A Tentative Bibliography of Early Wind Instrument Tutors

THE EARLIEST KNOWN printed work to contain directions for playing musical 1 instruments is Virdung's Musica getutscht, published in 1511.1 Its title, Music Germanized, indicates that the text is in German instead of the more commonly used Latin. This treatise furnishes brief instructions, in dialogue form, for instruments of the string, woodwind, brass, and percussion families. One of the features of the book is the large number of woodcuts which illustrate contemporaty instruments. Several years later, in 1529, Agricola, using the same woodcuts, brought out a more complete work entitled Musica instrumentatis deudsch and written in doggerel verse, perhaps to make it easier to memorize.2 It must have been well received since it went through several printings,3 including an enlarged revised edition in 1545.4 Concurrently with the publication of these two works, a variety of more specialized tutors made their appearance. The latter included a tutor for the organ by Schlick,5 one for lutes by Judenkunig,6 one for recorders by Ganassi,7 four for viols by Gerle,8 Lanfranco,9 Ganassi,l° and Ortiz,ll and one for viols, violin, and German flute by Jambe de Fer.l2 Thereafter came an ever increasing supply of instructional material for all in$truments.l3 For each of our present day instruments there exists a histoncal succession of tutors which contain material that should be explored by research scholars. Most questions concerning the historical development of pedagogy can be investigated in no other way than by studying the inforrnation set forth in these works. For the scientifically minded investigator the treatises furnish clues to the jigsaw puzzle of mechanical changes and improvements made in

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• An attempt to attribute the authorship of the treatises from the collection “The Modern Musick-Master” (London, 1730)

  Open Access•Alexei A Panov, Ivan V Rosanoff•Contemporary Musicology•2021

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