Improvising Early Music: The History of Musical Improvisation From the Late Middle Ages to the Early Baroque by Rob C. Wegman, Johannes Menke, Peter Schubert (review)
main text it is clear that at least the first one refers not to the reference given in fn. 39 but to that from fn. 38. There is no consistency as to when the French original of quotations is given in footnotes: on p. 29, fn. 57, we have the original text from a 1660 publication, while on pages 23 to 27 we are not given the original texts from a 1666 publication nor, for instance, that of a 1643 quotation on p. 35. As one can see in fn. 105 on p. 43, it is good to have the original text: the English translation omits to include a word for the French "diverses" before "complaints" The study is complemented by two Appendices, the first helpfully listing all the "maitres de musique" at Saint Sauveur between 1657 and 1750 (although one wonders why not up to the Revolution) and the second one providing a work catalogue of the Latin church music of the "Aix School" (although strangely not listing the scoring of these pieces) Unfortu nately, most of the pages of Appendix 2 do not have page numbers printed on them (pp. 228 to 256 the same applies to Table 4 on pp. 195 96) this makes detailed reference to individual entries rather difficult. However, more problematic is the issue of missing references for quotations (such as in the first sentence of the Prologue's main text on p. xxi, or in the middle of p. 152) Quite often the reader is left guessing from where information originates (see the biographical information on Poitevin on pp. 32 and 41, or that on Jaques Cordier on p. 44) one simply has to trust the author and is left hoping to find this somewhere else in the book. A glossary explains some of the French terms used in the book. However, it is not clear why some of them are included in the first place. For instance, for the French "Chapitre" the main text simply uses the English equivalent "Chapter" for most of the time (see especially the use of both on pp. 40 43) There are several issues in the bibliography: quite apart from the fact that it includes manuscript sources (and is thus a "List of sources" rather than a mere "Bibliography" it is confusing to have articles separated from the other "Printed Sources since 1800" The author works with the wide spread abbreviation system of "last name year" (although it is not understandable what the date adds to identifying the abbreviation) However, there is some inconsistency: when there are several titles by the same author, it seems that the full name of the author is intended to be included only for the first entry. But for the entries for Duron we have the full name each time and given the abbreviation system, this is actually more user friendly. The entry for "Gooch 1972" simply lacks the full name and unfortunately, in the actual text there is generally no full citation on the first mention in the footnotes. Regarding the manuscript sources, the listing of the archival sigla is confusingly not distinct from the actual listing, but on the bottom of p. 262 there is a section headed "Unpublished Manuscripts" should this heading have come after the sigla? This book has little to be commended. Its title appears to have been chosen to achieve maximum attention but without much thought of reflecting the book's contents. The few paragraphs on "The Transmission of the Court Motet Style to Provence" (pp. 156 57) and possibly those on pp. 151 52, together with the bits on Aix composers going to Versailles, are the only passages that truly correspond to the book title. The biographies of composers from the "Aix School" in the second part at the centre of the book are unmistakably the book's main raison d'etre. These are genuinely interesting and seem well researched. Indeed, these could have worked very well as a contextualising study on Andre Campra, who is clearly the centre of attention; or as a meaningful volume on Poitevin and his "remarkable legacy" (p. 218) Overall, the book does not live up to its boisterous title, and the quality of the scholarship, while certainly enthusiastic, is in places questionable.