Aural Images of Lost Traditions: Sharps and Flats in the Sixteenth Century

Brad Richmond is an assistant professor of music at Laurentian
University.

Editing 16th-century music is both a joyous task—there is a rich vocal
repertory from this era—and a problematic one. Renaissance composers,
for the most part, left the addition of sharps and flats in their music
up to singers. In trying to resurrect 16th-century performance
practices, the modern editor can consult theoretical treatises from the
period, but will frequently find these contradictory and ambiguous. Toft
proposes that the study of 16th-century music theory be done in
conjunction with the examination of instrumental intabulations of vocal
music. By adding the sharps and flats left out of vocal manuscripts,
intabulators provide us, says Toft, with demonstrable examples of
performance practice.

Toft’s study is divided into four chapters, the first of which
provides an overview of 16th-century theoretical commentary. Chapter 3
deals with what Toft suggests may have been a “distinctive practice”
in mid-16th-century Germany —the notation of altered pitches in vocal
manuscripts. Chapters 2 and 4 examine transcriptions of motets by
Josquin and Agricola. Josquin is a fruitful choice because the
popularity of his music yielded many intabulations throughout the
century.

Toft’s investigation of intabulations reveals a range of solutions as
wide as that of the treatises. The modern scholar-editor-performer, he
argues, should not be seeking definitive answers, as such was clearly
not the case in the Renaissance. Rather, the evidence provides one with
options from which there can be several equally valid realizations.

Good use of musical examples and a lucid writing style make this book a
fine reference tool for those interested in these aspects of
16th-century performance practice. The glossary is helpful and the
extensive bibliography provides a pathway further into the debate.