Sources and Resources: From Manuscript to Edition

Learning Objective
To enable students to make and use critical editions of music. Participants will be trained in the craft of finding, evaluating and comparing sources, and producing critical notes.

Course Content
The first part of the course will be devoted to the history of Textkritik. How did one deal with textual problems in previous centuries, and what are the latest methods? Special emphasis will be given to the stemmatic system by Karl Lachmann and its influence on musical manuscript traditions. Students will learn to work with all the major musicological resources (RISM, RILM, Grove, MGG, etc). In the second part of this course they will be asked to fashion their own editions from photocopies of manuscripts so as to make them aware of the problems pertaining to different repertoires. In the second part students will learn how to date musical sources based on the handwriting and/or external features of manuscripts and prints.

Course details

teacher Andrea Friggi
term September 2023-April 2024
readings Grier, J., The Critical Editing of Music: History, Method, and Practice. Cambridge 1996.
  Feder, G., Music Philology. Translated by b. C. Macintyre. Hillsdale: pendragon 2011 (Musikphilologie, Darmstadt 1987).
  Caraci Vela, M., Music Philology: Institutions, history, and critical approaches. Lucca: Edizioni Ets, 2015 (la filologia musicale, Lucca 2005).
  Photocopies of manuscripts from microfilms will be provided during the lessons.
assessment Two tests, one at the end of each period. Furthermore, the students will make a small critical edition which they present in class.
credits 10
related electivesHistory of the Early Music Movement
  New Methodologies for Music Research
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