This database is a systematic collection
of scores, colour images, texts and bibliographic information of medieval
music which can be searched by text or melody and which will return musical
information in the form of a modern score, text data and, where available,
a colour facsimile of an original manuscript. In contains a complete annual
cycle of liturgical chant taken from original medieval sources and complete
works of selected composers from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries.
Liturgical Chant
The sources of the liturgical chant used in this database are a fourteen-volume set of corali for Dominican use now in Perugia (1305-1320), the two exemplars on which these were based (London, British Library, Additional 23935, c. 1270 and Rome, Santa Sabina, Ms XIV L1, c. 1260) and the Poissy Antiphonal (1335-1345), now in the possession of the State Library of Victoria (Ms *096.1 R66A). These seventeen manuscripts are closely related to each other, and constitute a reliable source of the state of the liturgical melodies in use in the fourteenth century by Dominicans throughout Europe. The Perugian manuscripts are described in detail by Galliano Ciliberti, Musica e liturgia nelle chiese e conventi dell'Umbria : secoli X-XV : con un Atlante-repertorio dei piu antichi monumenti musicali umbri di polifonia sacra, Perugia : Cattedra di storia della musica, Universita degli studi di Perugia, Centro di studi musicali in Umbria, 1994.
To this foundation collection selected other manuscripts are constantly being added: the liturgical chant from Cyprus found in manuscript Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale J. II. 9; the laude from Cortona, Biblioteca Comunale Ms 91 and mass chants from a thirteenth-century Cistercian manuscript in the State Library of New South Wales have already been added. Other planned projects include Franciscan chants from thirteenth-century sources, chants proper to San Lorenzo in Florence and all published chants not already found in the Dominican cycle.
Medieval Secular Music
The complete works of important composers such as Francesco Landini (150 works), Don Paolo Tenorista (59 works), and selected works by Jacopo da Bologna, Giovanni da Cascia, Philippe de Vitry and Guillaume de Machaut complement the comprehensive bibliographical data and sound files previously available in Gopher format from The 14th Century Music Database. This has been updated and is presented here in HTML format, superceding the older Gopher database.
For further information about transcriptions of chant into modern notation in PDF format and subscriptions please email johnastinson@gmail.com