A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Part-Books

by William Smyth Rockstro

PART-BOOKS. The Polyphonic Composers of the 15th and 16th centuries very rarely presented their works to the reader in Score. Proske, indeed, tells us that examples are sometimes to be met with, both in MS. and in print, of the genuine Partitura cancellata—i.e. the true barred Score, as opposed to the semblance of a Score resulting from Hucbald's method of writing between an unlimited number of horizontal lines,^[1] or the early practice of employing, as in the Reading MS., a single Stave comprehending lines and spaces enough to include the aggregate compass of an entire composition.^[2] Moreover, the English Student will scarcely need to be reminded that our own Morley has given examples, in genuine Score, at pp. 131–142, and many other places of his 'Plaine and Easie Introduction.' But examples of this kind are the exceptions which prove the rule; since, usually, the Polyphonists preferred to issue their works in the separate Parts, and generally, in separate volumes, well known to students of mediaeval Music as 'the old Part-Books.'

Of these Part-Books, the greater number may be divided into three distinct classes.

In the first class—that of the true representative Part-Book—each Vocal-Part was transcribed, or printed, in a separate volume.

In the second class, the Parts were indeed transcribed, or printed, separately; but, in the form called, in early times, Cantus lateralis: i.e. side by side, and one above the other, in such a manner that the whole number of Parts could be seen, at one view, on the double pages of the open book, and that all the performers could sing, at once, from a single copy of the work.

In the third class, the plan employed was that known in Germany as Tafel-Musik; the Parts being arranged side-ways and upside-down, so that four performers, seated at the four sides of the little table on which the open book was placed, could each read their own Parts the right way upwards.

The most famous, and, with one exception only, by far the most perfect and beautiful specimens of the first class are those published, at Venice and Fossombrone, at the beginning of the 16th century, by Ottaviano dei Petrucci, the inventor of the art of printing Music from moveable types. Of these now exceedingly rare and costly Part-Books, more than fifty volumes have been catalogued, since the time of Conrad Gesner, who, however, in his 'Pandecta' mentions some few which cannot now be identified. Many of these are now known only by an unique exemplar, which, in some few cases, is imperfect. A rich assortment of these treasures is preserved at the Liceo Comunale at Bologna; and most of the remainder are divided between the Libraries of Vienna, Munich, and the British Museum—the last-named collection boasting eleven volumes, comprising ten complete and two imperfect sets of Parts. In the following complete list of Petrucci's publications, as far as they are now known,^[3] those in the British Museum are indicated by an asterisk, and those at Bologna, Munich, Vienna, Rome, and Berlin, by the letters B, M, V, R, and Ber.

Harmonice Musices Odhecaton. A. Venice, 1501,^[4] May 14. (B. and Paris Conservatoire.)
Canti B, numero cinquanta. B. Venice, 1501, Feb. 5. (B. unique.)
Canti C, numero cento cinquanta. C. Venice, 1503, Feb. 10. (V. unique.)
Motetti A. numero trentatre. A. Venice, 1502, May 9. (B. unique.)
Motetti B, numero trentatre. B. Venice. May 10. (B. unique.)
Motetti C. Venice, 1504, Sept. 15. (*Imperf. B. M. V.)
Motetti a 5. Lib. I. Venice, 1505, Nov. 28. (V. unique, imperf.)
Missæ Josquin. Venice, 1502, Sept. 27. (Ber. unique.)
Missarum Josquin. Lib. I. Venice, 1502, Dec. 27. (V. unique.)
""(Reprint). Fossombrone, 1514, Mar. 1. (B. M. V. R.)
""(Reprint). Fossombrone. 1516, May 29. (*unique.)^[5]
""Lib. II. Venice. 1503, Dec. 27. (V. unique.)
""(Reprint). Fossombrone, 1515, April 11. (V. R.)
""Lib. III. Venice. 1503, Dec. 27. (V. unique.)
""(Reprint). Fossombrone, 1514, Mar 1. (*unique.)^[5]
""(Reprint). Fossombrone, 1516, May 29. (V. unique.)
Missæ Obreth. Venice, 1503. Mar. 24. (M. V. Ber.)
Missæ Ghiselin. Venice, 1503, July 15. (V. Ber.)
Missæ Brumel. Venice, 1503, June 17. (V. Ber.)
Missæ Petri de la Rue. Venice, 1503. Oct. 31. (* B. V. R. Ber.)
Missæ Alexandri Agricoli. Venice, 1504. Mar. 23. (B. V. R. Ber.)
Missæ de Orto. Venice, 1505, Mar. 22. (* Imperf. M. V.)
Missæ Henrici Izak. Venice, 1506, Oct. 20. (* B. V.)
Missæ Caspar. Venice. 1509. (V.)
Missæ Antonii de Feuin. Fossombrone, 1515, Nov. 22. ( V.)
Missarum Joannis Mouton. Lib. I. Fossombrone, 1515, Aug. 11 (* V.)
Missarum diversorum. Lib. I. Venice, 1508, Mar. 15. (* M. V.)
Fragmenta Missarum. Venice. 1505. (B. unique.)
""(Reprint). Venice, 1509. (V. unique.)
Lamentationes Jeremiæ. Lib. I. Venice, 1506, Apr. 8. (B. unique.)
""Lib. II. Venice. 1506. May 9. (B. unique.)
Intabulatura de Lauto. Lib. I. Venice, 1507. (Ber. unique.)
""Lib. II. Venice, 1507. (Ber. unique.)
""(Lib. III. caret.)
""Lib. IV. Venice, 1508. (V. unique.)
Tenori e contrebassi intabulati. Lib. I. Venice, 1509. (V. unique.)
Frottole. Lib. I. Venice, 1504. (M. V.)
"Lib. II. Venice. 1504. (M. V.)
""(Reprint.) Venice, 1507. (Regensburg.)
"Lib. III. Venice, 1504. (M. V.)
"Lib. IV. Venice, 1504. (M.)
"Lib. V. Venice. 1505. (M. V.)
"Lib. VI. Venice, 1506. (M. V.)
"Lib. VII. Venice, 1507. (M.)
"Lib. VIII. Venice, 1507. (M.)
"Lib. IX. Venice, 1508. (M. V.)
Strambotti. Venice. 1505. (B. unique.)
Missa Choralis. Fossombrone, 1513. (R. unique.)
Missarum X. Libri duo. Fossombrone, 1515. (R. unique.)
III Missæ Choral. Fossombrone, 1520. (B. unique.)
Motetti de la Corona. Lib. I. Fossombrone, 1514. ( .)
""Lib. II. Fossombrone, 1519. (* V.)
""Lib. III. Fossombrone, 1519. (* V.)
""Lib. IV. Fossombrone, 1519. (* V.)

The execution of these rare Part-Books is above all praise. The perfection of their typography would have rendered them precious to collectors, even without reference to the value of the Compositions, which, but for them, would have been utterly lost to us.^[6] Each Part is printed in a separate volume, oblong 4to, without a title-page at the beginning, but with a Colophon on the last page of the Bassus, recording the date and place of publication. In one instance only has the brilliancy and clearness of the typography been surpassed. The British Museum possesses the unique Bassus Part of a collection of Songs, printed by Wynkin de Worde in 1530, which exceeds in beauty everything that has ever been produced, in the form of Music-printing from moveable types, from the time of its invention by Petrucci until now. The volume^[7] is an oblong 4to, corresponding very nearly in size with those of Petrucci; but the Staves are much broader, and the type larger, the perfection of both being such as could only be rivalled at the present day by the finest steel engraving. The volume contains nine Songs a 4, and eleven, a 3, by Fayrfax, Taverner, Cornyshe, Pygot, Ashwell, Cowper, Gwynneth, and Jones; and, at the end of the book is the first leaf of the Triplex, containing the title and index only. This, unhappily, is all that has hitherto been discovered of the work.

Petrucci's successors were as far as those of Wynkin de Worde from approaching the excellence of their leader—and even farther. The separate Parts of Palestrina's Masses, and the Madrigals of Luca Marenzio, printed at Venice in the closing years of the 16th century, though artistic in design, and in bold and legible type, are greatly inferior, in execution, to the early examples; and the Motets of Giovanni Croce published by Giacoino Vincenti (Venice 1605) are very rough indeed. The nearest approach to the style of Petrucci is to be found in the earlier works printed, in London, by John Day; the 'Cantiones Sacræ' of Tallis and Byrd, printed by Thomas Vautrollier (London, 1575); and the earlier works published by Thomas Est, under the patent of William Byrd^[8], such as Byrd's 'Psalmes, Sonets, and Songes of Sadnes and Pietie' (1588) and his 'Songs of sundrie natures' (1589). But Est's later productions, including the second book of Yonge's 'Musica Transalpina' (1597), and the works of the later Madrigalists, are far from equalling these, and little, if at all, superior to the later Italian Part-Books.

The finest Part-Books of the second class, presented in Cantus lateralis, are the magnificent MS. volumes in the Archives of the Sistine Chapel; huge folios, transcribed in notes of such gigantic size that the whole Choir can read from a single copy, and adorned with illuminated borders and initial letters of exquisite beauty. In these, the upper half of the left-hand page is occupied by the Cantus, and the lower half, by the Tenor; the upper half of the right-hand page by the Altus, and the lower half by the Bassus. When a Quintus is needed, half of it is written on the left-hand page, below the Tenor, and the remainder (reliquium) below the Bassus, on the right-hand page. When six Parts are needed, the Quintus is written below the Tenor, and the Sextus, below the Bassus. Books of this kind seem to have been less frequently used in England than in Italy; unless, indeed, the MSS. were destroyed during the Great Rebellion.^[9]

The finest printed examples of this class are, the large folio edition of Palestrina's First Book of Masses (Roma, apud heredes Aloysii Dorici, 1572) and the still finer edition of 'Hymni totius anni' (Roma, apud Jacobum Tornerium et Bernardinum Donangelum, 1589). A very beautiful example of this kind of Part-Book, on a small scale, will be found in Tallis's 'Eight Tunes,' printed, by John Day, at the end of Archbishop Parker's metrical translation of the Psalms (London, 1560); and one not very much inferior, is Thomas Est's 'Whole Booke of Psalmes' (London, 1592). Ravenscroft's 'Briefe Discourse,' (1606), is a very rough example; and the 'Dodecachordon' of Glareanus (Basle, 1547), though so much earlier, is scarcely more satisfactory, in point of typography.

The third class of Part-Books, designed to be read from the four sides of a table, was more common in England than in any other country. One of the best-known examples is that given in the closing pages of Morley's 'Plaine and easie Introduction' (London, 1597 and 1606), in which the parts are presented in a rectangular arrangement, each part facing outwards as the book is placed open on the table.

In Douland's 'First Booke of Songs or Ayres,' a still more complicated arrangement is dictated by the necessity for accommodating a Lutenist by the side of the Cantus, the part for these two performers appearing on two parallel staves on the left-hand page, while the other three voices share the right-hand page.

An interesting example of this class is 'Le Parangon des Chansons,' printed by 'Jaques Moderne dict Grand Jacques' (Lyon, 1539–41) in 9 volumes, containing 224 Songs, a 4, and 32 a 2 and 3, so arranged, that the Superius and Tenor sit facing each other, on opposite sides of the table—the Superius reading from the lower half of the left-hand page, and the Tenor from the upper half; while the Bassus and Altus occupy the same positions with regard to the right-hand page.

The rapid cultivation of Instrumental Music in the 17th and 18th centuries, naturally exercised a great influence upon the Part-Books of the period. Scores, both vocal and instrumental, became more and more common: and the vocal and instrumental Part-Books gradually assumed the form with which we are familiar at the present day.

[ W. S. R. ]

1. See vol. iii. p. 427a.
2. See vol. iii. p. 428.
3. The discovery of some additional copies in Italy is reported as these pages go to press.
4. But see Vernarecci as to this date.
5. These two editions are unnoticed by Schmid.
6. Facsimiles will be found in 'Ottaviano del Petrucci da Fossombrone,' by Anton Schmid (Vienna, 1845), and 'Ottaviano del Petrucci da Fossombrone,' by Augusto Vernarecci (2nd edit. Bologna, 1882). The student may also consult Catelani, 'Bibliogr. di due stampi ignoti da Ottav. del Petrucci' (Milan), and the Catalogue of Eitner.
7. K. 1. c. 1.
8. See vol. iv. p. 572a.
9. A large folio MS. of this kind, containing a Mass by Philippus de Monte, was lent to the Inventions Exhibition of 1885 by Miss Rivington, and another exceedingly fine specimen, containing a Gloria a 5, written by Fayrfax for his degree of Mus. D. was lent to the same exhibition from the Lambeth Palace Library.