FRANK MORANA
AmerOrganist 35/8

Canadian selling agent). If a philosophical underpinning for

the art music of Western civilization could be adduced in

two words, those two words would probably be something like

"beauty" on the one hand, and "genius" on the other. Music

that possesses these attributes—whether in a motet by

Josquin, or a symphony by Messiaen—is often held to be

"timeless," and yet to the uninitiated, can be seen simply

as music of the past. For this reason, perhaps, the

question sometimes arises as to just how far back indeed one

can traverse the past, and yet still hope to uncover music

of beauty, genius, and timelessness. In this question,

Kimberly Marshall is not only a scholar, but an advocate,

though the present volume is probably no stronger in its

argument than most general anthologies. It comprises some

40 pieces, from half-a-dozen German, Italian, Netherlandish,

and French-English sources. Probably the earliest extant

keyboard music, the so-called Robertsbridge Codex, is a

fragment from the 1300's, and presented here are two

Estampies, and two intabulations (keyboard transcriptions

from vocal music). The Estampies achieve both length and

structure through ingenious repetition schemes; the

intabulations preserve motets by Philippe de Vitry, Bishop

of Meaux, who first coined the term ars nova. The largest

source is the Buxheimer Orgelbuch, a collection of over 260

pieces from the mid-1400's, fifteen of which are presented

here. These pieces begin to approach an expressive language

that seems somewhat less far removed from ours. A set of

tablatures by Adam Ileborge, dated 1448, and presently

housed at the Curtis Institute of Music, contains several

Praeambula which, at just a few measures each, are really

too insignificant to have warranted inclusion here; though

another piece, a mensura on the melody "Frowe al myn hoffen

an dir lyed," appears to contain a first written instance of

the use of double-pedaling at the organ. Specimens from two

additional sources, the Lochamer Liederbuch-Fundementum

organisandi, and the Italian "Faenza Codex" are, admittedly,

less adventurous in scope, the latter containing two-part

settings only. Finally, a folio discovered in the binding

of an old book at Groningen University, classed simply as

Library Incunabulum 70, contains two cantus firmus settings

that, in their breadth of tonal and harmonic color, could

put many contemporary composers to shame.