Editorial note

Summary

The original spelling and punctuation have been preserved in the editions with the exception that obsolete letter forms have been regularised, and contractions, abbreviations and ampersands realised without comment. Variants in spelling between the voice parts, usually introduced by the printer to accommodate words to notes, have been kept. Text repetitions indicated by the conventional signs ‘ij’ are italicised. Modernised versions of the texts together with translations are on pp. 141–7.

All pieces have been scored in modern clefs in the original note values. The original clefs, indicated on prefatory staves, apply throughout each piece (except for no. 21, where two changes to avoid using leger-lines in the basso continue part have been silently emended). Final longae have been translated into notes of one bar's duration with a fermata to indicate the imprecision. All accidentals that appear in the source are placed on the stave, even when the introduction of bar-lines might make them seem superfluous to the modern performer. The only concessions to modern practice in this respect are the use of a natural instead of a sharp to cancel a flat and, in two cases in no. 16, the use of a natural instead of a flat to cancel a sharp. When the repetition of a note requires the performer to understand repetition of an accidental, the accidental has been added editorially over the relevant note. Otherwise editorial accidentals have been inserted in accordance with the widely known ‘rules’ of musica ficta.