An important new volume of studies in Renaissance music will be published as the result of the Library's April 1-3 conference on "Music, Musicians and Musical Culture in Renaissance Rome," presented in early April as an adjunct to its major exhibition "Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library and Renaissance Culture," which attracted 250,000 visitors before it closed April 30.
Dr. Billington cited the exhibition as a demonstration of the Library's determination to "mediate the world's knowledge to a wider audience" and expressed appreciation to the 50 scholars in attendance for their willingness to study Renaissance music and participate in this three-day conference.
James W. Pruett, chief of the Library's Music Division, praised what he called the "reawakening of energies and interests" on the part of scholars and said that publication of proceedings will be an important event.
"We are working on the details of publication of papers prepared for and presented at the conference," Dr. Pruett said. "And we expect this publication to be of major importance to scholars studying Renaissance music."
Norma Baker, acting director of the Library's Development Office and coordinator for the conference, said, "We have had inquiries from several academic presses, and hope to publish the proceedings within the next year."
Editor for the planned publication is Richard Sherr of the music faculty at Smith College. Dr. Sherr and Dr. Baker curated the music section of the exhibition.
The 17 papers presented were specially prepared for the conference and dealt with some facet of papal choirs of the 15th and 16th centuries and the composers who wrote the words and music they performed.
Pamela Starr of the University of Nebraska School of Music described the ways that an instrument of papal patronage, the "per obitem" supplication, contributes to the understanding of 15th century music and musicians. "This is a document that was required of all clerics who wished to obtain an ecclesiastical benefice that had been relinquished by the death of another clergyman," Dr. Starr reported. Because of the precise information required, the documents that preserve the hundreds of thousands of such requests contain an enormous amount of reliable information about Renaissance clergymen, among whom were the hundreds of musicians who formed the cadre of composers and performers of 15th century polyphony, she continued.
Lewis Lockwood of the Harvard University Department of Music presented newly discovered documentary material on the celebrated singer Antonio Collebaudi, called "Bidon," one of the most famous performers of the early 16th century.
Margaret Bent of All Souls College at Oxford University shared with the group the unraveling of mysteries surrounding music written to petition or celebrate popes in the very early 15th century. Although they are fragile and difficult to read and many of their dates uncertain, their study by modern scholars has produced knowledge on such subjects as occasions and traditions celebrated. These studies, Dr. Bent noted, contribute further background to understanding the achievement of Guillaume Dufay, the great Franco-Flemish composer who sang in the papal chapel in the 1430s, "as the first composer of a surviving body of works under papal patronage."
Conferees were treated to a concert by Capella Alamire, directed by Peter Urquhard of the University of New Hampshire faculty. The ensemble, which was founded in 1984 in Cambridge, Mass., to explore the music of the Renaissance, performed Fragmenta Missarum: Mass Movements from Vatican Manuscripts.
The musicologists also toured the Vatican exhibition, including its major section on music. One document on view listed choir members who had been late for rehearsal and the amounts each was fined for the infraction.
The conference was made possible by the following foundations in the Library of Congress: The Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation, the Da Capo Fund, the Charles Louis Elson Memorial Fund and the Nicholas Longworth Foundation.
