University of Edinburgh
University of EdinburghWeb URL: http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/euchmi/manuscript/
This unpublished 17th century illustrated manuscript, written partly in Latin and partly in German, describes more than thirty instruments and how to play them. The author identifies himself only as "A.S. a native of Habach and a member of a minor reformed order" but claims to have been responsible for translating Chiodino's theoretical texts from Latin into the vernacular German for the benefit of young students. He was clearly a string player and teacher himself, but knew a great deal about wind instruments, composition and ensemble playing. His text includes about 50 annotated watercolour drawings of most of the important instruments in use in the 17th century, including clavichord, harp, hurdy gurdy, bagpipes, theorbo, viols, violins, Spanish guitar, curtals, cornetti, trombones, natural trumpet, and recorders.
In more than 300 pages of description and advice he includes full instructions on how to transpose, compose, make reeds and organ shields, operate the Alfabeto system, identify 14 different modes, use several systems of tablature and tune by sense of touch only. He mentions the seventh string on a bass viol (apparently long before St Colomb), and gives an account of the monochordion and the mandora in addition to several lesser known instruments.
A team of scholars from a variety of disciplines has been working for the past three years to produce a full transcription, translation and commentary on the text for publication. The results of this research formed the basis of the conference, and the findings of the conference will be used to correct the transcription, translation and commentary. It is also hoped to publish the proceedings of the conference.
In the morning, short introductory papers on the form, content,
context and language of this extensive and important manuscript were
given by:-
Dr Patricia Campbell, specialist in 17th century instruction
manuals, Fine Art Department, Edinburgh University
Mr Malcolm Burnett, specialist in 17th German Language, Department
of German, Edinburgh University
Mr Dietrich Hakelberg, specialist in the archaeology of
musical instruments, Freiburg University, Germany
An invited paper, Praetorius and Instrumentalischer Bettlermantl, was given by Dr. Jeffery Kite-Powell, Professor of Musicology, School of Music, Florida State University, Tallahassee, U.S.A. Specialists on particular 17th century instruments from the string, wind and keyboard families, on aspects of performance practice and on music theory talked about aspects of relevant sections of the text, and then conference participants discussed the material.
Specialist speakers and respondents included:-
Alison Crum and Thomas Munck (viols)
Christopher Field (violins)
William Waterhouse and Simon Carlyle (curtal)
Arnold Myers (trombone)
Murray Campbell (cornett)
Other contributors included:-
Kerr Borthwick
Noel O'Regan
Frances Palmer
Parts of the disbound manuscript were on display.
The meeting followed the Colloquium on Historical Musical Instrument Acoustics and Technology (Web URL: http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/euchmi/galpin/gxip.html): a meeting jointly organised by the Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments and the Galpin Society, Edinburgh, 22-23 August.
Further Information from the organiser,
Dr J.P. Campbell,
Department of Fine Art,
University of Edinburgh,
19 George Square,
Edinburgh EH6 9LD.
Fax: +44 (0) 131 650 6638.
E-mail: J.P.Campbell@ed.ac.uk
Communications about the contents of these pages to A.Myers@ed.ac.uk
This page updated: 25.08.97