Credits:

Attaingnant, Pierre (1494-1551)

Description:

Pierre Athégnan is considered to be the first person to publish sheet music in printed form. Originally a publisher in Paris, he published his first collection of keyboard music in 1531, was appointed "publisher of royal music" in France in 1537, and published almost 500 songs and seven collections since then. Only one copy of each of these has been preserved today. The Bavarian Library in Munich preserves six copies (the original seven are marked in pencil "one missing since 1963"), but because they are all facsimiles, there are numerous errors in the scores, which had to be painstakingly corrected before they could be performed. Most of the music in Athéagnan's published scores is unnamed and remains unidentified (although it is assumed that it was not written by Athéagnan), but it is likely that it contains works by a wide range of composers from France to Italy to Flanders. Glenn Wilson corrects the errors in the score and presents this fascinating collection of works. Naxos Japan