Books › A special loan exhibition of musical instruments, manuscripts, books, portraits, and other mementoes of music and musicians, formed to commemorate the tercentenary of the granting by King James I of a charter of incorporation to the Worshipful company of musicians in 1604 .., 1904 › scan 30
Scan 30
A special loan exhibition of musical instruments, manuscripts, books, portraits, and other mementoes of music and musicians, formed to commemorate the tercentenary of the granting by King James I of a charter of incorporation to the Worshipful company of musicians in 1604 .., 1904
16 lines. Read by computer on 1 October 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Printed Music.
3PREFACE.
5In this Exhibition the space available for the display of printed music is necessarily limited, and although a complete exhibition of the kind should, at a glance, present a complete history of modern music, it has been found necessary to limit this to a selection of the rarest of musical publications. A number of persons owning music libraries have most generously placed their treasures at the disposal of the Committee, and as a result it is hoped that the section devoted to printed music will form a not unattractive portion of the present Exhibition.
7The art of printing from movable types was invented in or about the year 1450, and the earliest examples of printed music are found from twenty to thirty years later.
9The earliest specimen exhibited and the first example known, is Gerson's "Collectorium super Magnificat." This, a theological work, contains only five notes of music. It was printed at Esslingen, in Germany, in 1473, and thus forms the foundation of music printing.
11The next specimen of printed music which gives us some bona-fide musical composition—melodies only—is found in Franciscus Niger's "Grammatica Brevis," the first work containing music printed in Italy; its date is 1480.
13The earliest example of music printing in France in this Exhibition is contained in a Missal printed at Lyons, in 1485. The lines or staff only is printed, leaving the actual notation to be put inserted by hand.
15England comes last, the first book known to contain music being Higden's "Polychronicon" printed
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