Medieval music database

The La Trobe University Medieval Music Database provides access to most of the music of the middle ages by combining colour images of original manuscripts, transcriptions of these into modern notation and references to all editions, facsimiles, scholarly literature and recordings. It allows the user to search a repertoire of 10,000 works by text, descriptor or melody. The database delivers both an image of the original source and a score in modern musical notation to facilitate modern performance. The database is the result of combining two originally independent projects, both begun in 1984. The first was a study of a fifteen-volume set of medieval choirbooks, written in Perugia in the first decades of the fourteenth century, which contain a complete annual cycle of Gregorian chant. This project was undertaken by Professor Margaret Manion (Fine Arts, University of Melbourne) and John Stinson (Music, La Trobe University). For this project a specialized computer program (SCRIBE) was written by Brian Parish and John Stinson which enabled the encoding, storing, searching and retrieval of medieval music in its original notation. Over the following ten years the entire contents of the Perugian choirbooks was encoded, and the collection checked against other medieval manuscripts of the same religious order. The result is a thoroughly checked collection of chant in medieval notation, together with a suite of programs which translate the medieval notation into a form which can be read by Score, for many years the industry-standard program for modern music notation. The resultant SCRIBE database is now the largest database of medieval melodies which preserves the original notation. Its encoding language has been expanded to include all notational styles used between the eighth and the sixteenth centuries, including the coloured notations used in the very complicated music of the late fourteenth century, which uses red as well as black notation. The development of this program and its database has been supported by the Australian Research Council as well as by La Trobe and Melbourne Universities. The second project, directed by Professor John Griffiths of the University of Melbourne and John Stinson of La Trobe University, had as its aim to make digital recordings of 'a representative sample' of the music of the fourteenth century. 150 secular works of the fourteenth century were recorded: many have been published in a series of five CDs on the Move label. During the course of the project, many other goals were achieved, including complete revisions of the French and Italian texts of poems set to music in the fourteenth century, and a database of every manuscript, facsimile, scholarly study and recording of every one of the 3,198 works. This database is not just a listing of works: the texts and English translations are of interest to literary scholars and historians as well as musicians; and the extensive cross-referencing of works, composers and manuscripts has revealed many lacunae in standard reference books such as RISM and Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century. This database was launched onto the Internet in 1994. The texts and translations were deliberately not included in the Internet version. The Fourteenth-century Music Recording Project was supported over six years by the Australian Research Council, La Trobe University and the University of Melbourne. Together the combined two databases give a comprehensive view of almost all of the music known to have existed in the late middle ages. There is material which does not yet appear on this combined database: the troubadour and trouvere repertoires, Aquitanian and Notre Dame polyphony, variant versions of Gregorian chants from different dioceses, other manuscript versions, etc. As manuscripts of both secular music and chant were often highly decorated and illuminated, the pictures contained in these manuscripts have not been included (except for two manuscripts).

拉筹伯大学中世纪音乐数据库（La Trobe University Medieval Music Database）通过整合原始手稿的彩色图像、对应现代记谱法的转录版本，以及所有版本、影印本、学术文献与录音的参考文献，为用户提供绝大多数中世纪音乐作品的访问权限。该数据库支持用户通过文本、描述符或旋律检索共计10000部作品的曲目库，同时提供原始音源图像与现代记谱乐谱，以助力现代演奏实践。本数据库由两项最初独立开展、均启动于1984年的研究项目整合而成。第一项研究聚焦于14世纪头十年在佩鲁贾（Perugia）抄录的一套十五卷中世纪圣歌集，该圣歌集包含完整的年度格里高利圣咏（Gregorian chant）循环。此项研究由墨尔本大学美术学院玛格丽特·马尼恩教授与拉筹伯大学音乐学院约翰·斯廷森共同主持。为此项目，布莱恩·帕里什与约翰·斯廷森开发了一款专用计算机程序SCRIBE，可实现中世纪音乐原始记谱的编码、存储、检索与调取。后续十年间，研究团队完成了这套佩鲁贾圣歌集全部内容的编码，并对照同一宗教教派的其他中世纪手稿对该藏品进行了校勘。最终产出的是一套经过全面校勘的中世纪记谱圣咏藏品，以及一组可将中世纪记谱转换为Score可读格式的程序——Score长期以来都是现代音乐记谱领域的行业标准软件。由此生成的SCRIBE数据库目前是全球规模最大的保留原始记谱的中世纪旋律数据库。其编码语言已拓展至涵盖8至16世纪所用的全部记谱风格，包括14世纪晚期复杂音乐中所使用的红蓝双色记谱法。该程序与数据库的开发得到了澳大利亚研究理事会（Australian Research Council）、拉筹伯大学与墨尔本大学的资助。第二项研究由墨尔本大学约翰·格里菲斯教授与拉筹伯大学约翰·斯廷森共同主导，其初衷是为14世纪音乐的“代表性样本”制作数字录音。项目共录制了150部14世纪世俗作品，其中多部已由Move唱片厂牌以五张CD套装的形式发行。研究过程中，团队还达成了多项额外目标：包括完整修订14世纪配乐诗歌的法语与意大利语文本，以及构建涵盖3198部作品的每一份手稿、影印本、学术研究资料与录音的数据库。该数据库并非单纯的作品名录：其收录的文本与英文译本不仅可为音乐家所用，也能为文学研究者与历史学家提供参考；此外，通过对作品、作曲家与手稿的全面交叉引用，该数据库还揭示了RISM与《14世纪复调音乐》等权威参考书籍中存在的诸多空白。该数据库于1994年上线互联网，但其文本与译本并未被纳入网络版。这项14世纪音乐录音项目得到了澳大利亚研究理事会、拉筹伯大学与墨尔本大学长达六年的资助。两项数据库整合后，可全面展现晚期中世纪已知的几乎所有音乐作品。但该整合数据库仍未收录部分内容：包括游吟诗人与特罗威尔歌曲曲目、阿基坦与巴黎圣母院复调音乐、不同教区的格里高利圣咏变体版本，以及其他手稿版本等。由于世俗音乐与圣咏手稿通常带有繁复的装饰与彩饰，相关手稿内的插图均未被收录（仅两部手稿为例外）。