Music Discourse from Classical to Early Modern Times: Editing and Translating Texts (Conference on Editorial Problems)

The study of medieval and Renaissance music relies heavily on scholarly editions and translations of theoretical and liturgical sources to provide means of interpreting notation, style, and compositional processes. The editing of these texts and sources remains challenging for professional musicologists and social historians, as all musicologists must either translate or use translations of texts for their own research. The five essays in this collection deal with the problems inherent in editing and translating writings on such diverse subjects as music theory, harmonic science, composition, sociology, liturgy, and performance practice. They represent a variety of disciplines, not only in respect to their individual fields of inquiry, but with respect to the study of music itself, embracing musicology and ethnomusicology, historical and systematic research, philology and hermeneutics. The general and particular legacy of the ancient classics as a stable element in music discourse is a common thread that binds the essays together.