I am a bit busy this morning, so I'll have to confine my remakrs to Dis Dur.
FROM: "Stephan Olbertz", INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <><><><>By the way, does anyone know why some baroque lute pieces/sonatas are marked as being in "Dis-Dur" (D sharp major, 9 (!) sharps) rather than "Es-Dur" (E flat major, 3 flats)? I remember to have seen this in the works of J.B. Hagen and elsewhere (Breitkopf-Incipt?).<><><><> This terminology is from German keyboard tablature. In that tablature (which is sometimes mistaken for German lute tablature by the unwary) the white notes are indicated with letter names. G and g and g_ are the various g keys. The black keys are indicated in relationship to the white key by attaching a loop to the letter name. So a d with a loop meant hit the black key above the d key, that is, d with a loop=d# key. The loop was taken from Latin abbreviations, in which the loop stood for "-is," meaning "of the." So it meant the black key "of the" white key d. It was written as a sharp, even when the context indicated the note was flat, as in E flat major. It appears rather frequently. Sonata ex Dis Dur would be a sonata in E flat major. There are some other strange designations for keys in the lute repertpry. A Pavan ex N, for example, in a German lute manuscript would be in C (n = third fret on the A course). I've seen that among other places in the Fabritius Lute Book in Copenhagen. That book was copied while Fabritius was studying theology at the University of Rostock, by the way. In guitar tablatuyres in alfabeto, sometimes one sees things like Canarios ex K, meaning the "key" is the chord indicated with K in the alfabeto tablature. Enough for now. Arthur.
