WHAT BIBLIOGRAPHY CAN DO :sx MUSIC PRINTING AND THE EARLY MADRIGAL .sx BY STANLEY BOORMAN .sx TWO RECENTLY PUBLISHED VOLUMES bear titles which will whet the appetite of any scholar of Renaissance music or of the history of musical sources and music printing in the Italian Renaissance .sx One is a study of the emergence of the great secular genre of the period , documenting a complex group of sources ; the other is the first instalment of an inventory and analysis of the work of one of the two leading printers who made that and other repertories available .sx Each volume opens with an introductory study of some 80 pages and then devotes the bulk of the space to descriptions of the sources .sx The emphases in the studies are , however , markedly different :sx while Iain Fenlon and James Haar seek to use their codicological , bibliographical and repertorial data to advance and support a theory on the emergence of the madrigal , Mary S. Lewis uses her data to provide us with a survey of printing technique and published repertory .sx ( Her study of the place of Gardano's output in the music of the period and of its impact on the market for that music is to appear later , at which point we may expect to see that her use of the data is more like that in the other volume .sx ) .sx At least potentially , therefore , we have two books which could be central to future study of sixteenth-century music , which could point up the value of source study for other sorts of historical work , and which could indicate the present state of expertise and sensitivity in the study of Renaissance sources , printed and manuscript .sx Bibliography , as these authors all believe and demonstrate , is much more than mere description or even purely bibliographical analysis .sx These elements certainly make up a major part of such work :sx without detailed , accurate and perceptive descriptions of the books concerned , using the most sophisticated bibliographical and palaeographical awareness , there can be no analysis of their contents , as the authors also recognize .sx In practice , the techniques of examining printed sources have now become extremely subtle , for bibliographical study has made great strides in the last decades :sx the result is that few musicologists , even those working on music printing , can find the time to keep abreast of what can be done , or what has been done , given enough time , patience and enthusiasm , in other ranges of sources .sx In the area of manuscript description , our work is often more sophisticated - the result of a long and fruitful tradition in the study of medieval , Renaissance and ( more recently ) nineteenth-century music and sources - and musical scholars are among the leaders in , for example , paper analysis .sx But we still have to catch up with other disciplines in the general level of our work with printed sources .sx However , this act of description , especially of detailed description , is only the first stage .sx It is possible to describe the several copies of a printed musical volume in such detail that the result resembles nothing so much as the critical commentary to one of the more popular motets of Josquin , and seems about as useful .sx Of course , as a practitioner of musical bibliography , I would like to think that the bibliographical analysis may well be more useful than those lists of variants in concordances :sx for one thing , it ought to lead to a consistent picture of the sources .sx There are dangers , naturally .sx Many scholars , beginning with McKenzie , have pointed out that our analyses of bibliographical data are prone to produce simple , elegant results , having little to do with how books were actually printed - or ( we could add ) how manuscripts were compiled .sx But the fact remains that a principal function of a bibliographical or a codicological study is that of producing a clear picture of normal procedures , and hence of the significance of deviations from those apparently conventional and routine actions .sx It is a truism that the third aspect of a study of musical documents builds on this analysis to produce a description of their place in the musical context , in the developments of musical style , taste and available repertory , in the careers of the composers involved or in the history of manuscript preparation or of the printing trades .sx This is perhaps the most dangerous part of the study , since often the particular role of the sources can no longer be determined precisely .sx While the evidence is , by definition , very precise , and its analysis indicates specific occurrences within clear patterns of production , the place of these books in a more general pattern of patronage ( for example ) can frequently not be discerned .sx Nor can we , as a result , often be sure of the impact of a given volume on the style of other composers , on the enthusiasms of new patrons , amateur audiences and performers or on the plans of other printers and publishers .sx Yet this aspect of the study is the most exciting , and must be attempted ; and it is here , as I have said , that the two volumes under consideration are most obviously different .sx We will have to wait for Lewis's description of the role of Gardano's music volumes , and have so far only a few ( necessarily specific ) studies by her in journals .sx Fenlon and Haar , on the other hand , have collected together much of their ( and other people's ) earlier thinking , ordered it , related it to the bibliographical and codicological data , and presented a rounded picture .sx Their work , therefore , should be an exemplary display of what source study could achieve .sx In this particular respect , their book is indeed of the greatest interest .sx As they state at the beginning :sx " One of the principal concerns of this study is to emphasise the Florentine ( and to a much lesser extent , Roman ) origins of the madrigal " ( ) .sx This objective they realize admirably , while generating relatively few grounds for scepticism .sx True , the idea is not entirely new ( as they imply ) - Professor Haar has been approaching it in a number of papers , I remember discussing it with Dr Fenlon at a London meeting of the Society for Renaissance Studies in the mid-1970s , and of course Colin Slim's magisterial discussion of the Newberrry-Oscott partbooks implies much the same - but it is here developed and buttressed with direct and circumstantial evidence in a manner that is highly effective .sx There can be little dispute with the arguments presented in favour of the distinctness of the frottola ( as a genre ) from the emerging madrigalian pieces of the period around 1520 ( as found in a number of early sources , including the printed edition of Pisano's music and a group of stylistically important manuscripts - here clearly arranged and described ) , or with the assumption that the patrons of the two genres can have had little in common in the way of literary taste .sx Even if we were to believe that the two sets of patrons had much the same musical tastes - liking improvised music of a similar style , for instance ( and this is something we should doubt ) - the structural as well as the literary character of early madrigalian verse would have to give us pause .sx The influence of Bembo , which has been traced a number of times and which seems to have been stronger in Rome , also argues for a different approach on the part of his patrons .sx This aspect of taste , as the authors remark , makes good sense of the abrupt change in the underpinnings of style as we see it in the early Roman madrigal .sx I am not sure , however , that the authors see the implications of the extent to which the new musical genre ( not only the Roman but also the closely related - in time , at least - Florentine versions ) comprised a relatively sophisticated style in itself , one performed from notation and one that is in effect 'composed' , rather than created in performance .sx This would seem to be an integral part of the poetic mentality , in tune with the approach to literature being advocated in early sixteenth-century circles , including those of Florence ; and it also has to be an integral part of our assessment of any group which cultivated the genre .sx My reason for wanting to see this as an important aspect of the newly emerging style has only partly to do with questions of performance , and more ( in the present context ) with two other , quite different issues .sx One is that the style , in its break not only from the traditional styles of the frottola but also from those of the canti carnascialeschi , is perhaps also not to be seen as particularly Medicean in orientation .sx There are points at which the authors have to admit that the stamp of the Medici on this genre is not very strong :sx for example , they confirm that few of the sources can be tied to the Medici family ; at the same time , of course , they have to acknowledge the strong impact that the Strozzi family and circle seem to have made on ( at least ) the dissemination of the style .sx To me , it is tempting to see the Medici as relatively lowbrow patrons of music ( with one or two notable exceptions , of course ) , tending to favour compositions bearing the stamp of popular taste .sx This is reflected in their interest in settings of canti carnascialeschi in 'art' styles or techniques by Isaac and others ( as well as the writing of poetry in the same manner ) , in their apparent liking for the simpler styles of French chansons , and perhaps in their desire for the popularizing impact of the publication of the 1539 wedding music .sx I see no conflict in their claiming a principal role in hiring musicians for the cathedral or baptistry , or in the ownership of some musical manuscripts containing madrigals , or of manuscripts of the classics , in the same way as we are not surprised that Henry VIII of England owned manuscripts - gifts or commissions - which reflect tastes other than those displayed in his own compositions or those of his court musicians .sx In any case , we are mistaken if we assume that a sophisticated chapel or church style ( or , even more clearly , the willingness to support such a style ) therefore requires a sophisticated secular or entertainment style .sx If this scenario is possible , then the Medici need have had little to do with the evolution of the madrigal .sx It should not surprise us that we can exclude a leading family of Florence from an artistic trend .sx Nor do we need to look very far for more likely candidates .sx The importance of the Strozzi family in the preservation of this repertory has been well demonstrated in the research collected here , while the family's part in spreading the music beyond Florence has been demonstrated by Richard Agee .sx While I do not believe for a moment that this family single-handedly created and nurtured the new genre , not least because Fenlon and Haar demonstrate a convincing early role for Roman patrons , I do think that we may be able to go further than they do .sx We may be able to say , not only that the Medici showed little interest in the madrigal , but also that the Strozzi were among the prime movers in a small circle , perhaps no larger than the one in which Professor Lewis can place Gardano in Venice ( which also was to include followers of Bembo) .sx We can then see in this picture a possible reason for the curious phenomenon of the madrigal suddenly bursting into print in Venice during the first half of the 1530s .sx It is not enough to say that other repertories were appearing .sx That is , of course , true ; but the patterns of influence on printers and of reasons for the financial risk have much greater impact on our view of the history of the young madrigal than is suggested in Fenlon and Haar's book .sx This is my second difference with the authors over the impact of the very different nature of the madrigalian style - written and read in performance , rather than created and then re-created in performance .sx In the case of a repertory like this , one which started out in manuscript and then moved decisively into printed sources , we need to think more deeply about two issues concerning this transition , both of which , in the present context , have two aspects .sx