Introducing “Möller” – A Music Font for German Organ Tablature

Download Möller v.1.2

In the course of typesetting the musical examples for my doctoral dissertation, it dawned on me that there is currently no straightforward way to digitally re-create the notation of German organ tablature. This is perhaps not surprising, given its esoteric nature. Nevertheless, organ tablature was the notational language of choice for many German keyboardists from the early days of keyboard history right up through the end of the 17th century. It seemed to me that a musical language that played such an important role in keyboard history ought to at least be represented in the world of digital music typesetting, even if it is relatively obscure. The lack of a German organ tablature music font was thus my initial motivation for creating Möller.

Another source of motivation came from the development of SMuFL, the Standard Music Font Layout specification, which aims to provide “a standard way of mapping the thousands of musical symbols required by conventional music notation into the Private Use Area in Unicode’s Basic Multilingual Plane for a single (format-independent) font”. Although German organ tablature is hardly a conventional notation, SMuFL goes far beyond this basic remit and provides encoding specifications for a staggering array of musical notations, including various Renaissance and Baroque lute tablatures. In light of their presence within the standard, the absence of German organ tablature represented a striking lacuna.

I designed and created Möller using Adobe Illustrator and FontForge. The tablature letters (Buchstaben), rhythmic stems/grids, and various other glyphs comprising Möller were modelled on those found in the two tablature-notated pieces present in the so-called Möller Manuscript—a collection of organ music by a variety of composers that was compiled c.1704–1707, primarily by Johann Christoph Bach, although several autograph manuscripts by his illustrious younger brother, Johann Sebastian Bach, are also present. There is speculation that the two pieces notated in German organ tablature are, in fact, in the hand of J. S. Bach himself.

Shortly after releasing Möller in 2017, I submitted a proposal to incorporate a dedicated glyph range for German organ tablature into the Standard Music Font Layout (SMuFL) specification. I’m pleased to report that this proposal was accepted, and the glyph range now forms part of the official SMuFL standard. Since its release, the Möller font has been used in several publications, including:

• Tempo and Tactus in the German Baroque (Julia Dokter)

• Zellerfelder Tabulaturen (ed. Fabian Beron)

  
  

I continue to welcome feedback, questions, or suggestions from anyone working with German organ tablature or historical notation more broadly.