Lacking an arrangement

So it has been a while, but as there still seems to be a few people out there viewing the pages, it seems worth trying to revive this blog...

A musical colleague (sadly no longer resident here) is visiting over the holiday season, and  has prompted some discussion of the issue of 'arranging' medieval tunes. More specifically, her experience in forming a new medieval music group in her new (old) home has brought forward a common issue. How do early music instrumental enthusiasts - who are perhaps most often introduced to the genre by playing in recorder consorts - react when faced with a typical monophonic song from the middle ages?

For example, a great medieval resource are the cantigas from the thirteenth century collection of Alfonso the Wise. But the manuscript (or transcription) provides a single vocal line. What should an instrumental ensemble do with this?

Option 1: Play the notes. This tends to be the instinctive reaction of the 'modern' medieval musician with a classical training background. Indeed, they often pride themselves on the ability to play the notes accurately on first sight; and even seem to think it a waste of time to play them again if they have been played accurately the first time. For most cantigas, this provides a rather minimal challenge, and does not take long.

There is little evidence in iconography that medieval instrumentalists ever played from music, so it seems unlikely that this is an authentic approach. But even if learned by ear, would an instrumentalist (or ensemble) simply have played the tune 'as written' (or in unison) perhaps a few times through? If not, what would they have done?

Some options to be discussed in future posts...