1,000-Year-Old Lost Music Reconstructed from Ancient Manuscript

Exactly what music sounded like in the early Middle Ages is unknown, but some scholar-musicians from England performed a piece today that they reconstructed from an 11^th century manuscript.

A page from the manuscript lost for 142 years but later found has helped three researchers rewrite the music as they believe it may have sounded during the Middle Ages.

Cambridge University’s Sam Barrett worked for more than 20 years to reconstruct melodies from the 11^th century “Cambridge Songs,” the final part of an anthology of Latin texts. It was from that manuscript that the leaf was missing. Today an ensemble performed the music at Cambridge for the first time in as long as 1,000 years.

In 1982 the leaf from the manuscript was found by an English scholar visiting a Frankfurt, Germany, library. In 1840, a German scholar had visited Cambridge and cut the leaf out of the “Cambridge Songs” manuscript and returned to Germany with it. Perhaps he thought the Germans were entitled to it because the songs originated in the Rhineland in the 11^th century.

The music performed at Cambridge today is set to Roman philosopher Boethius’ master work, “The Consolation of Philosophy,” which he wrote in the 6^th century while he was under house arrest awaiting execution for treason.