fields, led by the PI with a track record of working in both musicology and book history. Together they will address questions around the dissemination and consumption of music by using the information hidden in the more than 1800 surviving copies of music books from the crucial period of 1500-1545, the 'incunabula' period for music printing. A copy-specific methodology new to music books, which has become of increasing importance for general book history, provides an entirely novel approach to questions such as the ownership, dissemination and reading of music sources in this crucial period, then leading to an understanding of musical literacy and its role in early modern Europe.
A series of articles and a monograph by the PI will firmly move the research of early music books away from production towards their consumption. Beyond that, supported by a leading digital humanities agency, we will develop a database, serving first as the way to collect information and later as a tool for end-users to search the ownership and use of music books. The new taxonomy of describing and cataloguing annotations and markings in musical sources, developed for the database in consultation with advisors and colleagues from book history, musicology and research libraries, will set a new standard not only for research, but crucially also for the use in libraries and collections much beyond the time period and material covered in this project.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Description Minor Grant
Amount £250 (GBP)
Organisation Bibliographical Society 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2024 
End 02/2024
 
Description Committee member for Music literacy summit 
Organisation Society for Music Analysis
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution The PI has been asked to be in the committee for a new Musical Literacy Summit, a collaboration between the SMA and various other stakeholders to highlight issues and improve outcomes around musical literacy in the UK. To date, the collaboration has resulted in setting up a first Summit on Musical Literacy (to be held at the University of Cambridge in July 2024). The PI has contributed to this as a committee member.
Collaborator Contribution The SMA has set up the collaboration and funded a researcher to coordinate the efforts.
Impact First Summit on music literacy organised for July 2024
Start Year 2024
 
Description Online workshops held 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Two sessions, each lasting 2.5 hrs, were organised to discuss the question of the 'Dissemination of music books in early modern Europe' with a group of international researchers, postgraduate students, members of library research teams. These were held online to be accessible to a wide geographical range without incurring costs. Participants came from across Europe and the US.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023