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Incipits

It is customary when transcribing mensural music into modern notation to place an indication of how the initial rests and note or notes of the original version appeared – including the original clefs. This is called an incipit. The \incipit command uses the indent of the main staff to set the width occupied by the incipit, and incipit-width to set the width of the incipit staff.

\score {
  \new Staff <<
    \new Voice = Tenor {
      \set Staff.instrumentName = "Tenor"
      \override Staff.InstrumentName.self-alignment-X = #RIGHT
      \incipit { \clef "mensural-c4" \key f \major r\breve r1 c'1 }
      \clef "treble_8"
      \key f \major
      R1 r2 c'2 |
      a4. c'8
    }
    \new Lyrics \lyricsto Tenor { Cyn -- thia your }
  >>
  \layout
  {
    indent = 5\cm
    incipit-width = 3\cm
  }
}

By default, LilyPond uses a ‘MensuralStaff’ context for typesetting an incipit. Other contexts can be used by directly writing \incipit \new contexttype …; in this case a ‘MensuralStaff’ wrapper is only used when it can contain the specified context.

Known issues and warnings

Note that instrumentName must be set in the music for the incipit to be produced. If no instrument name is required then use \set Staff.instrumentName = "".