A piece of ‘lost’ music discovered within the pages of Scotland’s first complete printed book offers insights into what music may have sounded like five centuries ago. Researchers are delving into the background of this musical score, which consists of only 55 notes, to shed new light on early sixteenth-century music from pre-Reformation Scotland.
A piece of ‘lost’ music discovered in the pages of Scotland’s first complete printed book offers insights into what music may have sounded like five centuries ago.
Academics from Edinburgh College of Art and KU Leuven in Belgium are exploring the origins of this musical score, which has only 55 notes, in order to gain a better understanding of music in Scotland prior to the Reformation in the early 1500s.
Researchers highlight that this exciting find is a unique example of music from Scottish religious institutions 500 years ago and is the sole surviving piece from northeast Scotland from that era.
The scholars uncovered this music in a copy of The Aberdeen Breviary from 1510, which is a collection of prayers, hymns, psalms, and readings used for daily worship in Scotland, along with detailed accounts of Scottish saints’ lives. This particular copy, identified as the ‘Glamis copy’ since it was previously housed in Glamis Castle in Angus, is now preserved at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Although the musical score lacks lyrics, a title, or an author, researchers have recognized it as a one-of-a-kind musical arrangement of Cultor Dei, a hymn sung during the night in the season of Lent.
The Aberdeen Breviary was produced as part of an initiative by King James IV, who issued a Royal Patent allowing the printing of books with orders for services that adhered to Scottish religious customs instead of relying on texts imported from England or Europe.
The researchers believe the composition originates from Aberdeenshire, possibly linked to St Mary’s Chapel, Rattray, located in Scotland’s northeastern region, as well as Aberdeen Cathedral.
The music was stumbled upon as researchers scrutinized numerous handwritten notes in the margins of the Glamis copy.
Of special interest was a piece of music — spread across two lines, with the second line about half the length of the first — found on a blank page in a section dedicated to Matins, a morning service.
The team found the presence of this music intriguing. Although it was not part of the original printed work, it was inscribed on a page that was bound into the book, indicating the writer intended for the music to remain with the book.
Due to the absence of any textual notes, the researchers were unsure whether the music was sacred, secular, or intended for voices.
Upon further analysis, they determined it to be polyphonic, meaning that two or more independent melody lines are sung or played simultaneously. Historical sources indicate this technique was prevalent in Scottish religious institutions, but examples have mostly disappeared over time.
Upon closer examination, one researcher recognized that the music aligned perfectly with a Gregorian chant melody; specifically, it was the tenor part from a faburden, a musical arrangement of three or four voices, accompanying the hymn Cultor Dei.
David Coney from Edinburgh College of Art, who identified the music, remarked: “Finding out what this piece of music is truly feels like a significant breakthrough for music historians. Even better, our tenor part harmonizes with a well-known melody, allowing us to recreate the other missing parts. Therefore, from just a single line scribbled on a blank page, we can resurrect a hymn that has been silent for almost five centuries — a small but treasured piece of Scotland’s musical and religious heritage.”
In addition to uncovering lost melodies, the researchers have been able to track the provenance of how the Aberdeen Breviary was utilized over its lengthy history. At one point, it was used as a personal service-book by the illegitimate son of a prominent chaplain at Aberdeen Cathedral, a rural priest himself, and eventually became a valued family heirloom for a Scottish Catholic who traveled from post-Reformation Scotland to the capitals of both the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires.
Lead author Dr. Paul Newton-Jackson from KU Leuven stated: “The insights we have drawn from this fragment emphasize the importance of marginal notes as a source of fresh understanding regarding the musical culture in times where little recorded material remains. It’s very possible that more discoveries, be they musical or not, could still be waiting to be found in the blank pages and margins of other sixteenth-century printed volumes housed in Scotland’s libraries and archives.”
In 2023, Dr. Newton-Jackson was also a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities.
Dr. James Cook from Edinburgh College of Art noted: “For a long time, many believed that sacred music in pre-Reformation Scotland was virtually nonexistent. Our findings illustrate that, despite the Reformation’s turmoil, which obliterated much of the visible evidence, there existed a robust tradition of high-quality music-making in Scotland’s churches, chapels, and cathedrals, much like in other parts of Europe.”
The study has been published in the Journal Music and Letters.
