On Thu, Jul 31, 2003 at 05:22:03PM -0500, John Howell spake thusly:
> This may be tangential to the question, but the first music to be
> copied in separate partbooks was the Glogauer Liederbuch, copied c.
> 1480.  Thirteenth century motets were copied with separate parts on
> different parts of the page.  All 16th century chansons and madrigals
> were copied or published in separate partbooks, up through and
> including Monteverdi.  Sacred music for the choir was copied or
> published in choirbook format, in which the parts are written out
> separately in different places on the two facing pages.  John
> Dowland's lute songs were published in a format with the melody and
> lute tablature on the lefthand page in score and the tenor, alto and
> bass parts separately on the righthand page facing outward (i.e.
> sideways and upside down) so that the book could be placed on a table
> and the singers/players could sit around the table and read their own
> separate parts comfortably.  Bach copied separate parts for each
> voice part.  At a guess, it was Bach's generation that started to
> publish some things (but only some things) in score form.  It has to
> do with questions of tradition, convenience, avoiding anything
> redundant in copied parts, and the time it took to prepare the parts
> for next Sunday's service!

There are a few earlier pieces published in score form - I know I've
seen sonatas by Fontana for solo violin (or other high instruments...)
that way, and one of Frescobaldi's books of canzonas was like that. Of
course, there's also Frescobaldi's pieces for solo keyboard published in
score format - part books wouldn't work too well there!

--
Jon-o Addleman