01 October 1991

Music Iconography and Medieval Performance Practice

Written by Leslie Lassetter
Introduction
This study of iconography and performance practice is divided into two parts. Part I deals with the definition of
iconography and its relationship to performance practice. Part II outlines some general principles necessary to
the study of medieval music iconography, and deals with specific cases. These principles include balancing
visual evidence against written sources, distinguishing between symbol and documentation of contemporary
life, and recognizing in art the historical precedents for instrumental groupings in biblical illustration. A
discussion of depictions of trecento angel musicians, as opposed to contemporary liturgical scenes,
demonstrates that different types of depictions vary in their value as evidence for performance practice. Finally,
a study of the instruments the trecento angels play leads into the possible role of the double pipe and the
bagpipe in the development of early polyphony.

I
This paper includes the use of the term iconology, as well as iconography. Iconography, as defined by Erwin
Panofsky, is the "branch of the history of art which concerns itself with the subject matter or meaning of works
of art, as opposed to their form."
1
Iconography deals with the description of images. Iconology, on the other
hand, involves the study of images and, therefore, involves interpretation. Emanuel Winternitz, one of the most
important writers in this discipline, defines the subject as follows: "[Iconology is] the analysis and
interpretation, by the historian of music, of pictorial representations of musical instruments, their players,
singers, groups of performing musicians, and all other kinds of musical scenes.
2
James McKinnon, twenty
years later, refined that definition, stating that iconology "seeks to penetrate to the real meaning of a particular
art work after the comparatively prosaic task of determining its conventional or iconographic meaning has been
performed."
3
To McKinnon, the essential character of iconography deals with ideas, and its definition in
simplest terms is "the identification of subject matter in art works."
4
Its object, however, is musical thought, as
opposed to organologythat field which McKinnon feels has dominated American music iconographers.
5
Another scholar's definition for iconology is "the study of images, their formulation, transmission, transformation
and their intrinsic meaning," as distinguished from iconography which to him implies, "the descriptive and
classificatory study of images with the aim of understanding the direct or indirect meaning of the subject matter
represented."
6
This is in keeping with McKinnon's more recent, broader view: music iconography "in its purest
form is simply the iconography of artworks with musicological subject matter, that is to say, the explanation of
a musical picture's content."
7
One of music iconology's primary uses is uncovering the performance practices of the past. The term
performance practice includes all those techniques that cannot be fixed in a written score, such as how
performers hold an instrument, specific hand and finger positions, which instruments are used in ensembles,
and their relative placement, and so on. Performance practice includes both the acoustic and the social
aspects of a performance's environment: its location (in- or outdoors, for example); its occasion (festival,
marriage, etc.); and the size, constituency, and behavior of the audience. Pictures provide evidence for these
elements of music-making that words cannot. An artwork depicting an orchestra, for example, will demonstrate
how many performers play each part (important in determining scoring),
8
the spatial arrangement of the
musicians, whether a continuo group is playing, and what its makeup is; and what accessories are in use
(music stands, mutes, etc.). Performance practice also encompasses the social status of the musician and
the manner in which society views the composer, the performer, and music, in general.
9
For example, a portrait
of a court violinist, who wears a satin uniform elaborately bordered in brocade informs us, at least partially, of
this performer's status in society. Similarly, a Brueghel townsman cradling a bagpipe and dancing amid other
peasant folk can relate many specific details (about the music's milieu, the details of the instrument, etc.) that
most written accounts would lack.
A student of music iconography also requires a considerable knowledge of symbolism, political movements,
theological doctrines, and allegorical languages that influenced a given artist. Such elements are not remote
from performance practice, since the use of music as a theme to illustrate something in many works can
distort the reality of the music. All that the artwork has drawn on must, to some extent, be examined if the
meaning of the work is to be revealed. Winternitz cites Charles Burney's lack of knowledge of the language of
ancient Egypt as evidence that iconologists must attempt to be familiar with all sources for an artwork. In his
General History of Music,
10
Burney praises Egyptian musicians for inventing the lute. Burney, however, only
saw a picture of what he thought was a lute on an Egyptian obelisk. He had, however, confused the hieroglyph
for the word "good, which is based on the shape of the windpipe joined to the heart," with the form of a lute.
11
There is also an elemental distinction between realistic and nonrealistic depiction. "By realistic art most of us
mean photographic artthat is, objects drawn in correct perspective and modeled in light and shade to look
three-dimensional."
12
Medieval artworks, for example, often show performers and instruments schematically,
their details either unclear or obviously unrealistic. An artist's stylistic limitations often limit the depiction of
details. For example, an illumination of David with a harp from an eleventh-century manuscript (Plate A) shows
a plucking position with crossed fingers that does not seem realistic.

Plate A
King David playing the harp; from an 11th-century manuscript (GB-Ccc 391, p. 24). Used with the permission of
the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

The crossed index and middle fingers of the right hand appear to be wrong from the point of view of performance
practice. The position of the performer's left hand is also mysterious: it seems to pluck a single string with four
fingersfar more awkward than using a single digit.
13
Another picture of King David from the twelfth-century
manuscript Hortus deliciarum by Herrad of Landsberg shows a further example of a seemingly unrealistic hand
position (see this picture on p. 13 of the New Grove article, "Iconography"): A plectrum held in the manner
shown would simply fall to the floor. (The artist does not show the thumb, which would hold the plectrum in
place.) A third medieval example which shows a realistic depiction is a miniature from the thirteenth-century
Cantigas de Santa Maria (Plate B).

Plate B
Woman playing psaltery; from Cantigas de Santa Maria, late 13th century (E-E b.1.2. folio 260r). Photograph
provided and authorized by the Patrimonio Nacional.

The finger positions of the psaltery player appear to be workable.
14
These examples demonstrate that we
cannot trust every medieval artist's work as accurate documentation; rather, the iconographer must assess the
possibly useful details of medieval artworks each on their own merits.
Later artworks (beginning with the Flemish) show almost an obsession with the portrayal of details. This does
not mean, however, that they are accurate. Grunewald's Isenheim Altarpiece (early sixteenth century), for
example, shows musicians performing on three-dimensional instruments, but the artist has distorted these
instruments and the musicians' playing technique.
15
A painting or drawing style that shows many clear details
can easily lead to a common pitfalltrusting details merely because they are shown.
The iconographer must bear in mind the symbolism in artworks. An example of the importance of a knowledge
of symbols is an interpretation of Hieronymous Bosch's Ship of Fools, in which a nun and a monk sit at table,
singing and playing the lute. The unknowledgeable viewer might interpret this work as portraying nothing more
than the musical tastes of two clerics of Bosch's time. Leppert shows, however, that Ship of Fools symbolizes
the lust of a corrupt clergy.
16
Similarly, one interpretation of the instruments in the same artist's complex
Garden of Delights holds that they become implements of torture for those who would destroy the world's
natural harmony, and the instruments themselves are distorted.
17
Seventeenth-century Dutch genre paintings,
many of which include chamber music performances, have the quality of painted snapshots. These works,
however, carry hidden allegorical meaning. Jan Molenaer's Allegory of Fidelity in Marriage, for example, uses
string instruments as symbols of temperance.
18
The man watering his wine is another symbol of moderation.
Moderation and temperance are appropriate to the theme of marital fidelity, but, as Jane Stevens has so aptly
put it, "if the music-making . . . has a largely symbolic purpose, can it be trusted as a realistic reflection of
actual performance practice?"
19
Depictions of eighteenth-century musical ensembles present a similar problem. According to Christoph-
Hellmutt Mahling, these works are intended to show a family's rank in society,
20
and because many of these
artworks agree in the details of performance, Mahling considers them useful in questions of performance
practice. Mahling further demonstrates the value of these works for the study of performance practice by
showing that the spatial arrangements in many ensembles are those prescribed by Joachim Quantz in his
Versuch einer Anweisung die Flte traversiere zu spielen.
21
In other words, these written contemporary
instructions to the performers corroborate, in this case, the pictorial documentation.

II
In examining matters of performance practice in music iconography of the Middle Ages, a few basic conditions
must be kept in mind. Frank L. Harrison stated in 1978 that, "unlike musicologists concerned with some later
eras . . . medievalists have as yet barely broached the subject known in Germany as Auffhrungspraxis."
22
On
the other hand, the pictorial arts of the Middle Ages demonstrate a special interest in depicting musicians with
their instruments.
23
If there are so many visual sources of performers and musical instruments, why then is
performance practice of early music so little understood? One reason has to do with the instruments,
themselves, few of which are still in existence today. According to Harrison,
The history of instruments is too often dealt with as if there were indeed an entity that could be called medieval
organologyan idea just as invalid as the supposition that the history of post-1500 instruments could be
treated as an undivided whole.
24
Whenever possible, it is of value to balance visual evidence with written source material. If there is an account
of payments to musicians in a procession, for example, these should be studied next to an artist's depiction of
such a procession.
25
An example of this principle exists in an artist's depiction of the coronation of Henry IV of
England (Plate C). The artist recorded trumpets sounding at the moment Henry is crowned. This corroborates
exactly the written sources.
26

Plate C
The coronation of King Henry IV of England; from Jean de Wavrin, Anchiennes cronicques d'Engleterre, French,
mid-15th century. (MS fr. 75, folio 308). Photograph provided by the Bibliotque Nationale.

An example showing the importance of a knowledge of symbolism is the interpretation of a Flemish picture
from the Breviary of Queen Isabella of Spain (ca. 1497, Plate D), which has been variously labeled over time.

Plate D
Levitical musicians playing on the steps of the Temple in Jerusalem while King David mounts steps; Flemish,
late 15th century (MS. Additional 18851, Isabella Breviary, folio 184v.). By permission of the British Library.

Bowles, in 1983, calls it "Musicians performing on the church steps,"
27
while another caption, from 1968, is
"Musicians in the Square Before a Church."
28
In a particularly incisive study, McKinnon shows that the best
caption would be "An introductory illustration to the gradual psalms; Levitical musicians play on the steps of
the Temple of Jerusalem, while King David looks on and David as pilgrim mounts the steps."
29
McKinnon
shows that the performers in this work are not meant to represent twelve medieval musicians performing
together. Rather, they illustrate a theological point with medieval costumes and instruments. Therefore, one
must weigh the "foreground" visual evidence against the "background," hidden meaning in looking for matters of
performance practice in music iconography of the Middle Ages.
Besides taking into account what a scene represents, it is important to realize that an artist's intentions are not
always literal. One must be mindful of the degree of conventionality underlying the production of images at
different periods of Western art. The Middle Ages and the earlier Renaissance demonstrate this tendency at its
extreme.
30
The grouping of angels in trecento artworkwhich derives from artistic, not musical sourcesillustrates this
concept. When trecento artists depict Mary surrounded by four angel musicians, for example, the latter do not
indicate a grouping of four medieval musicians in an ensemble. Trecento artists, rather, turned to the motif of
David (Plates E and F) surrounded by his four musical assistants as their model.
31
This was
. . . the best means of showing Mary . . . being adored by the angelic choirs. What better source of praise than
the psalms, and what better way to show angels singingthat is, playing instrumentsthan to borrow the
most obvious and common image of the praise for heavenly things, namely, David with four assistants.
32

Plate E
Christ in Majesty (MS m.742 recto). Photograph provided by the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.

Plate F
David as Poet of the Psalms; from the Cathedral in Siena, Italy. Photograph provided by Professor Enzo Carli.

Despite the artistic conventions, what do trecento frescoes, sculpture, and manuscript illuminations say about
the instruments the musiciansmostly angelsplay? "Did the artist paint these musical instruments purely
from his imagination, or do they correspond to actual instruments of the period?"
33
This question is asked by
Federico Ghisi in his study of scenes from the life of Mary encircled by angel musicians with instruments in the
apse of a Romanesque church at San Leonardo al Lago near Sienna. He judges that "their forms as shown are
certainly of instruments that were played." In another study of trecento angels, Brown determines that though
the grouping of angel instrumentalists is not necessarily indicative of the medieval ensemble, nevertheless, the
painters painted instruments they knew from real life. Though he qualifies this as being difficult to prove, he
believes that the artworks show biblical stories without, however, showing influence of the ancient world on the
costumes: that is, the biblical characters are in contemporary dress. Brown postulates, therefore, that there is
not an influence of biblical times on the details of the instruments, themselves.
34
This conclusion is also in
keeping with Bowles's opinion that the sacred genre is of little value in performance practice questions, but that
it may be of value for organology.
35
Whether trecento artists help the musicologist to determine instrumental
ensemble practice or not, they at least allow us to see what instruments were played. The naming of those
instruments is something else altogether, a problem discussed below.
The discussion, so far, has dealt with angel musicians. Angels make up the largest body of performers in
medieval art, and biblical illustration accounts for most of the subject matter. What about human beings
involved in the liturgy? Why have illustrations of liturgical practice received little attention? There are, in fact,
extant liturgical depictions. Les Trs riches heures (1415-17) by the Limbourg Brothers contains an illumination
of a Christmas Mass. A Commentary on the Pater Noster translated by Jean Milot (fifteenth-century) in the
Bibliothque Royale of Brussels contains a depiction of Philip the Good at Mass.
36
There are, however, "tens
of thousands of angel musicians, elders, and Psalter instrumentalists" in comparison to "these few mass
scenes [which] are isolated examples rather than representatives of established iconographic types." Yet there
is a "substantial body of medieval and Renaissance liturgical representation extant, even if existing biblical
illustration forms a greater amount by far." There is even enough illustration to distinguish the mass from the
office. A depiction of the liturgy from a fifteenth-century Dutch missal (Plate G) is one illustration from this
substantial body of works.

Plate G
Performing a liturgical service; from a Dutch missal, 15th century (MS K.2.32, folio 160). By permission of the
Board of Trinity College.

Iconography can also assist in assessing the problem of whether instruments were used in the liturgy. Brown
maintains that "the extent and nature of instrumental participation in sacred music of the thirteenth, fourteenth,
and fifteenth centuries are by no means clear."
37
Harrison, on the other hand, defines two distinct contexts in
which instruments found acceptance in the ecclesiastical tradition. Pedagogically, the monochord,
organistrum, and tuned bells were integral to the teaching of music, especially in the larger churches. A twelfth-
century relief of Lady Music shows the tuned bells (Plate H).

Plate H
Music with psaltery, fiddle, and carillon; from the king's door at Chartres Cathedral, 12th century. Photograph
provided by Chartres Cathedral.

By 1400, however, these pedagogical instruments were replaced by instruments with keys. In the ceremonial
context, "the organ was associated with certain new interpolations in the ritual . . . as an essential concomitant
in the performance of the Sequence."
38
The organ stood on a small screen in the gallery; its musical
participation, in addition to the Sequence, consisted of alternating with the plainsong of the choir, according to
Harrison. Many questions remain, however, in the area of instrumental participation in the liturgy. Brown states
that,
To investigate the conventions of scoring, particularly in liturgical music, remains one of the most important and
pressing tasks for the historian of [medieval] performing practice.
39
And McKinnon suggests that there are enough extant liturgical representations to realize such an
investigation.
40
With regard to instruments, let us return to the trecento angel musician. Trecento angels differ from those
depicted in earlier centuries:
Thirteenth-century angels were content merely to hold up drapery or to stand silently by. But shortly after 1300
heavenly messengers can be seen to weep for the crucified Christ, to offer flowers to the Virgin and Child, or to
play musical instruments.
41
For the next two centuries, these messengers from heaven form the most important class of performers
through sheer numbersin Italian art, so it is important to examine the instruments they play. Ghisi, as
mentioned above, has made a careful iconographic study of angel musicians encircling the Marian frescoes in
the church at San Leonardo al Lago. He describes the musicians in the frescoes of each vault of the apse.
42
In
one vault, angels form a bas ensemble with voice, including plucked and bowed string instruments (two
psalteries, two lutes, and a fiddle), a portative organ, and a solo singer. Three angels sing together in the next
vault; their trio suggests a polyphonic lauda. The final two frescoes include percussion, woodwind, and brass
instruments. In one, angels play long straight trumpets, a kettledrum, a bombard, and a pipe and tabor. In the
other, the celestial musicians play two kinds of trumpet (cylindrical and conical), cymbals, kettledrums, a
tambourine with jingles, a shawm or a bombard, and an aulos. To this double straight oboe, as Ghisi first
describes the aulos, we now turn our attention.
43
In his study of angels, Brown states that the double recorder is the main soft instrument of the trecento, the
bas instrument seen most often in paintings.
44
A detail from a Siennese painting (ca. 1340) of the Assumption
of the Virgin (Plate I) shows an angel playing this instrument in the left center of the foreground.

Plate I
Mary Ascending into Heaven by the Master of Siena; ca. 1340. Used with the permission of the Alte
Pinakothek Mnchen.

Plate J shows two double pipe players from the Cantigas de Santa Maria.

Plate J
Two men playing double pipes; from Cantigas de Santa Maria, late 13th century (E-E b.1.2 folio 323v).
Photograph provided and authorized by the Patrimonio Nacional.

With regard to Brown's study, McKinnon comments,
. . . the portative organ must have figured prominently in contemporary music; while one is both convinced of
and surprized at the reality of dual-pipe playing during the period. We note further the total absence of the
transverse flute and the virtual absence of the recorder . . . .
45
McKinnon speaks of a double-pipe, Brown a double-recorder. Ghisi, in turn, gives three designative options for
the one instrument depicted in the San Leonardo fresco: double straight oboe, double aulos, and diaulos. All
these termsMcKinnon's, Brown's, and Ghisi'srefer to an instrument that, in the various paintings, looks the
same. The obvious problem is that of an accurate terminology. The New Grove Dictionary of Musical
Instruments provides no guidance in the matter. It lists the aulos only as an instrument used in classical
antiquity; none of the other nomenclaturediaulos, double recorder, etc.appear as entries in this dictionary.
Winternitz, at least, makes some helpful distinction by identifying double pipes with a disclaimer that he will
not discuss whether all the double pipes illustrated in his article are double reed pipes. Winternitz, thus, coins
a generic term, double pipe. This name is adopted for the present discussion. This multiplicity of terms proves
Gerald Hayes's observation concerning the history of reed instruments between the early Christian years and
the high Renaissance; he writes, "It is in examining these [reed instruments] that we notice the only real
weakness of instrumental music before the fifteenth century."
46
The heir of the double pipe is the bagpipe, a set of double, triple, or quadruple pipes in mechanized form. The
string counterpart of the bagpipe is the organistrum. This line from the double pipe to the bagpipe and the
organistrum is important when considering that
Simultaneous occurrences of both these specialized drone instruments [bagpipe and organistrum] can be
documented in pictures through the centuries, in both the mainstream and side currents of music, in sacred art
and folk art, in court entertainment and fte champtres, up and down the social ladder. This evidence is
particularly interesting for the study of the Middle Ages, when the organum and its instrumental vehicle, the
drone, were important elements in the origin of Occidental polyphony."
47
An English angel with bagpipe rendered in sculpture (1377, Plate K) shows this instrument in a sacred artwork.

Plate K
Angel playing bagpipe; English, 14th century. Used with the permission of Timothy Eckersley.

An anonymous Italian representation of three musicians and two dancers (fourteenth-century, Plate L)
documents its secular use; the performer nearer the dance plays the bagpipe. Neither instrumentalist plays
from music. Performers generally improvised polyphonic dance music.
48
Even in medieval depictions of
instrumentalists and singers together, only the vocalists read from music; instrumental musicians perform
without it.

Plate L
Sonare et balare; from the Arab book miniature Tacuinum sanitatis in Medicina (Handbook of Health) by
Albucasis, late 14th century (Cod. ser.nov.2644, folio 104 recto). Photograph provided by sterreichische
Nationalbibliothek und Portrtsammlung.

The double pipe, the bagpipe, and the organistrum, as drone instruments, fall into a larger historical context in
relation to performance practice. Winternitz points out, "the importance of drone music in the face of developing
polyphony,"
49
an early expression of which is the Notre Dame style with its long melismas over a held tone or
drone, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: School of Notre Dame, two-voice organum; Historical Anthology of Music, Harvard
University Press, 1/28c (excerpt).

What inspired the Notre Dame composers to write in this style? Did the bagpipe, with its capability of playing
two lines similar to the tenor and discant parts in Figure 1, inspire two-voice organum? If the sculpted angel in
Plate L suddenly had lungs and a real bagpipe, would the angel's music resemble that which is notated in
Figure 1? In other words, does the performance of instrumental music that we see (but do not hear) in artists'
representations influence the notated sacred vocal music which we can hear? Examples of vocal polyphony
imitating music for brass exist in the late fourteenth century,
50
and some mid-fourteenth-century music, sacred
and secular, imitates the sound of instruments. In folk song, the imitation of bagpipes and drums is common.
51
Did Leonin, Perotin, and their colleagues imitate instrumental music in the vocal works they composed for
Notre Dame around 1200? The potential to pose such a hypothesis exists through music iconography.
As predecessor of the bagpipe, the double pipe "existed in Europe after the fifth century," according to Ghisi.
How it was played, however, is not evident since artists' depictions are like still photographs rather than moving
pictures with sound. A fresco by Martini shows a double pipe player whose finger position of the right hand is
very clear; the left hand looks similar but is partially obstructed by the shoulder of another musician. It is not
evident whether the instrumentalist played one of the pipes as a drone, or sounded two melodies together
simultaneously. If the double pipe sounded two melodies together, then its music could have been an
instrumental precedent for the discant clausula. If such is the case, then the double pipe could have played
both parts of a clausula like the thirteenth-century "Hec Dies" shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Clausula for "Hec Dies," Historical Anthology of Music, Harvard University Press, 1/30
(excerpt).

This hypothesis, arrived at through music iconography, is, of course, only speculative. A video cassette of
these early performances will never be unearthed in an archeological dig. Music iconography, however, does
provide a window to the past, and as such, it gives us the potential to see the fundamental difference between
music-making in the Middle Ages and now. It is essential to understand that early music was performed at a
time when instruments, people, and conditions, especially the role of theology and politics, were totally
different from what musicians experience today. If one of the musicologist's major tasks is to "remove
misconceptions about musical practice in the past before recording," as Harrison emphasizes, then scholars of
medieval performance practice must "suggest at least general criteria for performance in the inevitably different
circumstances of today."
52
But first, the musical practice must be studied as closely as possible through
written and visual sources, that is, through manuscripts, frescoes, paintings, architecture, and sculpture. These
visual historical documents form a rich encyclopedic display of musical life in the Middle Ages, and, as such,
should be mandatory classroom material for even the most basic of today's courses in medieval music.

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Panofsky, Erwin. Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance. Cambridge: Oxford
University Press, 1939; reprint ed., New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
Pope, Isabel. "King David and His Musicians in Spanish Romanesque Sculpture." In Aspects of Medieval and
Renaissance Music: A Birthday Offering to Gustav Reese, 693-703. Edited by Jan LaRue. New York: Norton,
1966; reprint ed., New York: Pendragon Press, 1978.
Reaney, Gilbert. "The Performance of Medieval Music." In Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: A
Birthday Offering to Gustav Reese, 704-22. Edited by Jan LaRue. New York: Norton, 1966; reprint ed., New
York: Pendragon Press, 1978.
Remnant, Mary and Marks, Richard. "A Medieval 'Gittern.'" In The British Museum Yearbook. 4: Music and
Civilisation, 83-134. Edited by T. C. Mitchell. London: British Museum, 1980.
Salmen, Walter. Haus- und Kammermusik. IV/3 of Musikgeschichte in Bildern, ed. H. Besseller and W.
Bachmann. Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag fr Musik, 1969.
______. "The Value of Iconographical Sources in Musical Research." In Modern Musical Scholarship, 206-14.
Edited by Edward Olleson. Stocksfield: Oriel Press, 1978.
Seebass, Tilman. Musikdarstellung und Psalterillustration im frheren Mittelalter. 2 vols. Berne: Francke, 1973.
Smits van Waesberghe, Joseph. Musik des Mittelalters und der Renaissance. Vol. III/1 of Musikgeschichte in
Bildern, eds. H. Besseller and W. Bachmann. Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag fr Musik, 1969.
Stevens, Jane R. "Hands, Music, and Meaning in Some Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings." Imago
Musicae I (1984): 75-102.
Winternitz, Emanuel. Summary of "Further Evidence of Open Strings in Classical Greek Music, 5th and 4th
Centuries, B.C." RIdIM/RCMI Newsletter II/1 (August 1976): 5-6.
______. "The Iconology of Music: Potentials and Pitfalls." In Perspectives in Musicology, 80-90, Plates la-13b.
Edited by Barry S. Brook, Edward D. Downes, and Sherman van Solkema. New York: Norton, 1972.
______. Musical Instruments and Their Symbolism in Western Art: Studies in Musical Iconology. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1979.
1
Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (Cambridge: Oxford
University Press, 1939; reprint ed., New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 3.
2
Emanuel Winternitz, "The Iconology of Music: Potentials and Pitfalls," Perspectives in Musicology (New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1972), 80.
3
James W. McKinnon, "Musical Iconography: A Definition," RIdIM/RCMI Newsletter II/2 (Spring 1977): 17. This
article contains a clear explanation of the difference between iconology and iconography.
4
McKinnon, "Musical Iconography," 16.
5
McKinnon, "Musical Iconography," 15.
6
Richard D. Leppert, The Theme of Music in Flemish Paintings in the Seventeenth Century, 1 (Mnchen-
Salzburg: Musikverlag Emil Katzbichler, 1977): 39.
7
James W. McKinnon, "The Fifteen Temple Steps and the Gradual Psalms," Imago Musicae I (1984): 49.
8
Christoph-Hellmutt Mahling, "Representations of Musical Ensembles and Historical Performance Practice,"
RIdIM/RCMI Newsletter III/2 (Spring 1978): 8.
9
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. "Performing Practice" by Howard Mayer Brown.
10
Burney, General History of Music, as cited in Winternitz, 82.
11
Winternitz, 82.
12
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. "Iconography" by Howard Mayer Brown, 13.
13
The crossed fingers might be the artist's way of showing fingers in motion. The left hand may actually be
damping the strings.
14
Zoltn Falvy, "Images, Instruments, History of Music = Musical Iconology," RIdIM/RCMI Newsletter II/2
(Spring 1977): 11.
15
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. "Iconography" by Howard Mayer Brown.
16
Leppert, 41.
17
Leppert, 41. See, for example, the gigantic harp on which a man is crucified.
18
The lute is especially associated with temperance and, therefore, is painted in a prominent, central position.
See Figure 1 in Jane R. Stevens, "Hands, Music, and Meaning in Some Seventeenth-Century Dutch
Paintings," Imago Musicae I (1984): 76.
19
Stevens, 102.
20
Christoph-Hellmutt Mahling, "Representations of Musical Ensembles and Historical Performance Practice,"
RIdIM/RCMI Newsletter III/2 (Spring 1978): 9.
21
Mahling, 9.
22
Frank L. Harrison, "Tradition and Innovation in Instrumental Usage 1100-1450," in Aspects of Medieval and
Renaissance Music: A Birthday Offering to Gustav Reese, ed. by Jan LaRue (New York: Norton, 1966; reprint
ed., New York: Pendragon Press, 1978), 319.
23
Gilbert Reaney, "The Performance of Medieval Music," in Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: A
Birthday Offering to Gustav Reese, ed. by Jan LaRue (New York: Norton, 1966; reprint ed., New York:
Pendragon Press, 1978), 705.
24
Harrison, 319.
25
Edmund A. Bowles, La Pratique musicale au moyen age, (Geneva: Minkoff, 1983), 13.
26
Bowles, 13, 50, 51. For further reference to literary sources only, see Edmund A. Bowles, "Haut and Bas:
The Grouping of Musical Instruments in the Middle Ages," Publications in the Humanities from the Department
of Humanities, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1955): 115-40.
27
The reader is referred to Plate 3 in Bowles, La Pratique, 31.
28
This caption is from Robert Wangerme's Musique Flamande as cited in James W. McKinnon, "The Fifteen
Temple Steps and the Gradual Psalms," Imago Musicae I (1984): 29.
29
McKinnon, "The Fifteen Temple Steps," 29.
30
McKinnon, "Musical Iconography," 16.
31
This in turn, strengthens David's position in medieval theology as an Old Testament manifestation of Christ
and the four evangelists (see Plate E). For a depiction of David with his four assistants from the following
century, see Plate F.
32
Howard Mayer Brown, "Trecento Angels and the Instruments they Play," in Modern Musical Scholarship, ed.
Edward Olleson (Stocksfield: Oriel Press, Ltd., 1978), 119.
33
Federico Ghisi, "An Angel Concert in a Trecento Sienese Fresco," in Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance
Music: A Birthday Offering to Gustav Reese, ed. Jan LaRue (New York: Norton, 1966; reprint ed., New York:
Pendragon Press, 1978), 312.
34
Brown, 128.
35
Edmund A. Bowles, "A Checklist of Musical Instruments in Fifteenth-Century Illuminated Manuscripts at the
Pierpont Morgan Library," Notes 30/4 (1974): 759.
36
James W. McKinnon, "Representations of the Mass in Medieval and Renaissance Art," Journal of the
American Musicological Society XXXI/1 (1978): 25. Quotations from the rest of this paragraph are from this
same source, p. 25. The Christmas Mass is illustrated in Figure 6c on p. 37 of McKinnon's article; Philip the
Good at Mass is illustrated in Figure 4c on p. 33.
37
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. "Performing Practice" by Howard Mayer Brown, 376.
38
Frank L. Harrison, "Tradition and Innovation in Instrumental Usage 1100-1450," in Aspects of Medieval and
Renaissance Music: A Birthday Offering to Gustav Reese, ed. Jan LaRue (New York: Norton, 1966; reprint ed.,
New York: Pendragon Press, 1978), 321.
39
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. "Performing Practice" Howard Mayer Brown, 376.
40
McKinnon, "Representations," 21-52.
41
Brown, 112.
42
The article by Ghisi is, itself, a good illustration of iconography vs. iconology.
43
See Ghisi, Plates 18a-d.
44
Brown, 128.
45
The passage cited concludes, "the latter circumstance being one that will come as a great disappointment,
to some but comfort, perhaps, to others." James W. McKinnon, "Iconography," in Musicology in the 1980s,
eds. D. Kern Holoman and Claude V. Palisca. (New York: Da Capo Press, 1982), 88.
46
Gerald Hayes, The New Oxford History of Music, III (London, 1960), 477 as cited in Harrison, 335.
47
Winternitz, 85.
48
Winternitz, 85.
49
Winternitz, 83.
50
See Harrison, 331 for further treatment of this subject.
51
See Harrison, 333-34 for musical examples.
Volume:
52
Harrison, 335.
31
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