The Book of Hours

Lovers of late Medieval music - from Machaut and Ciconia to Dufay and Ockeghem - should take advantage of the dirt cheap prices of this coffee-table volume of full-color reproductions of pages from illuminated manuscripts of the same era. Essentially, a Book of Hours was a personal prayer book, a visual aid to religious meditation at designated moments in the day, for the use of pious lay people. The more prosperous of the pious would have more elegant prayer books, and the princes and princesses of the realm would commission superbly painted and calligraphed volumes on vellum. These precious books were artistic treasures equal to the greatest frescoes and carvings, and there are precious few of them intact. John Harthan's "The Book of Hours" is a survey of thirty-four such museum treasures dating from c. 1300 to 1508, including 'pictures' from each, with an account of its origins and an analysis of the techniques employed by the illuminators. The brilliance of colors and sophistication of perspective in some of these miniatures will astound you, and once you look at The Black Hours of Charles the Rash and other 'experimental' efforts of illumination, you'll never again see computer art as something utterly new and different. People who live in the Los Angeles region, or who visit there, have the privilege of viewing one of the world's best collections of illuminated manuscripts at the Huntington Library. The rest of us have to make do with color plates. I can't imagine a better way to appreciate a recording by The Orlando Consort, The Clerks' Group, or Project Ars Nova - the most outstanding performers of 14th-16th C music - than to leaf through this lovely book while listening. A glass of fortified claret or charteuse, proper Medieval drinks, would be a gracious accompaniment.