Waste paper as a music source: fragments preserved with the incunabula at the University Library in Wroclaw

• Authors: Paweł Gancarczyk
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

PL

Preserved with the incunabula at the University Library in Wroclaw are eighty-five fragments of music manuscripts. Alongside numerous antiphonaries, notated breviaries and missals, they also include a fragment with polyphonic music (PL-WRu XV Q1066). This contains three compositions typical of fifteenth-century Central European repertory. There are grounds for supposing that this fragment was written in Silesia during the second quarter of that century. Research into the music fragments from the University Library in Wroclaw has provided the author with a point of departure for discussing methodological issues. Questions are raised regarding the nature of fragmentary sources, with reference to the classification of historical sources proposed by Jerzy Topolski. The status of fragments differs from that of sources preserved intact, and this should be reflected in research procedures, such as the method of establishing provenance. The adoption of new methodological principles requires a critical re-examination of the interpretation of some musical fragments, including the sources preserved in Poland.

Keywords

PL

University Library in Wroclaw; music manuscripts; fragmentary sources; chant music; fifteenth-century polyphony

• Publisher: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
• Journal: Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology
• Year: 2012
• Issue: 11
• Pages: 41-52

Dates

published

2018-10-17

Contributors

author

Paweł Gancarczyk

• is a professor of the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, head of the Catalogue of Music Sources in Poland and member of the editorial staff of the Muzyka quarterly. Since 2010, he has worked as a lecturer at the Institute of Musicology of the University of Warsaw. He specialises in the history of late medieval and early modern music. In his research, he concentrates on the musical culture of Central Europe, manuscript studies and the history of early printing. He has published two books: Musica scripto. Kodeksy menzuralne I Ipołowy XV wieku na wschodzie Europy Łacińskiej [Musica scripto. Mensural codices in Eastern Latin Europe in the second half of the fifteenth century] (Warsaw, 2001) and Muzyka wobec rewolucji druku. Przemiany w kulturze muzycznejXVI wieku [Music and the printing revolution. Transformations in the musical culture of the sixteenth century] (Toruń, 2011). He has co-organised three international conferences: ‘The Musical Heritage of the Jagiellonian Era in Central and Eastern European Countries’ (Warsaw, 2009), ‘The Musical Culture of Silesia before 1742. New Contexts - New Perspectives’ (Wroclaw, 2011) and ‘Music and Propaganda in the Visual Arts’ (Warsaw, 2012). He is Chair of the Musicological Section of the Polish Composers’ Union.