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The digitization (13,500 images) will take place between November 2012 and April 2013 in consultation with the Vatican Library. The sources to be digitized include masterpieces from the workshop of Petrus Alamire in Flanders that contain superb polyphony and magnificent illuminations. The Alamire sources in particular will be meticulously studied, analysed, described, and provided with metadata in the Vatican by an international team of researchers and staff from the Alamire Foundation – University of Leuven, Musicology Research Unit.

The uniqueness of the project lies in the fact that the images will not only be accessible in the Vatican Library itself, but will also be included in a new digital database, the Integrated Database for Early Music (IDEM). In this database, which will be freely accessible online, not only will the images themselves be available, but also substantial additional material relating to the manuscripts.

The Alamire Digital Lab and IDEM are supported by the Hercules Foundation and the University of Leuven. The Vatican manuscript digitization project has been made possible through the generous support of the Flemish Minister of Culture Joke Schauvliege and the Special Research Fund of the University of Leuven. The choirbooks of Petrus Alamire will be researched and valorized with the support of an IWT / SBO grant for the project “New Perspectives on Polyphony”.

The Alamire Foundation is extremely delighted that this unique collaboration enables, stimulates and valorizes research into the splendid musical sources that the Vatican possesses. In an unprecedented way, this exceptional project will reveal an important part of the musical and art-historical heritage of the Low Countries that is now located in the Vatican Library.

Rather than using the links on the top of each page, please go to the following link:

http://www.diamm.ac.uk/jsp/MyDiamm

This will log you in, but redirect you to the staging site. Once in you therefore need to change the URL back to diamm.ac.uk.
Please let us know if you find any other problems. Some of the pages are still under construction, but these should be obvious.

We apologise for the inconvenience, which is beyond our control.

DIAMM has published The Dow Partbooks in partnership with the Viola da Gamba Society (UK).

There are 5 partbooks (Discantus-ii + i + 93 folios, Medius-ii + 93 + i, Altus and Tenor-ii + 95 + i folios each, Bassus-ii + 89 + i), each original measuring 142 x 194 cm. They are presented published in full colour on matt art paper in open-flat soft covers, with an introductory volume by John Milsom with comprehensive indexes and finding lists, all included in a hard slipcase.

Robert Dow’s partbooks, copied in Oxford around 1580, rank among the most beautiful of all Tudor music manuscripts, and are also an important and authoritative source for the works they contain. Conceived with both singers and instrumentalists in mind, they contain a varied repertory suitable for voices and viols, including Latin-texted motets, English-texted anthems and consort songs, and a selection of In nomines and textless chansons, scored mainly for five-voice texture. Featured composers include William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Robert White, Robert Parsons, Philip van Wilder and Alfonso Ferrabosco Sr. Dow was a trained calligrapher, and his exquisite penmanship, executed in black ink on printed red staves, is unusually accurate and easy to read.

Pages: 5 partbooks (Discantus 192 pp, Medius 192 pp, Altus 196 pp, Tenor 196 pp, Bassus 184 pp) and 1 vol introduction, full text 96pp, each facsimile volume measuring 170 x 240 mm (landscape format)

Images from and detailed source descritions of each partbook are available on the DIAMM website. While the descriptions are always available, you must be logged in to DIAMM in order to see the images. Please sign up for your free DIAMM account here or log in here. Once you have logged in, please come back to this page and use the links below to be taken direct to each partbook’s page.

Discantus ¦ Medius ¦ Altus ¦ Tenor ¦ Bassus

A contents list for the partbooks can be found here (PDF document)

For Pricing and order information please visit the online shop

UK/Europe Orders and payment may be made electronically in any currency via our online shop

All orders for USA and Canada should be made through OMI Facsimile sales

All orders for Japan and Asia should be made through Academia Music

Orders in Australia and New Zealand can also be made through Saraband Music

Please contact DIAMM or OMI if you wish to make multiple purchases to enquire about discounts, or if you are a retailer.

One of the most iconic of music manuscripts, the Eton Choirbook is of unique importance, both in its own right as a cultural artefact and as a source of English choral polyphony composed during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Had it perished, along with so many other (less fortunate) pre-Reformation music manuscripts, our knowledge of a critical moment in the history of English music would have been immensely diminished.

Ever since it was first copied for use in the college chapel in the early 1500s, the choirbook has been continuously in the possession of Eton College. Several composers whose works were included in it had close associations with the college, not least Robert Wylkynson, who served as the college’s informator choristarum from 1500. Other composers represented include Banaster, Browne, Cornyshe, Davy, Fawkyner, Fayrfax, Hygons, Lambe and Turges. Most of its original contents (67 out of a total of 93 pieces) were votive antiphons, or devotional motets of prayer and praise, sung each evening to the Virgin Mary, the college’s dedicatee. The Salve ceremony, familiar to worshippers throughout Catholic Europe, lay at the heart of Eton College’s raison d’être as a chantry college: the Eton Choirbook is an eloquent witness to this flowering of devotional culture on the eve of the Reformation.

The manuscript is also a work of consummate artistry, copied by an experienced scribe on large vellum leaves, and illuminated by a professional limner. Even in its in-complete state (nearly half of its original 224 leaves have been lost), the Eton Choirbook is the undoubted queen of early Tudor music manuscripts.

The Choirbook is presented in full colour facsimile on heavy matt art paper, hard bound, with an introduction by Magnus Williamson (Newcastle University) and published by the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (University of Oxford)

Pages: 112 (introduction) + 264 full colour

Format: 427 x 306 mm (reduced from 590 x 420 mm)

Images from and a detailed source descrition of the Eton Choirbook is available on the DIAMM website. While the description is always available, you must be logged in to DIAMM in order to see the images. Please sign up for your free DIAMM account or log in here. Once you have logged in, please come back to this page and use the link below to be taken direct to the Eton Choirbook’s page.

Eton Choirbook on DIAMM

A contents list for the manuscript can be found here (PDF document)

For Pricing and order information please visit the online shop

UK/Europe Orders and payment may be made electronically in any currency via our online shop

All orders for USA and Canada should be made through OMI Facsimile sales

All orders for Japan and Asia should be made through Academia Music

Orders in Australia and New Zealand can also be made through Saraband Music

Please contact DIAMM or OMI if you wish to make multiple purchases to enquire about discounts, or if you are a retailer.

Download publicity leaflet here

William Byrd, Masses for 3, 4, and 5 voices

A full-colour facsimile edition drawn from Oxford, Christ Church Mus. 489-493. Among the most recognisable works in the sacred Tudor repertory, William Byrd’s Masses for 3, 4, and 5 voices are presented in this facsimile edition produced from Christ Church Mus 489-493. Edited by John Milsom with an introduction and select bibliography by Kerry McCarthy. This useful academic and performing resource would also be an intriguing gift for any bibliophile, or music lover.

Format: 160 x 216 mm. 5 partbooks, 32, 24, 32, 24, 32 pp respectively, limp bound in a lightweight slipcase.

For pricing and order information please visit the online shop

UK/Europe Orders and payment may be made electronically in any currency via our online shop

All orders for USA and Canada should be made through OMI Facsimile sales

All orders for Japan and Asia should be made through Academia Music

Orders in Australia and New Zealand can also be made through Saraband Music

Please contact DIAMM or OMI if you wish to make multiple purchases to enquire about discounts, or if you are a retailer.

Download publicity leaflet here