Henry Parkes, The Making of Liturgy in the Ottonian Church: Books, Music and Ritual in Mainz, 950–1050. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. xvi + 259 pp. £67. ISBN 978 1 107 08302 8.

here; in other words, whether the textual expressivity here stimulates a rare musical gesture. Playing with, and overcoming, our cadential expectations may have had a deliberately expressive, and not only formal, effect. While I do not wish to argue that this was always the case, I believe semantic relations cannot be eliminated from the consideration of cadential articulation, let alone musico-textual relationships in this period in general. Overall, this book successfully accomplishes its aim to provide a solid methodological base for future critical editions of the repertory under consideration. The first editorial fruits of this consolidated effort can be seen in the critical editions appended to the book: the settings of La fiera testa by Bartolino and Nicolò and Bartolino’s La douce çere. These editions present text first (edited by Maria Sofia Lannutti), then the musical setting (edited by Maria Caraci Vela, Antonio Calvia and Michele Epifani), both accompanied with an extensive and meticulous critical apparatus. The quality of this collaborative effort is admirable, and is perhaps the best evidence of this book’s success. In the musical editions, I would further clarify the potential use of ficta for some cadential progressions. One significant error crept into these otherwise impeccable editions: in Bartolino’s La fiera testa (pp. 292–4), the tenor d in bar 92, taken from the manuscript Pit (BNF ital. 568), creates the unsupported fourth d/g in the two-voice counterpoint, which is easily removed with the c offered in Sq (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Palatino 87). As for the other aim set in the first part of the title (Musica e poesia), the book leaves some room for further studies and for different approaches. The focus here is mostly on formal coordination of music and text, with the semantic potential of this interrelation receiving only a few brilliant insights in Calvia’s and Epifani’s articles – the insights that seem to prove that a further research in this direction may bear more fruit. This need to incorporate the semantic aspect is particularly noticeable in the contrapunctus studies that at times seem to adhere to the view that contrapuntal rules and exceptions are themselves inherently musical, rather than trying to explore them (particularly the exceptions) in relation to poetic content. This focus is entirely appropriate for a book that aims to signal future critical editions (in the second part of its title), but one thirsts for more comprehensive covering of the conjunction of ‘musica e poesia’ offered in the main title.