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Johannes Martini. Masses. Edited by Elaine Moohan and Murray Steib.

Article Excerpt
(Recent Researches in the Music of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, 34-35.) Madison, WI: A-R Editions, c1999. [Pt. 1: Masses without Known Polyphonic Models. Acknowledgments, p. vi; introd., p. vii-xxiii; 4 plates; score, 243 p.; crit. report, p. 245-55; appendix, p. 257. ISBN 089579-433-0. $95. Pt. 2: Masses with Known Polyphonic Models. Acknowledgments, p. vi; score, 267 p.; crit. report, p. 269-83; appendix (polyphonic models), p. 285-305. ISBN 0-89579-434-9. $100.]

Johannes Martini (ca. 1430/40-1497) is a composer much more talked about than heard. While this fact does not in itself distinguish him from many other fifteenth-century composers, in Martini's case the discrepancy is particularly acute. Detailed studies by Elaine Moohan ("Sources of Sacred Music for the Chapel Choir of Ercole I d'Este, 1471-1505, and the Masses of Johannes Martini" [Ph.D. diss., University of Manchester, 1993]) and Murray Steib ("A Composer Looks at His Model: Polyphonic Borrowing in Masses from the Late Fifteenth Century," Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 46 [1996]: 5-41), the editors of the two volumes under review, along with the work of several other scholars, most notably J. Peter Burkholder ("Johannes Martini and the Imitation Mass of the Late Fifteenth Century," Journal of the American Musicological Society 38 [1985]: 470-523) and the late Adelyn Peck Leverett ("A Paleographical and Repertorial Study of the Manuscript Trento, Castello del Buonconsiglio, 91 (1378)" [Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1990]), have testified strongly to his historical importance. Thus it is all the more surprising that this new edition is the first time most of Martini's Masses have appeared in print. To have all of his Masses together in a...

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