This course offers an overview on the changes occurred to music writing in the Iberian Peninsula from the tenth to the mid-sixteenth centuries. Firstly, the Old Hispanic notation was replaced by Aquitanian notation at the end of the eleventh century. Subsequently, the graphical appearance of Aquitanian notation changed due to the influence of the Gothic script. The first half of this course focuses on Old Hispanic notation but we also briefly introduce Catalonian notation and its peculiarities. In addition to the analysis of the first ‘neumes’ (that is, the graphical shapes employed to represent music in early notations), we will make an excursion in the world of Visigothic cryptography, which was employed in notarial deeds and was shaped reusing some symbols commonly found in Old Hispanic notation. In the second half of the course we discuss Gregorian manuscripts in Aquitanian notation, both from Spain and Portugal. In this section, we discuss in great detail the characteristics of the notation as found in Portuguese sources. This is a course on Iberian music palaeography but we will also touch upon nearby areas such as codicology, liturgy, and history since they allow us to better understand the contents of the surviving medieval musical sources. The active participation of the students is essential to the development of the course. The students will be strongly encouraged to comment and analyse the sources displayed (facsimiles, digital images). Students ‘will learn by doing’; they will learn to read medieval notations and become proficient at writing medieval notations as well as transcribing them into modern score. In addition to the palaeographical skills they adquire, students will be ready for greater challenges such as the preparation of critical editions of early music and philological analysis.

Date: 12 – 16 July
Schedule: Monday to Friday 10h00 to 13h00 and 14 h00 to 16h00
Duration: 25h | 2 ECTS
Area: History of Art and Artistic Studies
Teacher: Elsa De Luca

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