A rediscovered ‘lost’ fragment of music, hidden within the pages of Scotland’s first full-length printed book, is offering insights into the sounds of music from five centuries ago.
A fragment of “lost” music, discovered within the pages of Scotland’s first full-length printed book, is offering valuable insights into the sound of music from five centuries ago.
Experts from Edinburgh College of Art and KU Leuven in Belgium have been examining the origins of this musical score—comprising just 55 notes—to shed light on early sixteenth-century, pre-Reformation Scottish music.
Researchers describe the find as a rare glimpse into the musical practices of Scottish religious institutions 500 years ago. Notably, it is the only surviving piece of music from this era originating in the northeast of Scotland.
The scholars made the discovery in a copy of The Aberdeen Breviary of 1510, a collection of prayers, hymns, psalms, and readings used for daily worship in Scotland, including detailed writings on the lives of Scottish saints. Known as the ‘Glamis copy’ as it was formerly held in Glamis Castle in Angus, it is now in the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Despite the musical score having no text, title or attribution, researchers have identified it as a unique musical harmonisation of Cultor Dei, a night-time hymn sung during the season of Lent.
The Aberdeen Breviary and Its Historical Context
The Aberdeen Breviary came from an initiative by King James IV who issued a Royal Patent to print books containing orders of service in accordance with Scottish religious practices, rather than needing to rely on importing texts from England or Europe.
The researchers say the composition is from the Aberdeenshire region, with probable links to St Mary’s Chapel, Rattray – in Scotland’s far northeastern corner – and to Aberdeen Cathedral.
The discovery was made as researchers examined numerous handwritten annotations in the margins of the Glamis copy.
Singers: Holly Gowen, Sam Fitzgerald, Matt Norriss, Paul Newton-Jackson (Director). Music Identification and Reconstruction: David Coney. Audio: Matt Norriss (Piraxa Studios). Credit: Courtesy of Paul Newton – Jackson
Of primary interest to the scholars was a fragment of music – spread over two lines, the second of which is approximately half the length of the first – on a blank page in a section of the book dedicated to Matins, an early morning service.
The presence of the music was a puzzle for the team. It was not part of the original printed book, yet it was written on a page bound into structure of the book, not slipped in at a later date, which suggests that the writer wanted to keep the music and the book together.
In the absence of any textual annotations on the page it was not clear whether the music was sacred, secular or even for voices at all, the researchers say.
After investigation, they deduced it was polyphonic – when two or more lines of independent melody are sung or played at the same time. Sources from the time say this technique was common in Scottish religious institutions, however, very few examples have survived to the present day.
Reconstructing the Lost Hymn
Looking closer, one of the team members realized that the music was a perfect fit with a Gregorian chant melody, specifically that it was the tenor part from a faburden, a three- or four-voice musical harmonization, on the hymn Cultor Dei.
David Coney, of Edinburgh College of Art, who discovered the identity of the music, said: “Identifying a piece of music is a real ‘Eureka’ moment for musicologists. Better still, the fact that our tenor part is a harmony to a well-known melody means we can reconstruct the other missing parts. As a result, from just one line of music scrawled on a blank page, we can hear a hymn that had lain silent for nearly five centuries, a small but precious artifact of Scotland’s musical and religious traditions.”
As well as uncovering lost sounds within its pages, researchers have also traced how the Aberdeen Breviary may have been used, and by whom, over its long history. At one time used as the private service-book of the illegitimate son of a high-ranking chaplain at Aberdeen Cathedral, himself a rural priest, it would later become a treasured family heirloom of a Scottish Catholic whose travels led him from post-Reformation Scotland to the capitals of the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires.
Lead author, Dr Paul Newton-Jackson, of KU Leuven, said: “The conclusions we have been able to draw from this fragment underscore the crucial role of marginalia as a source of new insights into musical culture where little notated material survived. It may well be that further discoveries, musical or otherwise, still lie in wait in the blank pages and margins of other sixteenth-century printed books held in Scotland’s libraries and archives.”
In 2023, Dr Newton-Jackson was also a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities.
Dr James Cook, of Edinburgh College of Art, said: “For a long time, it was thought that pre-Reformation Scotland was a barren wasteland when it comes to sacred music. Our work demonstrates that, despite the upheavals of the Reformation which destroyed much of the more obvious evidence of it, there was a strong tradition of high-quality music-making in Scotland’s cathedrals, churches, and chapels, just as anywhere else in Europe.”
Reference: “A New Polyphonic Source from Sixteenth-Century Scotland” by Paul Newton-Jackson, David Coney and James Cook, 12 November 2024, Music and Letters.
DOI: 10.1093/ml/gcae076
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1 Comment
Music of the spheres!