[Letter from Hendrick van der Werf]Author(s): Hendrick van der WerfSource: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 206-208Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/831169 .

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C COMMUNICATIONS

To the Editor of the JOURNAL

AFTER MANY YEARS OF COLLECTING AND SIFTING RHYMED OFFICES, and because financial assistance for continuing to investigate this repertory has ended, I have decided to publish a book summarizing the state of present knowledge about this subject. I have two volumes planned. The first will be a survey of the repertory, its sources, the bibliography, and the liturgical context. It will include lists of feasts, composers, manuscripts, and other useful information. The second will discuss the poetry and chants in more detail, looking at selected offices in the context of the repertory as a whole. A more complete plan of the volumes is available.

By the time this communication appears, I hope to have on computer tape a complete word concordance of rhymed office texts, based on those printed in Analecta hymnica. I shall try to publish this concordance on microfiche; meanwhile my facilities for locating texts are very limited. About 4,000 chants are stored on computer discs, and my access is again very limited.

If any reader has information about this repertory, I would welcome correspondence. I shall reciprocate as far as the state of my data allows. In particular I should be pleased to receive transcriptions or photographic reproductions of rhymed offices with music.

ANDREW HUGHES University of Toronto

To the Editor of the JOURNAL

AN ANNOTATED THEMATIC CATALOGUE of the complete works of Camille Saint-Saens is in preparation. Any information concerning the location of his music manuscripts and other original documents will be greatly appreciated. Please write to Sabina Ratner, 4595 Circle Road, Montreal,

Qu6bec,'.Canada H3W IY9.

SABINA RATNER Vanier College

To the Editor of the JOURNAL

WITH GREAT RELUCTANCE, I hereby respond to a Communication in this JOURNAL, XXXVI (1983), 341-44, in which Hans Tischler takes exception with my review, this JOURNAL, XXXV (1982), 539-54, of the anthology

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COMMUNICATIONS 207

Chanter m'estuet: Songs of the Trouveres, edited by Samuel Rosenberg and Hans Tischler (Bloomington, 1981). According to him, my review "is full of errors and misinterpretations that should be corrected." I shall restrict myself to some representative issues, but avoid the ones which would require yet another detailed discussion of versification in French poetry.

Tischler's first point (p. 341) concerns two songs which he transposed in his anthology. I raised no objections to the fact that the melodies were transposed; I wrote that the transposition of no. 96 "should have resulted either in a sharp sign in the key signature or in a justification of its absence." In response, Tischler writes, "The reviewer is in error regarding the two pieces singled out for criticism of my treatment of editorial accidentals." He then proceeds to explain why he transposed the songs and why his transcriptions comprised only some of the signs of alteration that I believe are required by the transposition. I do not believe I was "in error" when expressing the opinion that this information should have been given in the anthology.

On the same page he writes, "van der Werf charges that 'in many instances Tischler transcribes stemmed notes as short ones and vice versa.

... ' This is

misleading and partly in error." To this I must reply: if I am "partly in error," I am partly correct, so that the disagreement hinges on the interpreta- tion of my clause "many instances." Without discussing the details, Tischler has called the notation in a certain trouvere source "Franconian." Consider- ing the importance Tischler attributes to this notation, it is "misleading" to transcribe stemmed notes as short ones without properly justifying this in the critical apparatus.

According to Tischler (p. 342), I erred also by "stating that in manuscripts including both motets and monophonic songs only the former are written mensurally." In response to my alleged statement, Tischler points out that in certain manuscripts "both repertories appear in non-mensural, 'square' notation." I have never denied the latter, but I did not write about the manuscripts listed by Tischler; I discussed and named one specific source in which the motets and rondeaux of Adam de la Halle are notated mensurally, and in which his chansons are given in a non-mensural notation. (This manuscript contains almost only works by Adam de la Halle, and it comprises almost all of his works; it is often assumed to have been compiled under Adam's supervision.) I also wrote, "Without any reference to this distinction Tischler transcribes Adam's rondeaux and his chansons in modal rhythm." The similarity in the notation referred to by Tischler can be explained easily, but the difference in the notation of Adam's compositions is not easily explained in the context of Tischler's theories on modal rhythm in trouvere chansons.

After discussing Tischler's analysis of French poetry, and after giving some reservations about his approach, I wrote (p. 550), "if one were to extend his method of analysis in a logical way, he would have to conclude that iambs, trochees, dactyls, and anapests are ubiquitous not only in all sorts of poetry, but also in prose." In response to this, Tischler writes (p. 343), "He [i.e., Hendrik van der Werf] concludes that iambs and other meters are 'ubiquitous not only in all sorts of poetry, but also in prose'-a surprising statement!" Forgive me, dear reader, but I must reverse the exclamation and write: indeed, a surprising case of misquoting a statement!

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208 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

In his Introduction (p. xxii), Tischler asserted that "hundreds" of refrains migrated from trouvere chansons to motets, and that this phenomenon was evidence for the omnipresence of modal rhythm in the chansons. In my review (p. 547), I wrote that Tischler has failed "to discuss any specific refrain occurring both in a chanson and a motet, or to present a list of such cases." I also expressed the opinion that the numeral hundreds was "far off the mark." In his response (p. 342), Tischler reiterates his assertion, names the "early motet repertory" and the Montpellier manuscript in particular, and names nine trouveres who, in addition to a dozen anonymous works, "are represented in the motet repertories with whole texts." Merely stating that such migrations occur does not constitute scholarly evidence. As a minimum, Tischler should have presented a detailed discussion of several representative refrains (text and music). For each refrain, he should have proven that it migrated from a chanson to a motet; that it was in a given rhythmic mode on both occurrences; and that the chanson itself was in modal rhythm. He also should have listed those "hundreds" of cases.

In short, I do not think that my review was "full of errors and misrepresentation"; on the contrary, I am confident that what I wrote was correct and pertinent.

HENDRICK VAN DER WERF Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester

To the Editor of the JOURNAL

IN MY ARTICLE "Die Hand eines Handlangers-'Musikwissenschaft' im Dritten Reich," Frankfurter Rundschau (24 July 1982), I made reference to the markings of books by Jewish authors in the library of the musicology department at the University of Heidelberg, which was directed by Profes- sor Heinrich Besseler from 1928 until his removal from office in October 1945. I had written, "Unter Besselers Agide wurden wahrend der Nazizeit die Schriften nicht-arischer Autoren in der Heidelberger Seminarbibliothek mit dem beriichtigten Judenstempel versehen. Gewiss, manches liisst sich aus heutiger Sicht nur schwer beurteilen .... Schliesslich war Besseler ein Mann, dem man zwar eine gewisse politische Labilitit anhiingen mag, dessen wissenschaftliche Integritit jedoch kaum anzutasten ist."

Recently I have tried, together with my colleague Professor Ludwig Finscher of the University of Heidelberg, to look into the question of responsibility for the markings of the publications of Jewish authors in the Heidelberg library. Since the personnel files are subject to a fifty-year blocking period, we were unable to gain direct access to the relevant sources. However, a letter from the Rector's office of the University of Heidelberg to Professor Finscher, dated 19 July 1983, states (for legal reasons, quotations from Besseler's dossier are not permitted) that despite his nominal SA (Sturm-Abteilung) and NSDAP (Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter- partei) membership, Besseler can apparently in no way be regarded as having been an active Nazi; that his political situation in Heidelberg was very complicated; and that he was much less-if at all-incriminated than has

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