Music Printing in the Renaissance
http://www.pnelsoncomposer.com/writings/MusicPrintingRenaissance.html
Copyright (c) 2003 by Paul Nelson, all rights reserved.
Introduction
Music printing was born in the renaissance during a
100 year period of intense innovative activity from the late 15 century to the
late 16 century. During this time, many technologies were tried. Some were newly
invented, such as the process of using moveable type to set notes and staff
lines. Others, such as woodcuts, were fairly old but used in new ways.
In nearly every case, new technologies were not
immediately adopted, but rather began in fits and starts. Often, a new
technology would require a master printer to demonstrate how it could be used
effectively and profitably before it became standard throughout the industry.
The remainder of this paper will focus on this birthing
period of music printing and will cover the technologies and inventors involved
from the start.
The Gutenberg Printing Process
Any discussion of early printing in the western
world must begin with Gutenberg, who, around 1450, integrated a wide range of
technologies into a single coordinated system of printing with moveable type.1
At this time European paper (made from flax and hemp) was already a fairly
mature product, having been introduced into Europe 100 to 150 years earlier.
New, oil-based inks, unsuitable for Velum but perfect for paper were mixed with
varnish and soot by Gutenberg to create thick pasty inks that would stick to
the type in his printing press. The pressing mechanism itself came from similar
ones used to produce wine and olive oil. These presses were used to create
intense, but even, pressure across the entire surface of the paper, creating a
strong consistent image.2
But what made it all economically feasible was
Gutenberg's primary innovation: metal moveable type. Moveable type had already
been invented in China much earlier using ceramic characters. However, the
large variety of characters in the Chinese language prevented it's wide-spread
adoption, and all indications are that Gutenberg had no knowledge of his
Chinese predecessors. Gutenberg's invention spread quickly and within 15 years
had been copied up and down the Rhine valley and into Italy.3
Moveable type is fashioned in three stages. The
first stage is to carve the needed character (in reverse) into the tip of a
small bar of iron. This iron bar becomes a "punch" and is forcibly
hammered into a small strip of copper to make a forward impression. The strip
of copper is then placed at the bottom of a mould into which molten lead is poured,
reversing the impression one last time and creating a single character of type
(called a 'sort'). Early professional typecasters who manufactured sorts of
moveable type could create as many as 4,000 characters an hour.4
Once the sorts were created, typesetters would line
them up in reverse order in rows to make words and lines, and then stack the
rows to make paragraphs, and then wedge the whole thing into a frame (called a
'chase') which was placed into the printing press. To print each page of text
the printer would do the following: 1) Smear Ink on the metal rows of text, 2)
place a piece of blank paper on top (oftentimes using a special frame), and 3)
Press the paper into the text using a big flat platen screwed down from the
top.5
Unfortunately, it took Gutenberg two tries to create
moveable type. His first attempt produced text too large to be used
economically: too much paper would be consumed for each book. When he went back
to his investor to obtain additional financing, Johann Fust forced unfavorable
terms on Gutenberg, and after the Gutenberg bible was produced Fust dissolved
the partnership and went into the printing and publishing business with Gutenberg's
partner, Peter Schoeffer. This left Gutenberg to limp along by himself with
various printing projects (and some of the original equipment) until his death
in 1468.6
Printing Music: Partial Solutions
Printing of alphabetic text for a book can actually
be a pretty sloppy process and still yield acceptable results. This is because
each character of text is an independent symbol, floating on the page. It is no
great problem if any one character shifts by a small amount, or if the entire
page is slightly shifted or tilted in relation to other pages.
Early printers who wished to include music in their
books quickly ran up against the primary difficulty of music printing: staff
lines, which caused enormous problems.7 Characters are no longer
independent objects floating on a page, but are now notes drawn on top of staff
lines. How could one symbol be reliably printed on top of another?
The first printed book containing music was the Mainz
Psalter, produced by Guttenberg's successors, Fust and Schoeffer,8
which also has the historical distinction of being the first book to be printed
in color. Notice the careful wording of the previous sentence. The Mainz
Psalter did not actually print the music. Rather, the music was added by
hand after the pages were printed.9
Many printers solved the problem of printing music
in a similar, if half hearted, fashion. Sometimes blank spaces were left with
no music or lines at all (as was the case with the Mainz Psalter), sometimes
the staff lines were printed with the notes added later by hand, sometimes the
notes were printed with the staff lines added later. For example, many early Missale
Romanum (by Ulrich Han, Antonio Zarotto, and others) were produced in the
early 1470's with blank space left for hand-drawn music.10 An early
example of music notes printed without the lines is Franciscus Niger's Grammatica
of 1480, some copies of which still exist without the lines.11
Printing the staves without the music, in addition
to sidestepping the fundamental problem of music printing, allowed publishers
to tailor their music to different markets. This was necessary at the time since
there were several different types of plainchant notation in common use: Roman,
Ambrosian, Gothic, and Hungarian.12 For these reasons, the printing
of staff lines without music lasted well into the 16th century.13
Printing with Woodcuts
50 years or more before Gutenberg introduced the printing
press, woodcuts were used for printing images and pictures.14 To
create a woodcut, a reverse image would be drawn on a block of wood, and any
part of the surface not drawn on would be carefully carved away. The
resulting image would be inked and pressed into paper.
Since moveable type and woodcuts use basically the
same process (a raised, inked, reverse image) it was an easy extension to
include woodblocks in the chase along with the moveable type to create
illustrated pages of books. Pages of mixed text and illustrations could then be
printed with a single impression. Early examples of books with woodcut
illustrations include the 'lavishly illustrated' Liber Chronicarum (Nuremberg
Chronicle) (1457) and the 'lovely' Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
(Poliphilo's Dream about the Strife of Love) (1463).15
And so, early printers of music were able to avoid all
issues of music typography by simply creating woodcuts of the music, as if the
music were freeform illustrations, and this was done quite frequently. For example,
Franciscus Niger's Grammatica of 1480 (an example of typeset notes
without staff lines) was reprinted in 1485 using woodcuts instead. In 1487, the
first complete polyphonic composition printed with staves was created, the Musices
Opusculum printed by Ugo Ruggerio in Bologna.16 Six years later,
Woodcuts were used for the first secular polyphonic printing, the Historia
Baetica, printed by Eucharius Silber in Rome.17 The first
rounded note heads are also found in woodcuts, J.F. Locher's Historia de
rege frantie18, perhaps because they were easier to carve.
Printing with woodcuts, however, had many technical
difficulties. First, mistakes made in carving the wood were difficult, if not
impossible to correct. Second, the frail nature of wood (in comparison to
metal) meant that woodcuts could only be used for a limited number of printings
before staff lines and note stems began to break off. This was made even more
difficult by the nature of music notation, which is primarily made up of thin
lines (unlike pictorial illustration which is more flexible). Finally, woodcuts
were expensive to produce and required skilled craftsmen. For all these
reasons, woodcuts were most often limited to small musical examples, such as
might be used for music theory textbooks.19
Even so, woodcuts continued to be used into the 16th
century for several reasons: 1) they were popular books with many reprints, 2)
competing printers held monopolies on moveable type foundries, or 3) because no
type foundries were available for regional notations (such as Ambrosian
plainchant notation).20
Systems using Multiple Impressions
Early examples of printing both staves and notes with
moveable type used multiple impressions to print a single page. For example, a
first impression would be used for the words, a second for the staff lines, and
a third for the notes. This could be reduced to two impressions: words and
notes first and staff lines last.
Such 'multiple impression' techniques required the
highest level of craftsmanship: since notes and staff lines are printed at
different times, accuracy is paramount. Notes could not drift within the chase
for fear that they would drift to a different staff line. Pages had to be
placed in the press very precisely. A page which was slightly tilted or mis-aligned
would cause notes to drift off the staff at one side or the other. Certainly,
early printers would have had to devise new, more exacting techniques to place
the paper within the printing press.
The earliest example of printing both staves and
notes with moveable type, the Constance Graduale, occurs around 1473,
actually before the first known examples of woodcut, and while other, manually
intensive methods were just getting started. Probably the needs of printing a
Graduale, with extensive quantities of music, drove the printer (still unknown)
to create the musical sorts needed to set musical text.21 Regardless,
only a single example of the Constance Graduale exists, and there is no
evidence that this early example of printing had any lasting influence on the
music printing industry.22
A better example occurs just a few years later,
printed in Rome by Ulrich Han and Stephan Planck. It was a reprint of an
earlier Missale Romanum, this time with music. It is the first clearly
dated and attributed example of complete early music printing. It used a
double-impression printing: first printing the red text and red staves, and
second printing the black text and black notes.
The 1476 Missale Romanum is a masterpiece of
music printing, far beyond the experimental stages of the craft. The staves and
notes are well designed and cut, printed clearly and strongly on paper or
vellum, precisely registered for the proper placement of black notes on red
staves…23
Ulrich Han only printed this one book with music,
but his methods quickly spread throughout Europe. Just a year later, an
abbreviated Graduale was printed by the brothers Damiano and Bernard
Moilli. This work contained vastly more music than had been produced by Han:
212 pages of music compared to just 33 pages of music in the Missale Romanum.24
By 1500, just 24 years after Han's initial printing, some 66 different
printers working in 25 different towns had created liturgical works containing
music using the double-impression technique, including Missale Sarum printed
by R. Pyson in London in 1500.25
Printing with multiple impressions became fully
mature in the hands of Ottaviano Petrucci who raised the technique to its
highest level of craftsmanship. Claiming that he had discovered the secret to
printing "canto figurado", Petrucci was granted a 20 year monopoly on
printing such music as well as music with lute tablature. Petrucci's "discovery"
was, in fact, merely the processing of printing with multiple impressions, albeit
with 'much finer type material.' Early books (such as the wildly popular Harmonice
musices odhecaton A) were printed with a three impression process (notes,
staves, and text), a process which was reduced by 1503 to a double impression.26
During his 23 years of music publishing, Petrucci
appears to have been very successful, producing over 59 volumes and many
reprints, including many firsts: the first secular polyphonic music printed
with moveable type, the first lute tablature printed with moveable type, the
first book dedicated to the music of a single composer (Josquin Des Prez), and the
first books dedicated to frottole, published in 1504.27 Other than
the crucial role he played in preserving the music of his time, Petrucci's
influence is still felt in the typesetting rules for music that he established,
many of which (such as the size of the note stem in relation to the height of
the staff) are still in use today.28
Single Impression Systems
A series of ad-hoc attempts were made in the early
16th century to print music and text all at once, in a single
impression. Such a system would be dramatically less expensive than the
multiple impression systems not only by reducing the time spent on a single
page, but also needing less skilled printers and less accurate machinery to
execute.
Several early attempts appear to have been created
to fill immediate needs, and were then abandoned once the job was complete. For
example, the very first music printed in England by printer Wynkyn de Worde was
in 1495, the Policronicon, and may also be the first, moveable type
single impression music printed anywhere. However, it really doesn't count,
being only eight notes long, with no clef, and made up of non-musical sorts (in
much the same way that pictures are rendered in ASCII E‑mail messages
today).29 Better examples are found in the Salzburg missals
printed by Liechtenstein in 1507, and Winterburg in 1510, who both used a
series of single impression characters to print limited amounts of music in the
Salzburg liturgy.30
Somewhat more significant are the efforts of John
Rastell in London, who invented a single impression system and used it for a
limited number of printings, of which two fragments (roughly dated to 1523) and
Coverdale's Goostly Psalmes (1535) are the only survivors. Along with
these early examples of single impression printing, Rastell may also have
executed the first mensural music in England, the first song printed with a
theatrical work in England, the first broadside printed with music anywhere,
and the first attempt at printing a score by any printer. And yet, John Rastell
does not appear to have inspired any successors.31
The secret to printing music with a single
impression is to combine the notes with the staff lines into a single character
of type. Such a system, of course, requires a much larger number of characters
than separating the staff lines and notes into two separate impressions. With a
single impression system, one will need to have characters not only for notes
of different rhythmic values, but also for notes (and clefs) at varying
positions on the staff. While the single impression system is generally more
forgiving of inaccuracies in typesetting and printing, care must still be taken
to line up the staff fragments as straight as possible, otherwise the staff
lines will appear jagged. The shakiness of staff lines may actually get worse
over longer printing runs as the sorts work themselves loose.
The single impression system was eventually proved
successful by Pierre Attaignant who used the technique from 1527 to 1550,
ultimately printing over 1,500 musical works from the late 15th and
early 16th centuries.32 His methods were quickly copied
and less than 5 years after Attaignant's first printing, other single
impression works were produced (Motetti del fiore printed by Jacques
Moderne in Lyons and the Odarum Horatii concentus printed by Christian
Egenolff of Frankfurt). Other printers in other cities and countries followed
suit: 1534 in Nuremburg, 1537 in Naples, 1538 in Venice, 1540 in Antwerp, and
reintroduced into England around 1553 by W. Seres 33. This system
would survive for the next 200 years.
Early Engraving
While single impression systems represented a leap
forward in productivity, as is often the case with new technology they
represented a step backwards for the composer. With the notes and staff lines
fixed into the same moveable type, it becomes difficult, if not impossible to
do chords (as required by keyboard music), multiple voices per staff, slurs,
ties, and other musical ornaments and articulations.
A solution to these problems, intaglio engraving,
first requires that the music be engraved (scratched or indented) on to a large
flat sheet of copper. To print a page, ink is smeared over the copper sheet,
settling into the engraved lines, after which the excess ink on top is wiped
away. Wet paper is then pressed into the sheet at great pressure to soak up the
ink still stuck into the engraved lines. Because the engraving process does not
use pre-cast units of moveable type, it places no limits on the music or
notation that can be reproduced.
There is evidence that intaglio engraving was being
practiced as early as 1436, but the process wasn't really popular until the
1540s (for printing maps), probably because the machinery required to print
pages from engraved plates had to produce much more pressure than standard moveable
type printing.34
As with single impression printing, music printed
via engravings had many early experiments. The earliest dated example of
printed music using engravings is Francesco Marcolini's Intabolatura di
liuto di diversi, around 1536 and, much later, Vincenzo Galilei's famous Dialogo
della musica antica et della moderna printed in Florence by Giorgio
Marescotti in 1581.35
Around this time, the invention of the rolling
press, specifically designed to print pages from engraved copper plates made
printing from engravings economically feasible, and the technology quickly
spread throughout Europe. Music from engravings was produced in Rome in 1586
(printed by Simone Verovio), in England in 1612-13, the Netherlands in 1615,
and France and Germany by 1620.36
Conclusions
The period from 1470 to 1600 was an incredibly
active time for printers and publishers of music. Many new techniques were
tried, abandoned, and tried again by many different printers working all over Europe.
The three most important developments: the use of
moveable type, the single impression system, and music engraving all exhibited
similar startup cycles. Each was tried very early on by printers striving to
solve individual problems and each was initially abandoned.
In all cases, an early champion was required to
mature the process and demonstrate how it could be used profitably. The first
such champion was clearly Ottaviano Petrucci, followed closely by Pierre
Attaignant, and (to a lesser extent) Simone Verovio. The long standing success
of these champions inspired others to copy their techniques all over Europe and
has had lasting influence on look of printed music ever since.
Notes
1 Geoffrey
Rubinstein, 'Printing: History and Development', Jones Telecommunications
& Multimedia Encyclopedia (Accessed 12/1/2002), <http://www.digitalcentury.com>.
2 Richard W. Clement,
'Medieval and Renaissance Book Production - Printed Books', ORB: The Online
Reference Book for Medieval Studies, (Accessed 12/1/2002), <http://orb.rhodes.edu>.
3 Clement.
4 Clement.
5 Clement.
6 Clement.
7 J. Evan Kreider, The
Printing of Music 1480-1680 (Vancouver: The Alcuin Society, 1980), p. 2.
8 Stanley Boorman,
'Printing and Publishing of Music', 'I. Printing / 1. Early Stages', The New
Grove Dictionary of Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 12/1/2002), <http://www.grovemusic.com>
9 Mary Kay Duggan, Italian
Music Incunabula, Printers and Type (California: University of California
Press, 1992), p. 1.
10 Duggan, p. 44.
11 Kreider, p. 2.
12 Duggan, p. 6.
13 Boorman, 'I.
Printing, 1: Early Stages'
14 Author unknown, 'A
Renaissance Invention: The Repeatable Image -- Woodcut', The Metropolitan
Museum of Art Website (Accessed 12/1/2002), <http://www.metmuseum.org>.
15 www.metmuseum.org.
16 Kreider, p. 2-3.
17 Duggan, p. 65.
18 Boorman, 'I.
Printing, 3: Printing from type, (ii) Early history.'
19 Boorman, 'I.
Printing, 2: Woodblock printing'
20 Duggan, p. 68.
21 Duggan, p. 11.
22 Boorman, 'I.
Printing, 1: Early Stages'
23 Duggan, p. 83.
24 Duggan, p. 89.
25 Boorman, 'I.
Printing, 1: Early Stages'
26 Stanley Boorman,
'Petrucci, Ottaviano', The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online ed. L.
Macy (Accessed 12/1/2002), <http://www.grovemusic.com>
27 Donald
Jay Grout, Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music, 6th
ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001), p. 151.
28 Boorman, 'I.
Printing, 3: Printing from type, (ii) Early history.'
29 Kreider, p. 4.
30 Boorman, 'I.
Printing, 3: Printing from type, (ii) Early history.'
31 Boorman, 'I.
Printing, 3: Printing from type, (ii) Early history.'
32 Grout, p. 194.
33 Robert Steele, The
Earliest English Music Printing (1903; rpt. Germany: Hain - Meissenheim,
1965), p. 6.
34 Boorman, 'I.
Printing, 4: Engraving, (i) Early history.'
35 Boorman, 'I.
Printing, 4: Engraving, (i) Early history.'
36 Boorman, 'I.
Printing, 4: Engraving, (i) Early history.'
My Thoughts
I found this information really interesting, It was clear how much effort was gone into the printing of music as there were so many other factors you needed to consider when printing music, you had to take into account the notes the lyrics and the stave lines, let alone the clefs etc. Over the Renaissance period they came up with several different ways to print music, all of which solved a piece of the puzzle for music printing. The printing press made music available to the masses with books on music theory accessible to those who could afford it leading to a mass spread of musical knowledge. I think this is an interesting topic to look into I will try and see if I can dig up any more information.
Extended Research
The Relationship between the printing press and music:
When thinking about the invention of the printing press an immediate
response is to think about the impact that turning point in history had
on literature. Often the musical significance of this incredible
invention is overlooked.This article will outline the early history of
the printing press. Almost as soon as the printing press was developed,
type designs were introduced. Type designs were created and linked to
printing in different countries.
Even today, it is possible to see the effects that the printing press has on modern living. With having written words it was possible to be expressive through writing. Printed word established the relationship between art and printing. Decorative printing was a step in developing art in printing. To understand the link between printing and music it is important to know the difference between literature printing and musical notation. One obvious difference is that music texts are for performance. Another significant difference is that music texts are deciphered twice: first, by the performer and then by the listener.
The printing of music creates a direct connection between the composer and the performer. It is essential that the printing of music is as accurate as possible as this will be the only communication between the creation and reproduction.
Before the printing press original manuscripts, or hand written copies, were used to perform from. The printing press changed the size of pieces from the original manuscripts. Reading off of a smaller score puts constrictions to the performance of the work.
Published music was invented before the invention of the printing press. Early published music was reproduced by engraving on plates. This process was time consuming and very difficult.
Despite the fact that the printing press was invented in the fifteenth century, the first copyright law was not in place until the early eighteenth century. The purpose of having a copyright varies throughout the world. When copyright was first established it was used as a noun, literally meaning having the right in the copy. Having the right copy refers to giving credit to the individual who created the original idea. The shift today is the use of copyright as a verb – the right to copy.
The printing press put many constraints on music. One constraint was the interpretation of music was limited. As the performance text grew further away from the composer’s original manuscript, the musical interpretation grew further away as well. Also, as mentioned earlier, there was a size difference in the paper produced from the printing press and original manuscripts. This size different changes the way the performer visually reads a piece.
With music being reproduced by printing presses and publishing houses, the need for a music editor arose. There are many disadvantages to have an editor working with music scores. A large problem musicians face is working with scores that have been over edited. Another related problem is the fact that many editors have not done significant research before they add material to the score.
With the rise of publishers, numerous editions are created, printing the same material. It is possible to buy two different editions of a piece with a discrepancy in something even as basic as having the correct notes. Some editions are not as researched as others, creating interpretations that may not be close to the composer’s original intention.
Even today, it is possible to see the effects that the printing press has on modern living. With having written words it was possible to be expressive through writing. Printed word established the relationship between art and printing. Decorative printing was a step in developing art in printing. To understand the link between printing and music it is important to know the difference between literature printing and musical notation. One obvious difference is that music texts are for performance. Another significant difference is that music texts are deciphered twice: first, by the performer and then by the listener.
The printing of music creates a direct connection between the composer and the performer. It is essential that the printing of music is as accurate as possible as this will be the only communication between the creation and reproduction.
Before the printing press original manuscripts, or hand written copies, were used to perform from. The printing press changed the size of pieces from the original manuscripts. Reading off of a smaller score puts constrictions to the performance of the work.
Published music was invented before the invention of the printing press. Early published music was reproduced by engraving on plates. This process was time consuming and very difficult.
Despite the fact that the printing press was invented in the fifteenth century, the first copyright law was not in place until the early eighteenth century. The purpose of having a copyright varies throughout the world. When copyright was first established it was used as a noun, literally meaning having the right in the copy. Having the right copy refers to giving credit to the individual who created the original idea. The shift today is the use of copyright as a verb – the right to copy.
The printing press put many constraints on music. One constraint was the interpretation of music was limited. As the performance text grew further away from the composer’s original manuscript, the musical interpretation grew further away as well. Also, as mentioned earlier, there was a size difference in the paper produced from the printing press and original manuscripts. This size different changes the way the performer visually reads a piece.
With music being reproduced by printing presses and publishing houses, the need for a music editor arose. There are many disadvantages to have an editor working with music scores. A large problem musicians face is working with scores that have been over edited. Another related problem is the fact that many editors have not done significant research before they add material to the score.
With the rise of publishers, numerous editions are created, printing the same material. It is possible to buy two different editions of a piece with a discrepancy in something even as basic as having the correct notes. Some editions are not as researched as others, creating interpretations that may not be close to the composer’s original intention.
Consolidation Era
After the invention of the printing press, from around 1550 until 1800, the consolidation era was established. As mentioned earlier, no technical advancements were made to the printing press during this time. Neither were there any new inventions, regarding the printing press, made during this time. The consolidation era, as the name suggests, stabilized the printing industry.
During this time the working middle class people had the opportunity to learn how to read and write. Before this it was reserved as a privilege for the wealthy to be literate. Because more people were now reading it was necessary to provide information to people for them to read. The general public’s “desire for quick information and for regular entertainment brought into existence the periodical press.”
The first public library was developed during the consolidation era. Before libraries existed with manuscripts but were for private use only, owned by various people like Julius Caesar.
Censorship of printed word was established in the consolidation era. It was the responsibility of the lay and the church to censor the publications. Printers and publishers did not always appreciate censorship and would use “the smallest possible size, the largest possible types, and every other device which a century-old fight against censorship had taught them.”
After the invention of the printing press, from around 1550 until 1800, the consolidation era was established. As mentioned earlier, no technical advancements were made to the printing press during this time. Neither were there any new inventions, regarding the printing press, made during this time. The consolidation era, as the name suggests, stabilized the printing industry.
During this time the working middle class people had the opportunity to learn how to read and write. Before this it was reserved as a privilege for the wealthy to be literate. Because more people were now reading it was necessary to provide information to people for them to read. The general public’s “desire for quick information and for regular entertainment brought into existence the periodical press.”
The first public library was developed during the consolidation era. Before libraries existed with manuscripts but were for private use only, owned by various people like Julius Caesar.
Censorship of printed word was established in the consolidation era. It was the responsibility of the lay and the church to censor the publications. Printers and publishers did not always appreciate censorship and would use “the smallest possible size, the largest possible types, and every other device which a century-old fight against censorship had taught them.”
Nineteenth Century Printing
In the nineteenth century the technique of printing gradually changed. There was a hesitation from the public to advance further in the printing press in order to avoid mechanization. By the late nineteenth century, “the concept of mechanization [began] to make an impact on letter-founding, type-composition, and bookbinding, and not until the late 1880s did the combined casting and composing machine become a commercial reality.”
The nineteenth century brought about technical progress in the printing press. This was the century that began the slow process of turning printing from a trade into an industry.
The strict regulations for censorship had been lifted during this century. Censorship was now “based on voluntary [agreements] of the parties concerned and not on compulsory measures of the authorities.”
It was during this century that governments used the press “for large scale, direct, and incessant appeals and orders to the masses.” The Revolutionary and Napoleonic France governments were first to use press this way.
TYPE DESIGN
After the death of Gutenberg in 1468, the printing press had spread throughout many different countries. By the middle of the sixteenth century every nation developed a certain type design. Type design throughout history has always had a deeper, more political meaning than it appears at first. When Roman and Italic types were invented they represented the humanism in people.
The type design of Germany, Russia,
and Turkey represented the resistance to humanism. The importance of
type design can be noted by “the recent transition to the ‘Latin’
alphabet by the Germans and Turks is a major step towards the unity of
world civilization; just as the refusal of post-Lenin Russia to abandon
the Cyrillic letter – nay, its progressive imposition on the Soviet
colonials – is a significant omen of the deep cleavage between East and
West.”
ART IN PRINTING
After discussing type design it is possible to see the relationship between art and printing. With the beginning of printed books there was a high level of technical achievements but this was “combined with great beauty of design, that the printing of music began.” Visual effects of printed music are vital to the overall effect the music will have on the performer and audience. Engraving of music connected the visual aspect of music to the notating process. This process of engraving “naturally led to a great increase in the use of pictorial title pages and decorated borders.” Illustrations were sometimes used, even as far as to having comic pictures between staves and in the margins of the music.
After discussing type design it is possible to see the relationship between art and printing. With the beginning of printed books there was a high level of technical achievements but this was “combined with great beauty of design, that the printing of music began.” Visual effects of printed music are vital to the overall effect the music will have on the performer and audience. Engraving of music connected the visual aspect of music to the notating process. This process of engraving “naturally led to a great increase in the use of pictorial title pages and decorated borders.” Illustrations were sometimes used, even as far as to having comic pictures between staves and in the margins of the music.
Difference Between Printing and Music
There is a large difference between printing music and printing solely verbal text. A quote from King’s Four Hundred Years of Music Printing summarizes the difference between literature and musical notation:
“the letters forming a word represent a concept to be conveyed by the eye to the brain, in music the note, whether accompanied by a text or not, is primarily an instruction to bring into action lungs or fingers, or both combined, in order to produce a sound at a certain pitch and of a certain duration.”
The difficulty with musical notation is that the symbols need to be made as clearly and precise as possible.
There are two aspects of musical notation: horizontality and verticality. Horizontality refers to the horizontal aspects of music notation. One point in horizontality is the relationship between each note. This includes the intervallic relationship from note to note. Another aspect of horizontality is “the changes in spacing between one note or group of notes and the next, as required by changes in time-values.”
The vertical aspect of musical notation sets it completely apart from verbal text, as the concept of writing two words at the same time is not practical. The vertical part of musical notation is having the two or more notes in the same alignment on the stave. This vertical arrangement is important in vocal works as “a precise vertical relationship has also to be established between the notes on the stave and the syllables of the underlying text.”
If the printed musical score is altered in any way the horizontality and verticality could potential have a different meaning to the reader. This could in turn alter the performance and bring the work further away from the composer’s original idea.
Another main difference between music texts and literature is “the fact that musical texts are performance texts. Musical texts presume a musical performance, with the result that music as manifest in print leads a dual life as text and performance.” Understanding that in earlier times music reached people mainly by performances it is important to note that “any history of the musical cultures of print must engage performative issues.”
Deciphering music as a performative text adds certain angles that are not present in literature. It is important to note that “performance and print both shape the way music conveys its meaning; yet while historians of music have long been cognizant of the former – that performers interpret and mold the meaning of the texts they realize – they have rarely theorized the implications of print in similar terms.” Often performers will trust what is written on the page instead of looking for the true intention of the composer. The effect that printed music has on performance is so great that it “[stands] alongside performance in the triangle if [forms] with composers and audiences.”
Musical texts are deciphered twice which does not occur often in literature. Musical text meanings “unfold twice as they are “read” both by musicians and then by audiences. In the first instance, the black signs cast across the pages of musical scores give musicians instructions for how to perform a given piece; the notes help musicians to produce a reading of a piece, public or private, whether with instruments, voice, or both.” The only link that the audience has to the music is what the performer portrays and the only thing that the performer can give the audience is what he takes from the musical score.
Due to the fact that reading music produces an audible sound, it is understood that this type of reading is not transparent, like most literature texts. Interpretation of musical scores creates “variant readings with each performance, impressing their individual marks upon the works they play.” Because of this fact it is argued that musicians “approximate texts.” The appearance of the musical text is essential for a successful interpretation as it can “[disrupt] the linear continuum between composer and audience in the same way that musical performances do. Print complicates and expands this middle ground by multiplying the material forms of texts and thereby multiplying their meanings.”
It is possible to compare the performance of musical scores to reading a book to someone that is illiterate. The musicians “mediate what for many listeners is an illegible text, pages of hieroglyphs that require special literacy: the score. Notation alone sets music apart from literature.”
Like someone telling a story, the performance of a musical text “becomes available to an audience of listeners who in turn “read” the music they hear, responding to it, making sense of it, multiplying its meanings.”
Another difficulty facing printing of musical scores is the distance that the text is kept from the performer. In a performance “music is usually placed further away from the eye than is the text of a book when being read, the factors of distance and proportion produce special problems of design.” The musical text needs to be extra clear because of the distance kept from the performer.
HISTORY OF MUSIC PRINTING
The concept of representing music by notation is accredited to the Greeks since “musical notation is as old as the alphabet, for that is as far as our knowledge goes; and the Greeks were the earliest to make use of this principle.” By Pope Gregory’s time, around the middle of the sixth century, it was important to write down music as it was realized that “unless sounds are retained in the memory, they perish, because they cannot be written.”
The time right after the invention of the printing press printed music became more popular. By 1465 “printing began to supersede manuscript music.” Despite the increase in using the printing press “music printing remained… very far behind the progress made in other branches of typography.”
The first record of printed music dates back to 1473. This document “only contains five notes of music.” Even with the little amount of musical notation in this work “it actually [formed] the foundation of music printing.” The first book of printed music was made around this same time. It is a Gradual that “lacks both a date and a printer’s name, but the type used to print the text is identical with that of the ‘Constance Breviary” one copy of which was lubricated in 1473.” Another clue as to the date of this book is the fact that the press that was used to publish this book had a short life span.
The first printed music with an actual date is a Missal from Rome that was dated October 12, 1476. This music was “printed in Roman notation, with initials in red or blue, and touches of yellow in the capitals, all added by hand.”
Even though the printing press had been invented it was common in this time period to add details by hand. This would include adding colors or extra details that the printing press was not capable of doing. Sometimes the music staves would be blank and the notes would be added by hand.
By around 1690 improvements were being made to the design of printed music. John Heptinstall came up with “the system of joining together the hooks of the quavers and semiquavers.” Quavers and semiquavers refer to eighth and sixteenth notes that before this time had been written with separate flags. Hepinstall “also introduced a further improvement, that of making the heads of the notes round instead of lozenge-shaped.”
Even with these improvements in the seventeenth century there were still weaknesses in the printing of music. The weakness of movable type with musical notation “lay in its clumsiness and lack of flexibility when used for printing chords and florid music.”
The year 1683 marked the beginning of sheet music. This is quite different from sheet music as we know it today, as this was created by using metal sheets to engrave the music onto. Thomas Cross “was practically the inventor of sheet music” and after copying Purcell’s Sonatas of III parts signed his name on the bottom.
By the middle of the seventeenth century the variety of music expanded to include more concerti and symphonies, requiring more instruments and printed parts. This increase in parts meant that a “large quantity of separate parts required had to be supplied in multiple copies more quickly than was usually possible by the use of movable type or by the employment of handcopyists.”
The beginning of the eighteenth century marked the decline of music printed from type. The reason for this decrease
“was that musical composition had become more elaborate and the old movable type was found inadequate to represent it. Copperplate engraving, which was then flourishing and largely used, was, therefore, naturally adopted. This method was, however, found expensive, so that it became in a measure superseded by the method of punching the notes on pewter plates.”
Another important milestone in the eighteenth century was the printing of the first music book, in the United States, from movable type. This book was Fünff schöne Geistliche Lieder, published in Germantown, Pennsylvania. It was published by Christoph Saur who was also responsible for designing the type.
At the end of the eighteenth century and the turn of the nineteenth century lithography was adopted as a primary source of printing music. Lithography involves “[writing] on [a] stone with greasy ink, and then [coating] the surgace with a mixture of water, acid and gum Arabic. Finally [inking] the whole, and the ink was absorbed solely by the writing. Thus an impression was left which could be taken directly from the surface of the stone.”
By the nineteenth century printing using lithography was not as common. This process was being switched from printing on stones to printing on metal plates “[making] printing easier and quicker.” This process produced many large works in the eighteenth century including eight full scores of Rossini operas and the seven-volume Raccolta di musica sacra.
There is a large difference between printing music and printing solely verbal text. A quote from King’s Four Hundred Years of Music Printing summarizes the difference between literature and musical notation:
“the letters forming a word represent a concept to be conveyed by the eye to the brain, in music the note, whether accompanied by a text or not, is primarily an instruction to bring into action lungs or fingers, or both combined, in order to produce a sound at a certain pitch and of a certain duration.”
The difficulty with musical notation is that the symbols need to be made as clearly and precise as possible.
There are two aspects of musical notation: horizontality and verticality. Horizontality refers to the horizontal aspects of music notation. One point in horizontality is the relationship between each note. This includes the intervallic relationship from note to note. Another aspect of horizontality is “the changes in spacing between one note or group of notes and the next, as required by changes in time-values.”
The vertical aspect of musical notation sets it completely apart from verbal text, as the concept of writing two words at the same time is not practical. The vertical part of musical notation is having the two or more notes in the same alignment on the stave. This vertical arrangement is important in vocal works as “a precise vertical relationship has also to be established between the notes on the stave and the syllables of the underlying text.”
If the printed musical score is altered in any way the horizontality and verticality could potential have a different meaning to the reader. This could in turn alter the performance and bring the work further away from the composer’s original idea.
Another main difference between music texts and literature is “the fact that musical texts are performance texts. Musical texts presume a musical performance, with the result that music as manifest in print leads a dual life as text and performance.” Understanding that in earlier times music reached people mainly by performances it is important to note that “any history of the musical cultures of print must engage performative issues.”
Deciphering music as a performative text adds certain angles that are not present in literature. It is important to note that “performance and print both shape the way music conveys its meaning; yet while historians of music have long been cognizant of the former – that performers interpret and mold the meaning of the texts they realize – they have rarely theorized the implications of print in similar terms.” Often performers will trust what is written on the page instead of looking for the true intention of the composer. The effect that printed music has on performance is so great that it “[stands] alongside performance in the triangle if [forms] with composers and audiences.”
Musical texts are deciphered twice which does not occur often in literature. Musical text meanings “unfold twice as they are “read” both by musicians and then by audiences. In the first instance, the black signs cast across the pages of musical scores give musicians instructions for how to perform a given piece; the notes help musicians to produce a reading of a piece, public or private, whether with instruments, voice, or both.” The only link that the audience has to the music is what the performer portrays and the only thing that the performer can give the audience is what he takes from the musical score.
Due to the fact that reading music produces an audible sound, it is understood that this type of reading is not transparent, like most literature texts. Interpretation of musical scores creates “variant readings with each performance, impressing their individual marks upon the works they play.” Because of this fact it is argued that musicians “approximate texts.” The appearance of the musical text is essential for a successful interpretation as it can “[disrupt] the linear continuum between composer and audience in the same way that musical performances do. Print complicates and expands this middle ground by multiplying the material forms of texts and thereby multiplying their meanings.”
It is possible to compare the performance of musical scores to reading a book to someone that is illiterate. The musicians “mediate what for many listeners is an illegible text, pages of hieroglyphs that require special literacy: the score. Notation alone sets music apart from literature.”
Like someone telling a story, the performance of a musical text “becomes available to an audience of listeners who in turn “read” the music they hear, responding to it, making sense of it, multiplying its meanings.”
Another difficulty facing printing of musical scores is the distance that the text is kept from the performer. In a performance “music is usually placed further away from the eye than is the text of a book when being read, the factors of distance and proportion produce special problems of design.” The musical text needs to be extra clear because of the distance kept from the performer.
HISTORY OF MUSIC PRINTING
The concept of representing music by notation is accredited to the Greeks since “musical notation is as old as the alphabet, for that is as far as our knowledge goes; and the Greeks were the earliest to make use of this principle.” By Pope Gregory’s time, around the middle of the sixth century, it was important to write down music as it was realized that “unless sounds are retained in the memory, they perish, because they cannot be written.”
The time right after the invention of the printing press printed music became more popular. By 1465 “printing began to supersede manuscript music.” Despite the increase in using the printing press “music printing remained… very far behind the progress made in other branches of typography.”
The first record of printed music dates back to 1473. This document “only contains five notes of music.” Even with the little amount of musical notation in this work “it actually [formed] the foundation of music printing.” The first book of printed music was made around this same time. It is a Gradual that “lacks both a date and a printer’s name, but the type used to print the text is identical with that of the ‘Constance Breviary” one copy of which was lubricated in 1473.” Another clue as to the date of this book is the fact that the press that was used to publish this book had a short life span.
The first printed music with an actual date is a Missal from Rome that was dated October 12, 1476. This music was “printed in Roman notation, with initials in red or blue, and touches of yellow in the capitals, all added by hand.”
Even though the printing press had been invented it was common in this time period to add details by hand. This would include adding colors or extra details that the printing press was not capable of doing. Sometimes the music staves would be blank and the notes would be added by hand.
By around 1690 improvements were being made to the design of printed music. John Heptinstall came up with “the system of joining together the hooks of the quavers and semiquavers.” Quavers and semiquavers refer to eighth and sixteenth notes that before this time had been written with separate flags. Hepinstall “also introduced a further improvement, that of making the heads of the notes round instead of lozenge-shaped.”
Even with these improvements in the seventeenth century there were still weaknesses in the printing of music. The weakness of movable type with musical notation “lay in its clumsiness and lack of flexibility when used for printing chords and florid music.”
The year 1683 marked the beginning of sheet music. This is quite different from sheet music as we know it today, as this was created by using metal sheets to engrave the music onto. Thomas Cross “was practically the inventor of sheet music” and after copying Purcell’s Sonatas of III parts signed his name on the bottom.
By the middle of the seventeenth century the variety of music expanded to include more concerti and symphonies, requiring more instruments and printed parts. This increase in parts meant that a “large quantity of separate parts required had to be supplied in multiple copies more quickly than was usually possible by the use of movable type or by the employment of handcopyists.”
The beginning of the eighteenth century marked the decline of music printed from type. The reason for this decrease
“was that musical composition had become more elaborate and the old movable type was found inadequate to represent it. Copperplate engraving, which was then flourishing and largely used, was, therefore, naturally adopted. This method was, however, found expensive, so that it became in a measure superseded by the method of punching the notes on pewter plates.”
Another important milestone in the eighteenth century was the printing of the first music book, in the United States, from movable type. This book was Fünff schöne Geistliche Lieder, published in Germantown, Pennsylvania. It was published by Christoph Saur who was also responsible for designing the type.
At the end of the eighteenth century and the turn of the nineteenth century lithography was adopted as a primary source of printing music. Lithography involves “[writing] on [a] stone with greasy ink, and then [coating] the surgace with a mixture of water, acid and gum Arabic. Finally [inking] the whole, and the ink was absorbed solely by the writing. Thus an impression was left which could be taken directly from the surface of the stone.”
By the nineteenth century printing using lithography was not as common. This process was being switched from printing on stones to printing on metal plates “[making] printing easier and quicker.” This process produced many large works in the eighteenth century including eight full scores of Rossini operas and the seven-volume Raccolta di musica sacra.
Later in the nineteenth century lithographic stones were replaced by plates made of zinc and aluminum which increased the speed of production. More advances in printing have developed due to the invention of photographic techniques and other mechanical devices. It is possible with these machines to produce elaborate scores. However, despite the potential these new machines have “the once tasteful and diversified art of music printing has generally reached a level of uniformity more widespread than at any time in its history. Failing a revolution in design or technique, the printed note now seems to have lost its former capacity to rival the range of processes and founts of type which were – and still are – available for the printing of books.”
CONSTRAINTS OF PRINTING PRESS ON MUSIC
The invention of the printing press indirectly puts constraints on the performance of music. Constraints include things such as limited music interpretation, over editing and having numerous editions of the same piece of music.
In the Renaissance, when the printing press was first put to use, composers were worried about the effect that the printing press would have on their compositions. They thought that “print represented a loss of control” and compared their printed works to “children sent out alone into the world.”
With a standardized look modern printing has, printed music detracts from the art of the original manuscript. The desire of musical scores is to create a work that is as close to the composer’s original idea. Editions that have “manuscript sources, …, [promise] a version of the text that [seems] closer to the author’s original or final intentions.”
Many problems occur with the editors of music. It has been found that “the variants introduced by earlier editors, the errors of compilers and typesetters, and the abbreviations used in early printed books all [stand] in the way of recovering the author’s authentic text.” In many editions something as basic as correct notes are not consistent which creates the need to identify the errors and correct them.
The invention of the printing press had a significant effect on history from that point and after. Type designs were created by various countries where the printing press had quickly spread to many countries.
Art is connected with printing in many ways. The printing press was another way for people to express their creativity. This could be done with adding color or other hand written details.
The link between music and printing is essential to understand before one can see the impact that the invention of the printing press had on music. The differences between literature and musical notation are significant. Musical texts are performance texts and are deciphered twice.
The history of printed music dates earlier than the invention of the printing press. The early forms of printing music ranged from engraving onto copper plates to carving pieces of wood.
Printed music adds many constraints on the performance of music. The musical interpretation can suffer from reading off of various scores. Also, it is easy for editors to make mistakes, which in turn causes confusion for the performer. Related to this, with many editions it is difficult for the performer to know which edition is the most accurate.
The printing of books is not what makes Gutenberg’s invention so significant in history. The important thing to note about the printing press is its ability to produce a large amount of identical copies. This principle, with the help of technology, has made it possible to produce millions of identical newspapers within a few hours. It is this principle that “has made Gutenberg’s invention a turning point in the history of civilization.”
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Resources:
Dichter, Harry, and Elliot Sharpiro. Handbook of Early American Sheet Music 1768 – 1889. New York: Dover, 1977.
Gamble, William. Music Engraving and Printing. New York: Arno Press, 1979.
King, A. Hyatt. Four Hundred Years of Music Printing. Great Britain: Eyre and Spottiswoode Limited, 1964.
Steinberg, S.H. Five Hundred Years of Printing. England: Penguin Books, Ltd. 1955.
Van Orden, Kate. Music and the Cultures of Print. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 2000.
No comments:
Post a Comment