The Las Huelgas Musical Codex

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ndoubtedly one of the most important manuscripts in the history of Spanish music, the Musical Codex from the Huelgas Reales Monastery in Burgos is also one of the basic texts in the western polyphonic repertory (ars antiqua). It is made up of 170 folios, numbered at the beginning of the 20th century as folios 1 to 169 (124 appears twice), bound between 1 cm thick wooden boards covered in white leather. It comprises 19 sections varying in length from 2 to 5 folios; the sequence within the last three sections is irregular, indicating that the pages were bound out of order. The initial letters are mainly in blue and red, occasionally in brown. Anglés detects one hand in folios 1-152 (with the exception of folio 8) and in some later folios, and a total of 11 other hands in the remainder.

The music appears with parts presented both separately and full-score; in the latter, there are seven lines per page; but where there are separate parts, there are 7, 8 or even 9 lines. The Franconian notation is far from uniform and includes features seen only in this manuscript, such as ligatures in the tenor parts of the motets and an unusual distribution of the voices, due either to lack of familiarity with Franco de Colonia's theory or to some special Spanish tradition. The content is purely liturgical and includes most of the known musical forms of the time.

Anglés dates the manuscript around 1325, that is, much later than most of the repertory it contains, while other scholars (Dittmer, MGG) postulate a date of 1300 for the greater part of the manuscript, with additions as late as 1325.

Documentation Kit

Containing a facsimile reproduction of 4 folios, printed in 7 colours, ready to frame and a portfolio with a descriptive documentation of the work. The Documentation Kit is priced at $US115- plus postage.

Optional: Recording on CD with an interpretation of the work.

• Portfolio: 320 x 250 mm.
• Pages: 255 x 185 mm.

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