German Instrumental Music of the Late Middle Ages: Players, Patrons and Performance Practice.

Keith Polk. (Cambridge Musical Texts and Monographs.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. xvi + 272 pp. $69.99.

Polk's study firmly establishes the supremacy of German musicians in fifteenth-century instrumental performance. The book is divided into three large parts, the first of which explores the instruments and ensembles of the era, separating the discussion into the traditional medieval classification of haut and bas, or loud and soft, instruments. The second part surveys the principal patrons of late medieval Germany, including the courts of the Emperor, princes, lesser nobility and bishops, as well as urban centers, and the third part examines the sources of instrumental polyphony and the medieval performance practice of improvised counterpoint.

There is much to recommend in this book to social and economic historians as well as to musicologists. Polk investigates the systems of civic and courtly patronage of large and small German establishments, albeit with little consideration of the varying motives for their artistic support. Largely archivally based, this portion of the study presents rich documentation on numbers and types of instrumentalists employed, and, in some cases, allows the tracking of particular musicians throughout their itinerant careers. He further explores the economic status of musicians in the fifteenth century, elevating the trade of the instrumentalist to the relatively stable middle class.

With regard to ensembles, the standard was, not surprisingly, the alta band of shawms and trombones or slide trumpets, resident in most cities and courts of late medieval Germany, and about which Polk has written previously. Another popular ensemble was the lute duo, which Polk claims "captured a position of leadership in bas ensembles, a role it monopolized for the remainder of the century" (26). He further suggests that this practice, along with polyphonic lute playing, was prominent in Germany earlier than elsewhere. Well documented in Italy from at least 1450 on, the practice of using a lute-playing tenorista to accompany such well-known lutenist/improvisers as Pletrobono of Ferrara (1417-1497) and later Serafino dall'Aquila (1466-1500) was associated with the so-called unwritten tradition," characterized by vocal and instrumental performance in memorized renditions of narrative and lyric verse. Polk admittedly recognizes the era as one with "the distinction between singers, composer and players blurred," asserting that "all were involved on nearly equal footing in a rich interaction" (166); however, his documentation and resulting interpretation of performance practices largely excludes consideration of singers in combination with instruments.

The reader is enticed with hints that women were involved with instrumental music. In the opening chapter, he states that "individual men -- and women -- judging from the ready market for their talents, exercised their craft with remarkable skill" (1). He is able to link the patronage of string players with the Duchess, rather than the Duke, of Guelders, and of lute pairs with two other duchesses, but does not identify any noble or burgher women as performers. This is surprising, given the ample documentation supporting such Italian noblewomen as Isabella d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia as instrumentalists as well as significant patrons of bas instrumentalists; this lacuna is probably symptomatic of the type of extant documentation from German courts and cities.

The book is modestly illustrated, due in part to the relative scarcity of German iconographic sources. Twelve of its sixteen plates are taken from Sebastian Virdung's Musica getutscht (Basel, 1511), and these, although crude in design, are nicely integrated into the text. A map of fifteenth-century Germany, locating some of the smaller cities and courts, would have been a welcome inclusion.

In all, this is a major contribution to the history of instrumental music and performance. The archival research on which it is based is extensive and its results are well documented and thoroughly interpreted by Polk in a vivid historical and musical reconstruction.