•rf - FoMRHI

The amount of information surviving about early music and instruments is strictly
limited. In a very few years, this information on early music-making will be
sufficiently analysed and argued for us to know what they most probably did and
used, to know what they most probably did not do or use, and to delineate what
aspeets of their activities we shall probably never know. We will then be able
to distinguisi 1 between the authentic, unauthentic, and conjectural, and write
authoritative books on early music and instruments. Both authors mention the
realization that their books are far from the last word on the subjects they treat
but this will not prevent many readers from uncritical acceptance of what appears
so attractively in print.
The casual reader will not be seduced into early music by either book. He will
quickly tire of the texts of both. The Munrow book is remarkably thorough and the
detail is too complicated to take in quickly. The Montagu text is simpler but written
in a dryer, less involved style. Relating the text in the latter to the illustrations on
different pages and with different codes is most exhausting. Thus the casual reader
will quickly be reduced to just looking at the pictures of peculiar objects in association
with peculiar names. The new convert will find both books very helpful in
accelerating his learning, but since there are many errors in each, the dangers
mentioned above are most serious. The experienced serious student of early music
already accustomed to both the wild speculation and the ignoring of data contrary to
expectations by the best of scholars will not suffer from these dangers. He will find
each book a mine of valuable information not easily available elsewhere and will
keep copies of both dose at hand.
The books differ greatly in the treatment and choice of illustrations. The Montagu
book restriets itself to early depictions of instruments and photographs of surviving
ones. This is appropriate since the book is about early instruments. In spite of
the text of the Munrow book being mostly about early instruments, the illustrations
are largely about surviving folk relatives of early instruments (country cousins),
modem simulations of early instruments,and the people who contributed their musical
or instrument-making skills to the Early Music Consort of London. His gcnerosity in
plugging the people who contributed to his success and his honesty in pointing out those
non-authentic aspeets of the instruments shown do not detract from what I consider to
be the irresponsibility oi implying that make-believe early instruments played with
obviously modem technique are good enough. I appreciate the altempt in the
illustrations to impart an immediacy of early music being played today, and would be
most happy with the depiction of accurate copies of early instruments played in
positions typical of those shown in early illustrations, but too often this is not the
case. It is true that the majority of the illustrations are appropriately early, but they are
rarely given as much prominence as the modem and folk instruments. The much
welcome exception is the cover. The illustrations in the Montagu book are its
strongest point, being generally very clear. Many are not readily available elsewhere
and those which are are produced with greater quality.
The Munrow text is a remarkably good collection of current beliefs about early instruments
and the bibliography is an excellent guide to the readily available secondary literature.
It also offers a most valuable selection of translations of early sources. I had great
difficulty in finding an originai thought. It is a tremendous Job of research of the type
that Rutherford called "stamp-collecting", with no synthesis.
J