Full panel border and initial with the figure of a prophet in a choral book at the Mdina Cathedral Museum. Photo courtesy of the Mdina Cathedral

The strong musical traditions in our Mother Church at Mdina in the early part of the 16th century, particularly between 1527 and 1538, are reflected in the number of local artists and copyists employed by the Cathedral in the production of liturgical and choral books, including antiphonarii, psalterium and graduale.

In medieval Mdina, church music was extremely popular; it was invariably expressed in song and prayer, in poem and exquisite miniature paintings, as recorded in the Mandati when the solemn procession of Corpus Christi was accompanied by a small orchestra.

The choral books, precious copies of which are now preserved at the prestigious Cathedral Museum, emerged as one of the artistic triumphs of the Middle Ages, an expression of pious creativity which old monks designed and copied by hand, never to be surpassed in beauty by the countless products of the printing press.

When the production of these illuminated choral books in those remote times was at its height in the major cities of Europe, Mdina included, specialisation in the workshops, known as scriptoria, necessitated the differentiation between those who ‘historiated’ (that is, illustrated books by appropriate miniature paintings) and those who ‘illuminated’, which included the decorative work embellishing initial capital letters.

The specialised artists, very active in Malta at that time, introduced gold in leaf or powdered form in their artistic designs which spilled gracefully into margins and borders

The specialised artists, very active in Malta at that time, invariably introduced gold in leaf or powdered form in their artistic designs which spilled gracefully into margins and borders.

In Malta, the earliest recorded instance of liturgical choral books goes back to the 13th century. An Angevin document of 1271 refers to a set of choral books in use at the troglodyte chapel of Sta Maria at the Castrum Maris, currently known as Fort St Angelo, on the Vittoriosa promontory.

It is highly significant that one of these musical manuscripts is now exhibited at the Cathedral Museum; it consists of an antiphonary with music written in Aquitanian (as distinct from the Gregorian) notation, having 51 decorated initials enlivened and articulated by various designs.

Among its rich collections of unique musical manuscripts, this museum, reputed to be one of the best church museums in Europe, possesses a number of other documented choral books commissioned from various Maltese artists and scriptori. These included the brothers Xiberras (early 16th century), cleric Joannes Bartolo (1537) and the Dominican friar Gio Antonio Manjuni.

With the introduction of the Roman Tridentine Mass in 1571 these choral books belonging to the Gallican rite were abolished in 1575 by Bishop Duzina. However, the rich musical traditions of the cathedral were revitalised, and in the halcyon years of the 17th and 18th centuries, when baroque music was the ‘soul music’ of the period, the cappella musicale of the cathedral at Mdina symbolised all that was beautiful and sublime, representing a vast array of compositions that have surpassed even our wildest expectations.

The long painful path of reviving the rich collection of baroque music that had languished in the museum archives for centuries owes a lot to the sterling pioneering work in the mid-1970s of Canon John Azzopardi, then curator of the museum, as well as that great connoisseur of the arts Cav. Vincenzo Bonello and Prof. Joseph Vella with his early revival concerts.

I vividly recall his superb rendering of the eloquent composition Ecce Panis Angelorum, by the great composer Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), the only known copy of this work, premiered in 1984 at St George’s Basilica in Gozo.

This musical tradition was further enhanced by the many initiatives of Mgr Prof. Vincent Borg, president of the Cathedral Museum Committee for many years, particularly in promoting the richness of the musical archives in international circles, resulting in the issue of three CDs in France, which the Bibliotheque Nationale de France honoured with the award Palmares de Palmares in 1998.

This international reputation reached its peak with the International Children’s Choir Festival when Malta hosted some of the most prestigious choirs in Europe. This responsibility has now fallen in the energetic hands of Mgr Aloysius Desira and Fr Edgar Vella, who have already carved a name for themselves in the vast cultural fields.

In their superb academic study Mdina – The Cathedral City of Malta, to which I am deeply indebted for the preparation of this feature, Prof. Mario Buhagiar and Prof. Stanley Fiorini give a vivid description of church music “spilling into the Mdina streets as when on solemn feasts like Mnarja or Corpus Christi processions in the streets were accompanied by sonatori”. The very learned authors also describe how in 1520 the musicians were entertained after the performance of their duties a manjeri e bivirii.

During the Knights’ period, from this artistic milieu developed the music mytho-logy of the period: north versus south – the north represented by the Mdina Cathedral and the south by the urban muscle of the mighty Order with its glittering baroque trappings epitomised by St John’s Cathedral.

Concluded.