The responsories and versicles of the latin office of the dead

Anonym 07/07/2010

Knud Ottosen: The Responsories and Versicles of the Latin Office of the Dead Reprint now available This book can be used to localize medieval and Renaissance liturgical books. I have the pleasure to inform you that my study from 1993 The Responsories and Versicles from the Office of the Dead (Aarhus University Press), which has been out of print for some years now, has been reprinted by the editor Books on Demand GmbH, Copenhagen. The book duplicates the first edition with the addition of a new preface and addenda and corrigenda. It may seem astonishing to some that there is a need for reprinting a 14-year old dissertation, but the fact is that the book is exactly as relevant to scholars today as it was in 1993. It still represents the world’s largest database to compare the responsories of the Office of the Dead in more than 2,000 sources. Since the order of these responsories differed from church to church, this order can be used to localize medieval and Renaissance liturgical books. The book is therefore an absolute necessity for everyone who conducts research on the area it covers. Put differently, the book reveals ‘the geography of the concept of death’ in Europe from the 9th-16th centuries from a theological, liturgical, ecclesiastical, musical and political perspective – seen from one particular liturgical office: The Office of the Dead. An urgent request for a reprint of my book came from Professor Barbara Haggh-Huglo, Chair of the Study Group Cantus Planus of the International Musicological Society, and the members of its Advisory Board. In her letter of 7 October 2006 addressed to me, Professor Haggh-Huglo writes: “Many members of our study group, not to mention librarians, art historians, and other medievalists conducting research on medieval liturgical books do not have access to your book, which we understand is now out of print. Moreover, a new, younger generation of medievalists would find this book as useful as have their professors.” It is obviously of great importance to me that scholars should have access to my book in the future in the research libraries in Europe, Canada and America. This I owe to the scholars (Dom G.-M. Beyssac, P.-M. Gy, M. Huglo and others) whose material was made available to me in 1971 in order that I could undertake computerisation and further investigation of its content. Thanks to them, my dissertation is the most quoted book on liturgy today, according to what my colleagues tell me. So, I therefore ask you to check whether your library has a copy of the book. If not, I strongly recommend that your library purchase one. Knud Ottosen: The Responsories and Versicles of the Latin Office of the Dead Editor: Books on Demand GmbH, Copenhagen, 2007. 452 pages. Price: DKK: 429/€: 58/US $: 78. ISBN 978-87-7691-186-7 Those who already have the first edition can download the new preface and the additions and corrections from my homepage http://www.liturgy.dk. Sincerely yours Knud Ottosen PS! www.saxo.com indicates that the book is written in Danish, it is as a matter of fact written in English. Acknowledgements of this edition At the workshop “Antiphonaria” held at Institut für Musikwissenschaft of the University of Regensburg in September 2006, a meeting in which I was invited to participate, I was informed that my book on the Office of the Dead was out of print and that there was an urgent need for scholars as well as librarians to be able to purchase it. I was therefore encouraged to have the book reprinted. The present edition is an un-emended reprint of the first edition of 1993, except for the addition of a new preface in the beginning and a couple of pages with corrections at the end of the book. In the acknowledgements of the first edition I had to inform my readers that since Professor Bjarner Svejgaard had regrettably died before my data and the computer-programs were transferred to a personal computer, and since the original machine was not in operation, it was no longer possible to make inquiries into the data. This deficiency has now been remedied. At the Musicological Institute in Regensburg Dr. Robert Klugseder re-encoded all my series of responsories organized in such a way that it is not only possible to search for any of my full series (with all 9 responsories) but also to search for series of which one only knows a few, under the condition that their position is unmistakable. They are published on the internet under the address: http://www-musikwissenschaft.uni-r.de/cantus  ‘Databases’ In 2003 I retired from my chair at the Theological Faculty, University of Aarhus, and had, consequently, to remove my material, papers and books from my office, including all my printed documentation, microfilms and Xerox-copies of the sources used in my dissertation. The material concerning the Offices of the Dead is now placed at the Institute of Musicology in Regensburg. You are welcome to ask any question (as to the versicles, the readings, copies of the texts etc.) to the staff of the Institute (the address is to be found on the above mentioned web-site). The database in Regensburg is also the most obvious place to add new series of responsories that are not included in my book. It only requires the needed bibliographical information and a Xerox-copy or a digital print of the text for matins of the Office of the Dead in question, and the staff of the Institute will take care of the encoding of the series into the database. Brabrand, the 6th April, 2007. Knud Ottosen