The Glogau Song Book is a manuscript from around 1480 containing 292 songs, devotional chants, and instrumental pieces for a small monastic community in Lower Silesia.
Instruments
The ensemble Dulce Melos is particularly involved in reconstructing and reintroducing long-neglected instruments, such as the dulcemelos, a medieval hammered dulcimer from which the ensemble takes its name.
Performer Biography
Marc Lewon, the director of this project, holds a Master's degree in musicology and Medieval German and is currently pursuing a PhD at Oxford University.
Composition History
The manuscript was found in 1874, disappeared after 1945, and reemerged in 1977 in the Biblioteka Jagiellońska of Kraków, where it is kept today.
Compositional Technique
Almost all pieces in the Glogau Song Book are in three parts, suitable for three string instruments or voices, and many are very short, suggesting they were inducements for improvisation.
Historical Context
The Glogau Song Book contains music from many different countries, including Saxony, Southern Germany, France, England, Italy, the Netherlands, Bohemia, and Poland, demonstrating a high standard of European polyphony.
Historical Context
The Glogau Song Book is the oldest known set of part-books from central Europe, designed for a small group of amateur musicians who could read mensural notation.
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