Fragments, Palimpsests, and Marginalia
Alejandro Enrique Planchart
he title of this essay could be considered redundant in that palimpsests and marginalia are by their own nature also incomplete sources share with fragments the challenge they pose to scholar's imagination dangers neces293 sary interpretation them, extrapolation from contents for unwary. Among most notable examples consequences study recent music history is change our distorted view repertory polyphonic sacred fifteenth-century England, a had profound influence on course European music, one incidentally connected last glorious flowering medieval tropes. With damnable practicality far more consistency than Continental counterparts, English choral institutions discarded outmoded manuscripts no matter how sumptuous execution, consigned them utilized as binder's waste. Time ravages reformation added toll, time interest was rekindled early twentieth century knowledge came essentially three main sources: The Old Hall Manuscript, Pepys Eton Choirbook,2 two which fragments,
The Journal of Musicology