Towards an Archaeology of Digital Early Music Heritage: Two Case Studies

Abstract

The digitization of medieval manuscripts and early books has been widely discussed in both musicology and other disciplines, with scholars arguing for both the advantages and disadvantages of creating and using digital surrogates. However, one issue brought up by Zdeněk Uhlíř is that digitization is not just creating digital images but is a “complex activity concerning the presentation of cultural heritage and representation of historical sources.” In this thesis, I examine how digitized early music sources are not just digital images, but also representations and promotions of musical heritage. I analyze two case studies to illustrate and compare how two different digital libraries preserve, advertise, and sustain the digitized musical heritage in their collections. The first case study is the Leuven Chansonnier (B-AF-ms-1), a fifteenth-century songbook thought to have been produced in the Loire Valley region of France. The songbook was digitized by the Alamire Foundation’s digital lab in 2017. It has received considerable support from the Belgian state and city of Leuven to promote the Chansonnier and their research nationally and internationally to reveal the artistry and relevance of early Franco-Flemish musical heritage. The second case study consists of two autographed volumes by the seventeenth-century English composer, Henry Purcell, which are currently held by the British Library. One volume is a manuscript containing keyboard music (MS Mus. 1) by Purcell at one end and the Italian composer, Giovanni Battista Draghi, at the other. The other volume is a scorebook (R.M.20.h.8) containing music written for the courts of Charles II and James II. In 2012, both Purcell manuscripts were digitized. In this thesis, I argue that when dealing with digitized early musical heritage, more consideration should be put into how these digitizations reflect upon and possibly influence current perceptions about musical heritage. I show how the Leuven Chansonnier and Purcell manuscripts have been promoted as cultural heritage and the sociopolitical considerations and motivations behind the preservation and sharing of early musical heritage. In conclusion, this thesis aims to illustrate how such digitizations fit into the larger trend of using digital and virtual methods to protect, access, and research early music sources and heritage.