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（La Trobe University）中世纪音乐数据库通过整合原始手稿的彩色图像、现代记谱法转录本，以及所有版本、摹真本、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资源。该数据库支持用户通过文本、描述符或旋律检索1万部作品的曲目库，既可以呈现原始来源的图像，也可提供现代乐谱以助力现代演奏。
该数据库由两项最初独立的项目合并而成，两项项目均始于1984年。第一项研究由墨尔本大学（University of Melbourne）美术学院玛格丽特·马尼恩（Margaret Manion）教授与拉筹伯大学音乐学院约翰·斯廷森（John Stinson）主导，聚焦14世纪前半叶在佩鲁贾编写的15卷中世纪圣咏合唱集——该合唱集包含完整的年度格里高利圣咏（Gregorian chant）循环。为推进该项目，布莱恩·帕里什（Brian Parish）与约翰·斯廷森开发了专用计算机程序SCRIBE，可实现中世纪音乐原始记谱的编码、存储、检索与调取。在随后十年间，研究人员完成了佩鲁贾合唱集全部内容的编码，并对照同一宗教教派的其他中世纪手稿完成馆藏校验。最终形成了一套经过全面核验的中世纪记谱圣咏馆藏，以及一套可将中世纪记谱转换为Score（现代音乐记谱行业标准软件）可读格式的程序套件。由此生成的SCRIBE数据库是目前规模最大的保留原始记谱的中世纪旋律数据库，其编码语言已扩展至涵盖8至16世纪所用的所有记谱风格，包括14世纪晚期极为复杂的、同时使用红色与黑色记谱的彩色记谱法。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。
第二项项目由墨尔本大学约翰·格里菲斯（John Griffiths）教授与拉筹伯大学的约翰·斯廷森主导，其核心目标是对“代表性样本”的14世纪音乐进行数字录音。项目共录制150部14世纪世俗作品，其中多数已收录于Move唱片厂牌（Move label）发行的5张CD套装中。在项目推进过程中，研究人员还达成多项额外成果：包括全面修订14世纪配乐诗歌的法语与意大利语原文，以及为3198部作品各自的手稿、摹真本、学术研究与录音建立专属数据库。该数据库不仅包含作品列表：其文本与英文译文可供文学研究者、历史学家与音乐学者使用；而对作品、作曲家与手稿的全面交叉引用，还揭示了RISM与《14世纪复调音乐》（Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century）等标准参考书籍中的诸多学术空白。该数据库于1994年上线互联网，但其文本与译文并未包含在网络版中。14世纪音乐录音项目的开发得到了澳大利亚研究理事会、拉筹伯大学与墨尔本大学为期六年的资助。
合并后的双数据库共同呈现了晚期中世纪几乎所有已知音乐的全貌，但目前该合并数据库仍未收录部分曲目：包括游吟诗人与特罗威尔曲目、阿基坦复调音乐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往往装饰华丽、带有插图，这些手稿中的图像（除两份手稿外）均未纳入该数据库。