Proportiones practicabiles secundum Gaffurium (review)

The two treatises on musical proportions by John Dygon, which are edited here for the first time, are among the very few writings on music theory to survive from early Tudor England. In contrast, the same period gave rise to an unprecedented outpouring of music-theoretical writings on the European continent, especially in Italy. Dygon's works are based on book 4 of Franchinus Gaffurius's Practica musicae (Milan, 1496), the most influential Continental music treatise of the time. They provide precious evidence of the reception of Continental ideas about music in England and the adaptation of those ideas to specifically English concerns.

A man of broad learning, Dygon was prior of the monastery of St. Augustine in Canterbury from 1528 to 1538. He held bachelor's degrees in music (University of Oxford, 1512) and theology and studied with the humanist Juan Luis Vives at the Universities of Leuven and Paris from 1521 to 1523. He changed his name to John Wylbore when his monastery was dissolved in 1538. His music theory treatises are found in the manuscript Cambridge, Trinity College, O.3.38, which was copied ca. 1540, probably in Canterbury, though the works may have been written as early as ca. 1510. The attribution of the first treatise reads "Quod Joannes Dygonus Modo Vuylborus," which in this context implies something between original authorship and simple copying. The second treatise lacks an attribution, but its close relation to the first implies that it is the work of the same man. Dygon is also the composer of five passages of music, evidently portions of two longer compositions, found in a late sixteenth-century manuscript.

The subject of Dygon's treatises is numerical proportions applied to musical rhythm. The study of proportions applied to pitch had been central to musica speculativa since ancient times, but theorists began to apply the concept to the temporal aspect of music only in the late fourteenth century. Rhythmic proportions belong to the practical, rather than the speculative, side of music theory, though theorists like Gaffurius (and Dygon following him) extend it far beyond anything found in real compositions. Dygon's first treatise is a shortened and simplified version of Gaffurius's text. His second treatise is a condensed version of the first; it seems to have been written for the purpose of demonstrating the author's idiosyncratic system of notating proportions with combinations of mensuration signs (signs showing the relative values of note symbols), rather than with numbers. Although Dygon's system is found nowhere else, traces of his approach to proportional notation appear in other English sources of the period.

Dygon replaced almost all of Gaffurius's musical examples with new examples of his own composition. His examples display distinctively English stylistic traits, such as characteristic cadential ornaments and a limited use of imitation. His text also touches on some concerns unique to English theory, including the practice of inductiones proportionum (the introduction of complex proportions through a sequence of steps) and the generation of complex proportions through the simultaneous use of two simpler ones (for example, a 4:3 proportion resulting from simultaneous 4:1 and 3:1 proportions).

Theodor Dumitrescu's study, edition, and translation of Dygon's works is exemplary in every respect. The ample introduction situates Dygon's theory in relation to a broad range of music-theoretical writings, documents the author's biography in detail, compares Dygon's treatises to Gaffurius's, and provides thorough information about the manuscript source of the treatises. The edition and translation are printed on facing pages, so that the reader can easily check the translation against the original. Musical examples appear in their original format (with each voice written separately) in the Latin text and in score format in the translation. Detailed indexes provide easy access to the wealth of detailed information in the book. As a bonus...