Near the end of the third decade of the sixteenth century, a
five-volume set of madrigal and motet partbooks was assembled in
Florence and sent as a gift--or "musical embassy"--to the English
court of Henry VIII. The manuscript set--minus the missing altus
part--has been owned since 1935 by the Newberry Library in Chicago;
but until H. Colin Slim's exhaustive efforts, no thorough study of
the history or contents of the partbooks had been undertaken.
At first encounter, these partbooks yield no clues concerning their
provenance, their composers' names, or the reasons for their
dispatch to England. In his search for this information, Professor
Slim used the musicologists' customary tools, namely,
biobibliography, concordances, and textual and musical analysis.
But he also used bibliographers' tools not always employed by
musicologists: watermarks, bindings, script, orthography, and
illuminations.
As a result of his efforts, the author was able to identify nearly
all the works' composers and the manuscripts' expert illuminator.
He also presents a detailed description of the binding process and
the probably background of the scribe, places the political and
social references in the works, and determines the route the
volumes may have taken after they left Henry's library.
By placing the date of the partbooks' arrival in England around
1528, Professor Slim suggests that the musical culture of the early
Tudor court was less French than has hitherto been thought. Indeed,
the presence of the partbooks in Henry's library makes them the
earliest evidence of the Italian madrigal in England. The author
also provides new and significant data on the artistic and
historical position of Philippe Verdelot, the partbooks' most
extensively represented composer.
Volume I of this set contains two parts. The first, dealing with
the manuscript itself, contains the history of the partbooks,
information on their origin, composers, texts, and their importance
as a gift to Henry VIII. Part II, dealing with the music, discusses
general musical traits, the motets, the madrigals, the results of
collation, and the appearance of some of the Newberry motets and
madrigals in other sources.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
