Filling in the Gaps: Reconstructing Incomplete Unica from the Dunkeld Music

Edinburgh University holds a manuscript known as the “Dunkeld Music Book”, a rare witness to the kinds of sacred music that were being sung in Scotland on the eve of the Reformation. The Dunkeld Music Book is especially valuable because it contains several unica (pieces found in no other source). However, the manuscript is incomplete: one whole volume is missing, and the rest have lost several pages. In this talk, Paul Newton-Jackson shows how musicologists approach the problem of reconstructing pieces of music which are preserved incomplete. Using three examples from the Dunkeld Music Book (which will be on display during the talk), Paul explores the challenges and ambiguities of making centuries-old music performable again, and sets out some reasons why this is an important and worthwhile endeavour. Attendees interested in hearing the results of Paul’s reconstructions are also invited to a free concert at Old Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, at 8pm on Saturday 14th March.

Paul Newton-Jackson is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Leuven in Belgium, and a member of the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Historical Reconstruction Research. His study and facsimile edition of the Dunkeld Music Book will be published later this year by Alamire Academic Press.

The event will be held in the CRC Collections Space at the Centre for Research Collections, on the 6th Floor of the Main Library. If you do not have a university staff or student card make yourself known to the library security team who will have a list of those registered on Eventbrite and will let you through the gate.

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Host or Publisher Edinburgh College of Art