Music Printing in German Speaking Lands: From the 1470s to the mid-16th century

The emergence of an influential new medium is not only a technical phenomenon, but has also deep consequences for society, as our generation learned from the development of the personal computer. The present project investigates a technical development which emerged about 540 years ago and fundamentally changed the musical world. Printing music raises many special challenges. The first extant document of the new medium of printed music is a missal, a liturgical book containing chant notation, produced about twenty-five years after Gutenbergs famous 42-line bible. It has long been known that this missal was printed in the south-German area. Despite the leading role played by German printers in the development of music printing, the history of music printing in German- speaking lands is still waiting to be adequately explored, and lags seriously behind comparable study of other European countries. This situation is due to specific cultural and political conditions in this time and area. The project does not start with questions of repertoire, but begins with the technical challenge of printing notes, staff lines and text together. All kinds of printed source containing all kinds of notation are of interest: theory books with music examples, broadsheets with music, liturgical prints, tablatures for all kinds of instruments, polyphonic music prints, and so on. This broad perspective provides a comprehensive insight into the musical world of the early sixteenth century, and leads to a better understanding of the influence and role of music printing in cultural history. The proposed project extends the findings and methodology of a preceding project, finishing in fall 2015, which concentrated on the first four decades of the sixteenth century. A database was established as part of this preceding project, and a light version is already online (vdm16.sbg.ac.at). The existing collection of data will be enlarged considerably by checking single copies in original and by continuing to record specific typographical facts and detailed descriptions of individual exemplars over the full period of investigation. Each entry should be enhanced by an illustration of the title page and one page containing printed musical notation. Moreover, a cartographic visualizer will be developed to help users conceptualise the distribution of prints and relate them in time and space. Parallel to the data capture, the project team will also evaluate the data by investigating specific research questions. Topics of interest are the technical development of early music printing throughout the entire time span; the effect of the Reformation and its aftermath on the market for printed books; the consequences of the introduction of new printing techniques; the development of networks of printing firms and the resulting exchange of knowledge; and the relation and interaction between printed repertoire and various social groups, both within and beyond the German-speaking territories.

The emergence of an influential new medium is not only a technical phenomenon, but has also deep consequences for society, as our generation learned from the development of the personal computer. The now completed project investigated a technical revolution which emerged about 540 years ago and fundamentally changed the musical world. Printing music raises many special challenges. The first extant document of the new medium of printed music is a missal, a liturgical book containing chant notation, produced about twenty-five years after Gutenberg's famous 42-line bible. It has long been known that this missal was printed in the south German area. Despite the leading role played by German printers in the development of music printing, the history of music printing in German-speaking lands was still waiting to be adequately explored, and lagged seriously behind comparable studies of other European countries. This research gap has now been closed. The project did not start with questions of repertoire, but began with the technical challenge of printing notes, staff lines and text together. All kinds of printed sources containing all kinds of notation were of interest: theory books with music examples, broadsheets with music, liturgical prints, tablatures for all kinds of instruments, polyphonic music prints, and so on. This broad perspective provides a comprehensive insight into the musical world of the early sixteenth century, and leads to a better understanding of the influence and role of music printing in cultural history. A database was already established as part of a former project and is freely accessible online (vdm16.sbg.ac.at). The collection of data has been enlarged considerably by checking single copies in original and by continuing to record specific typographical facts and detailed descriptions of individual exemplars over the full period of investigation. Each entry has been enhanced by an illustration of the title page and one page containing printed musical notation. Moreover, a cartographic visualizer was developed to help users conceptualise the distribution of prints and relate them in time and space. Parallel to the data capture, the project team has also evaluated the data by investigating specific research questions. Topics of interest were the technical development of early music printing throughout the entire time span; the effect of the Reformation and its aftermath on the market for printed books; the consequences of the introduction of new printing techniques; the development of networks of printing firms and the resulting exchange of knowledge; and the relation and interaction between printed repertoire and various social groups, both within and beyond the German-speaking territories. The numerous publications that have resulted from this project can be found on the homepage www.vdm.sbg.ac.at under "Publications".