The Gaspar van Weerbeke Edition

"The Gaspar van Weerbeke Edition" is conceived as part of the complete music edition of one of the great composers in the second half of the 15th century. The entire edition has been planned for many years and should consist of five volumes when completed. Only one volume has been published so far. Two other volumes will be published in 2009/10 as a result of the FWF project No. P17265. Then the repertoire of the motets, all smaller liturgical works and secular compositions are available in ambitous scholarly editions. The aim of the extension of the project is to prepare and complete the next volume of the Collected Works containing the early masses. The edition of Gaspar`s early masses will enable a reliable analytical approach to a music that is closely connected with the Milanes style - Weerbeke`s place of activity for a long term. It will allow not only the correct evaluation of the composer`s role in the history of the genre and his contribution to the development of new compositional techniques, but also to refine our insight into the blossoming of the genre at the end of the 15th century. The American Institute of Musicology/ A-R edition has agreed to publish all volumes of the Gaspar edition on its own costs in the renowned series CORPUS MENSURABILIS MUSICAE (CMM). International distribution of the editorial work is thereby guaranteed.

Gaspar van Weerbeke was a significant late fifteenth-century composer who worked at the Milanese chapel and other major musical institutions. Substantial progress on the edition and evaluation of his music, which was long overdue, was made with the recent publication of Weerbekes motets and other liturgical works (prior FWF-project). Now that the present FWF-project has been brought to completion, the first volume of the masses will soon be published. Weerbeke is associated with a particular Milanese motet style whose origin has been discussed for decades, and has been challenged recently by research on his famous colleague Josquin Desprez. A reliable edition of Gaspars works using highest editorial standards now provides the basis for further analytical investigation of his work, questions of personal and local style, and the development of specific genres. These specific questions are also important for providing a broader picture of music history at the end of the fifteenth century. Once the remaining volumes of the Gaspar van Weerbeke Edition have been published, his complete works will be available for performance and recording, and thus communicated to a public receptive to historical music. The inclusion of this edition within the renowned series CORPUS MENSURABILIS MUSICAE (CMM), edited by the American Institute of Musicology, guarantees that this music will be easily accessible and guarantees an international diffusion of the editorial work.