Deberny et Peignot Plainchant Type

We have just acquired 5 cases of 28pt Plainchant (Gregorian Chant) type, originally bought from Deberny et Peignot by the Stanbrook Abbey Press. Does anyone know if there are any published guides to typesetting Chant notation, or even regular music typesetting, or failing that, does anyone have a photograph of an original D et P type specimen showing the full range of individual pieces? Thank-you!

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I don’t know off-hand of any guides to setting plainchant, but if I recall there were about 130 or so sorts for setting Gregorian chant. There is some discussion in Chapter III and others in Mary Duggan’s “Italian Music Incunabula: Printers and Type” (U Cal Press, 1992). Sorry I don’t have any more specific info. - Denis C.

I’ve found some information in the book that was published by the Enschedé typefoundry. I will check my Deberny&Peignot specimen books, but don’t recall seeing any music in them at all. I’ve taken pictures from the Enschedé publication. I could send you high resolution by mail if you’re interested.

And I found some pages in the 1930s type specimen from Deberny&Peignot. Send me an e-mail if yoy want photographs of those pages.

Nothing though in the 1897 Deberny specimen…

There are some pages in my Deberny specimen (not sure of the date), including case layouts, potentially showing all the pieces (?).

DM or email me if you want a large-format scan of these pages.

image: plainchant.jpg

plainchant.jpg

Messages sent through Briarpress to Thomas and Kimaboe. Hope they reached you ok.

Sorry, but I didn’t get any of your messages! I’ll contact you through BP and you can reply with your e-mail address etc.

There is a book ‘Music Printing and Engraving’ by Mr. W. Gamble which might be in a library somewhere. He states that often stereos and electros were printed from and not the type.

Have a look at this site. http://www.musicprintinghistory.org/music-type

Also watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQP8KEldS-U

Thanks for drawing this to my attention Platenprinter- very interesting video and website.
As luck would have it, during a visit to Glasgow this weekend I found in a secondhand bookshop, an old bound volume of ‘The British Printer’ from 1891, which has a series of articles, spanning several issues on typesetting music, so should anybody else be interested in this rather niche area as well, now or in the future, I would be happy to send them copies of it.

Through one of the articles in the 1891 British Printer magazines, I found a mention of a book of the same year specifically about setting music (conventional and Gregorian notation) with moveable type- Beaudoire, Theophile. ‘Manuel de Typographie musicale’ Paris: Gaitherin et Cie, 1891. It is fortunately available online through a scanned copy in the Bibliotheca Digital Hispanica- http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000059815&page=1

First attempt at typesetting with the Plainchant type- a simple chant but a good practice excercise.

image: 8AC4F7B4-81C1-462D-BDEB-2778BB5AE0D1.jpeg

8AC4F7B4-81C1-462D-BDEB-2778BB5AE0D1.jpeg