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Medieval Instrumental Dances by Timothy J. McGeeReview by: Peter M. LeffertsNotes, Second Series, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Jun., 1991), pp. 1294-1295Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/941677 .
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NOTES, June 1991
Medieval Instrumental Dances. Ed. by Timothy J. McGee. (Music: Scholarship and Performance, edited by Thomas Binkley.) Bloomington and Indianapolis, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1989. [Preface and acknowledgments, pp. xi-xii; text, pp. 1-45; the dances, pp. 47-177; spiral bound. ISBN 0-253-33353-9. $27.50.]
In teaching medieval music, we all do brief obeisance to dance music because of its evident centrality to instrumental music- making in public and private festivities at all levels of society. Yet dance remains res- olutely on the periphery of our vision be- cause its musical tradition was principally an unwritten one. Valuable, therefore, if difficult to interpret, are the rare and widely dispersed surviving examples of no- tated dance music, and thus the importance of this edition by Timothy J. McGee, which collects all known or suspected instrumen- tal dances from before ca. 1430-a total of fifty-one pieces from French, Italian, En- glish, and Czech sources. Two of these are published here for the first time, while the remainder could be found before now only in a plethora of less comprehensive editions of variable age, reliability, and accessibility.
McGee prefaces his edition with a sub- stantial introduction on dance in the Mid- dle Ages, a stimulating essay that he acknowledges to be "a somewhat specula- tive study." Its scope is much broader than that of the edition, covering texted as well as textless dances; and although making the important distinction between these dance types, McGee has "frequently pooled all available information about both vocal and instrumental dances" (p. 5). He first
presents a variety of information on me- dieval dance from literary, pictorial, mu- sical, and theoretical sources, and then discusses performance practice issues in-
cluding instrumentation, tempo, ornamen- tation and improvisation, preludes and
postludes, drones, and improvised polyph- ony. This material and its extensive accom-
panying endnotes are rich in fact and
insight, though a bit diffuse and repetitive in organization; I would have welcomed both an index and a separate bibliography, which could have been merged with the
bibliography of facsimiles and transcrip- tions that is provided at the end of the critical reports.
In his introduction, McGee does not suf- ficiently delineate the context of these dances within three large and intersecting medieval repertories: the additional corpus of instrumental music (hockets, transcrip- tions of motets and chansons); the addi- tional corpus of dance music-that is, the monophonic and polyphonic texted dances, which may have in some instances been performed with instrumental accom- paniment; and the wide-ranging medieval repertoire drawn upon by modern-day in- strumentalists for "historically-informed" and often basically improvisatory concert performances (especially forms with dou- ble versicles relating them to the estampie, like the lai, sequence, and trouvere chan- son). The first of these repertories is the most significant because this additional in- strumental music throws into sharp relief a number of critical issues alluded to but never addressed at any length by McGee: the relationship of notated dances to tran- scriptions in respect to aesthetics and fig- urative idioms, the identity of audience and performer(s) in their presumably shared performance milieu, and the didactic or recreational function of these pieces.
Is this music in truth part of "the min- strels' tradition," as McGee asserts, or might it not better be characterized as art- ful chamber music for an educated elite? The answer might vary from source to source, but it has important implications for performance practice depending on whether one regards a given dance as a fully determined, autonomous aesthetic ob-
ject (a product), or a model or schematic composition requiring elaboration (a snap- shot, as it were, of a partially obscured pro- cess). McGee firmly opts for the latter, advocating "a creative presentation of early music that, removed from any consider- ation of authenticity, is clearly vibrant and musical" (p. 37).
The musical editions themselves are, un- fortunately, not fully reliable. My survey
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found one or more major pitch or rhythmic errors in about half the items, and per- formers are well advised to check these ver- sions against other available critical editions and facsimiles. The eleven dances of Paris, Bibliotheque nationale ms. 844 (nos. 3-13) fare least well, since their early mensural notation is interpreted here as post- Franconian, with particularly bad conse- quences for the interpretation of rests, divisio strokes, up-beat first mode, and so on. The source copy is much later than the notation it transmits, and there clearly have been attempts at amendment by the ad- dition of dots and by erasure, probably in an attempt to solve problems in part due to a misunderstanding of the notation and in part due to efforts to correct obviously faulty ligatures. McGee's edition does not fully make sense of these problems in every case.
There is also evidence of either haste or carelessness in the Critical Reports. For a single example: the dances of British Li- brary ms. 29987 (nos. 14-28, 35-38) are published out of manuscript order, appar- ently so as to be able to group the four saltarellos together (nos. 22-25). Confus- ing traces of an earlier arrangement have been left in the ordering and numbering of pieces in the Critical Report, pp. 168- 69.
found one or more major pitch or rhythmic errors in about half the items, and per- formers are well advised to check these ver- sions against other available critical editions and facsimiles. The eleven dances of Paris, Bibliotheque nationale ms. 844 (nos. 3-13) fare least well, since their early mensural notation is interpreted here as post- Franconian, with particularly bad conse- quences for the interpretation of rests, divisio strokes, up-beat first mode, and so on. The source copy is much later than the notation it transmits, and there clearly have been attempts at amendment by the ad- dition of dots and by erasure, probably in an attempt to solve problems in part due to a misunderstanding of the notation and in part due to efforts to correct obviously faulty ligatures. McGee's edition does not fully make sense of these problems in every case.
There is also evidence of either haste or carelessness in the Critical Reports. For a single example: the dances of British Li- brary ms. 29987 (nos. 14-28, 35-38) are published out of manuscript order, appar- ently so as to be able to group the four saltarellos together (nos. 22-25). Confus- ing traces of an earlier arrangement have been left in the ordering and numbering of pieces in the Critical Report, pp. 168- 69.
Spiral bound, this book opens flat, which is a great convenience for the performer; but the format, at 25.5 x 18 cm, is alto- gether too small, and page-turns are badly planned. Performers will, I suspect, be drawn to photocopiers and a pair of scis- sors. The musical orthography of the edi- tion is also unsatisfactory. Notes are too cramped horizontally, and staves or sys- tems of staves are too cramped vertically, while diagonal beams often have a slight shake to them, and sixteenth-note beaming sometimes runs together. Given the large amount of white space at the end of almost every item, more effort could surely have been made to improve the layout, especially by the strategic location of repeated ma- terial in the estampies. McGee, however, does deserve highest praise from perform- ers for writing out these estampie returns in full.
One can greet this edition with only a qualified welcome, but it nonetheless should be on the bookshelf of every me- dievalist and early-music performer, hold- ing a place for dance and instrumental music both there and in our historical imagination while serving as a needed stim- ulus and focal point for teaching, perfor- mance, and future research.
PETER M. LEFFERTS University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Spiral bound, this book opens flat, which is a great convenience for the performer; but the format, at 25.5 x 18 cm, is alto- gether too small, and page-turns are badly planned. Performers will, I suspect, be drawn to photocopiers and a pair of scis- sors. The musical orthography of the edi- tion is also unsatisfactory. Notes are too cramped horizontally, and staves or sys- tems of staves are too cramped vertically, while diagonal beams often have a slight shake to them, and sixteenth-note beaming sometimes runs together. Given the large amount of white space at the end of almost every item, more effort could surely have been made to improve the layout, especially by the strategic location of repeated ma- terial in the estampies. McGee, however, does deserve highest praise from perform- ers for writing out these estampie returns in full.
One can greet this edition with only a qualified welcome, but it nonetheless should be on the bookshelf of every me- dievalist and early-music performer, hold- ing a place for dance and instrumental music both there and in our historical imagination while serving as a needed stim- ulus and focal point for teaching, perfor- mance, and future research.
PETER M. LEFFERTS University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The Adventures of Robin Hood Suite. Adapted and arranged for piano by Jeff Sultanof. (Classic Film Scores.) Secaucus, N.J.: Warner Bros. Publications Inc., 1987. [Score, 24 p. PF0411. $5.95.]
Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Kings Row Suite. Adapted and arranged for piano by Tony Esposito. (Classic Film Scores.) Secaucus, N.J.: Warner Bros. Publications Inc., 1988. [Score, 16 p. PF0535. $7.95.] Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The Sea Hawk Suite. Adapted and arranged for piano by Dave Jessie. Captain Blood Suite. Adapted and arranged for piano by Jeff Sultanof. (Classic Film Scores.) Secaucus, N.J.: Warner Bros. Publications Inc., 1987. [Score, 24 p. PF0415. $5.95.] Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Marchenbilder. 7 Stiicke ftir Pianoforte. Opus 3. Mainz: Schott (European American), 1911, 1939. [Score, 44 p. ED 7580. $12.95.]
Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The Adventures of Robin Hood Suite. Adapted and arranged for piano by Jeff Sultanof. (Classic Film Scores.) Secaucus, N.J.: Warner Bros. Publications Inc., 1987. [Score, 24 p. PF0411. $5.95.]
Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Kings Row Suite. Adapted and arranged for piano by Tony Esposito. (Classic Film Scores.) Secaucus, N.J.: Warner Bros. Publications Inc., 1988. [Score, 16 p. PF0535. $7.95.] Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The Sea Hawk Suite. Adapted and arranged for piano by Dave Jessie. Captain Blood Suite. Adapted and arranged for piano by Jeff Sultanof. (Classic Film Scores.) Secaucus, N.J.: Warner Bros. Publications Inc., 1987. [Score, 24 p. PF0415. $5.95.] Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Marchenbilder. 7 Stiicke ftir Pianoforte. Opus 3. Mainz: Schott (European American), 1911, 1939. [Score, 44 p. ED 7580. $12.95.]
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