MusM Music (Musicology)

This course develops advanced skills that are necessary for conducting original research on music from medieval times to the 19^th century, using a ‘hands-on’ approach. Students examine original music sources as well as facsimiles, and learn how to extract from the external and internal features of both manuscript and printed sources what is most useful for scholars and also for performers.

To provide training in advanced skills necessary for conducting research on music from medieval times to the 19^th century, with emphasis on the Baroque and Classical periods.

To enable students to:

• locate original music sources efficiently
• examine both manuscript and printed sources effectively
• decipher difficult handwriting and notation
• understand the relationships between different sources
• create effective performing editions of early music
• understand elements of performance practice that relate to the notation found in the sources.

• Locate original sources, using appropriate reference tools.
• Understand how printed and manuscript sources of early music were prepared and assembled, and what can be learnt from them.
• Understand how music was and is transmitted from composer to performer.
• Employ greater discernment in the use of editions of varying quality.
• Show thorough awareness of the problems of editing music.

• Understand and address some of the innumerable questions and ambiguities that lie behind seemingly trustworthy music sources.
• Understand the problems involved in dating early sources.
• Decipher, transcribe and interpret music notation that lies outside what is ordinarily encountered in modern editions.

• Handle both original sources and facsimiles, and assess the relationships between sources.
• Create editions of early music that fulfil the needs of both scholars and performers.
• Correct existing editions of early music.

• Use online and library resources to locate desired information more efficiently.
• Identify and distinguish handwritings, and decipher difficult handwriting.
• Work out the relationships between different copies of the same material.
• Write reviews, source descriptions and other narratives concisely but unambiguously.
• Interpret conflicting pieces of evidence through the application of logic.
• Exhibit experience in handling original sources from earlier centuries.

Understanding sources:

• Boorman, Stanley, et al. ‘Printing and Publishing of Music’, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 
• Boorman, Stanley, ‘Sources, MS, 1: Introduction’, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 
• Gaskell, Philip, A New Introduction to Bibliography, Oxford, 1972; 2nd edn, New Castle, Del., 1995.
• Krummel, Donald, Guide for Dating Early Published Music, Hackensack, 1974. 
• La Rue, Jan, ‘Watermarks and Musicology’, Acta Musicologica, xxxiii (1961), 120-46.

Editing sources:

• Caldwell, John, Editing Early Music, Oxford, 1995.
• Cooper, Barry, ’Sources and Editions’, in A Performer’s Guide to Music of the Classical Period, ed. Anthony Burton, London, 2002, pp. 91-101.
• Dart, Thurston, et al., Editing Early Music, London, 1963.
• Grier, James, The Critical Editing of Music, Cambridge, 1996.