Music has the power to transport us to another time and place, whether it’s the region where we grew up or a forgotten moment in prehistoric times. Researchers analyzed a 55-note fragment of a 16th-century Scottish musical score to recreate sounds associated with a culture for which no other music has survived.
This notation was found in the margin of a page attached to a book that is itself historically significant. Aberdeen Anglican Church 1510. This collection of prayers, readings and hymns is not currently on any bestseller lists, but it was the first full-length book to be printed in Scotland.
A team from the University of Leuven in Belgium and the University of Edinburgh in the UK analyzed fragments of music discovered in the book in 2011.
This fragment is consistent with a lesser-known Christian hymn that is still sung today in some Anglican churches during Lent. Kartor Day, memorabilia (“Remember, Servants of God.”) Researchers are unsure whether the notes were intended to direct an instrument or a choir. do not have. Nevertheless, for experts this notation fragment is sufficient to expand their knowledge of Scotland’s pre-Reformation liturgical culture.
Recovered music fragments. (National Library of Scotland/CC-BY-4.0)
“From a single line of music scrawled on a blank page, we hear a hymn that has remained silent for nearly five centuries, a small but precious relic of Scotland’s musical and religious traditions.” say David Coney, a musicologist at the University of Edinburgh.
“The fact that our tenor part is a harmony of well-known melodies means that we can reconstruct other missing parts.”
Although the music was not given any title or attribution, researchers recognized it as a polyphonic piece consisting of two lines. That is, it is a type of music in which multiple melodies are sung or played at the same time.
That then led to Kartor Day, memorabilia. This notation perfectly matches the tenor part of the hymn’s vocal harmonization. In the posted reconstruction, you can hear how the notation sounded in the sung version. here.
This is one of the very few musical records from this period, and the only one to survive from north-east Scotland, making it an important new discovery for researchers of music from this period.
“For a long time, pre-Reformation Scotland was considered a wasteland when it came to sacred music.” say James Cook, musicologist at the University of Edinburgh.
“Our research shows that although the Reformation upheavals destroyed much of the tangible evidence of the Reformation, Scotland’s cathedrals, churches and chapels, as elsewhere in Europe, have It shows that there was a strong tradition of high quality music production.
The study also investigated the history of the book’s ownership and creation, and found links to Aberdeen Cathedral and St Mary’s Chapel. Rattray in Aberdeenshire, but there is no indication as to who wrote the music. This discovery led researchers to look at other similar texts for musical cues. It’s probably written in the margin.
“Perhaps further discoveries, musical or otherwise, may still lie in the blank pages and margins of other 16th-century printed books in Scottish libraries and archives.” say Paul Newton Jackson, a musicologist from the University of Leuven.
This study music and letters.
