Title

The Booke of Common Praier Noted

Heading

The Challenge of Music

Description

Printing music was a major challenge. Caxton did not do it. When he wanted to reproduce musical notes in his 1482 edition of Ranulphus Higden’s Polycronicon, he left a space for the notes to be supplied in manuscript, as did all the earliest printers. Starting in the 1490s and continuing throughout the sixteenth century printers, including Wynkyn de Worde and Richard Pynson, printed each note individually with rules for the stave extending from it. The rules seldom aligned perfectly. The other early method was to do what Richard Grafton, the printer of this prayer book did: to push each sheet through the printing press twice, once for the staves and once for the notes. This was more time-consuming and hence more expensive. Later music was usually engraved. The successful printing of music was achieved only with the introduction of lithography in the late eighteenth century.

Exhibition Section

Beyond CaxtonSee all items with this value

Place of Publication

London

Publisher

Richard Grafton

Date of Publication

1550

Format

4to

Century

16th

Illustrations

Woodcut