Making the music of the Wode Psalter widely accessible through web-based performing editions and a recording.

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The original AHRC-funded project, 'The World of Reformation Britain: seen and heard in the Wode Psalter', has been highly successful in achieving its objectives. What was not anticipated at the time of planning that project - which centred on exhibiting the partbooks and telling their story - was that there would be considerable interest by performers, both singers and instrumentalists, in getting access to a broader selection of the music contained in the Wode partbooks in modern format and notation. Since much of this music is potentially performable by amateur and professional groups, the most significant obstacle to its inclusion in modern repertories remains the original notation and partbook format (one voice part per book rather than all voices printed together). Although some of the Psalter's music has been printed over the past fifty years, this has been sporadic and, almost exclusively, in scholarly collected editions such as vol. xv of the Musica Britannica series. While a modern edition was made of some of the music in preparation for the recording and concerts organised as part of the original project, this is not currently available to the singing and playing public, nor was it envisaged that it would be. The proposed follow-on project will seek to satisfy this demand by providing free access to a broad selection of the music contained in the Wode partbooks. The target audiences for this will include professional and amateur choirs (including church choirs), professional and amateur instrumental groups (in particular those regularly performing early music), school choirs and instrumental groups. Through the activities of these groups the music in the partbooks will further be made available to a much wider public including concert-goers, church congregations, school and higher-education level students. The partbooks contain a wealth of music of different types which was known and performed in Medieval and early modern Scotland. The project proposes to transcribe and edit for easy modern performance all of the metrical psalms, hymns and canticles arranged by Scottish composers, as well as motets, anthems and instrumental music by Scottish and continental composers copied by Thomas Wode. This music is an important part of Scotland's musical heritage, whose relative inaccessibility has caused its neglect. Well-researched entries for the Scottish composers involved will also be prepared for Wikipedia.In order to maximise accessibility the project proposes to make the musical editions freely available through specific websites, rather than through a printed edition. Music is increasingly being made available through such websites and to do so for a repertory such as this represents an innovative and creative response to the challenges of marketing printed music. By using a website, rather than paper publication, the international scope of the project will also be enhanced. This will represent an innovative departure for early Scottish music and will allow it to reach a much wider audience than hitherto. Web-based plug-ins such as 'Scorch' will allow users to see and hear the music before printing it, as well as allowing performers to hear a playback of individual parts. The software will also allow transposition to fit the abilities of particular performing groups. A recording of a substantial selection of the music edited will be made by the specialist and highly-prized Scottish early music group, The Dunedin Consort, and made available both as a commercial CD and a download, in order to demonstrate the music and disseminate good practice in its performance. The bundling together of the modern music edition, the recording, and the digital images from the partbooks which will be available on the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music will provide a unique resource not hitherto available for this highly-important repertory.