A manuscript or printed book of the 16th or 17th century in which the vocal or instrumental parts of an ensemble composition are displayed in such a way that the performers can read their parts while seated across or around a table. It is an extension of the choirbook system in which one volume suffices for all the performers, as opposed to the partbook system in which each performer is allocated an individual book. The Lyons printer Jacques Moderne was probably the first to issue a collection in which parts were disposed in inverted positions on the upper half of each side, recto and verso, of an opening (Le parangon des chansons, 1538). A similar system, but with the complete recto page inverted, was adopted by Pierre Phalèse for lute duets (1568). The continental sources in table-book format are considerably outnumbered by the English sources, which include most of the books of lute airs and such works as Dowland’s Lachrimae (1604; see illustration) and Sir William Leighton’s The Teares or Lamentacions of a sorrowfull Soule (1614).
Although printed music books account for the majority of table-books this principle was also adopted for a small number of manuscript sources, such as GB-Lbl Add.31390 (for illustration see Sources of instrumental ensemble music to 1630, fig.4) and Och 45. The latest sources in table-book format are certain English prints of the 1630s. These systems were later modified to cater for up to six performers, and exceptionally for as many as 12, although there are obvious practical difficulties for so many musicians.
KrummelEMP
S.F. Pogue: Jacques Moderne, Lyons Music Printer of the Sixteenth Century (Geneva, 1969), 46, 74, 77
R. Rastall: ‘Spatial Effects in English Instrumental Consort Music, c. 1560–1605’, EMc, xxv (1997), 269–88
JOHN MOREHEN/RICHARD RASTALL