Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: catalogue of works. Online-database and critical presentation of the sources.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Peter Ackermann
• Subject Area: Musicology
• Term: from 2016 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 317540063

The projected online catalogue of the works of Palestrina has the goal to gather all relevant bibliographical data of all known sources (currently known: ca. 22,300) for every extant work by Palestrina (825) in a database. Furthermore, based on their most important sources, these works will be digitized (mode of proceeding: true copy of the original parts in mensural notation - but in score arrangement - by means of the text-based music engraving program LilyPond) and visualized, including the presentation of variants between the different sources, automatically generated by the program. Apart from the usual methods of database search there will be opportunities to search for various musical parameters and structural contexts in the scores. The database software (written in Java) was already worked out and is almost complete. In particular the fundamental musical search functions are running almost bug-free (search for melodies; search for purely pitch or rhythmic patterns etc.). In the next time these search methods should be supplemented by procedures which enable the search for polyphonic structures. The innovative element of this project is the combination of a work catalogue and index of sources with a visualization of reproductions of musical sources in digitized score arrangement. This allows - in contrast to printed catalogues of works – various interfaces between science and musical practice. By means of the above-mentioned presentation of variants it will be possible to depict specific characteristics of performance practice in a particular historical, geographical and socio-historical context. This could create new ways for contemporary performance practice, because it will be possible to produce individual scores from the repertory of surviving versions of a work, scores, which reflect specific historical performance traditions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants