Dear Howard,
Yes, No. 9 is a good example to support the idea that the first
course of John Wilson's instrument would have been at lute pitch. I
reproduce the relevant part here for those who do not have the music
to hand:
___________________c_a______
__f___d___c_d__c_|_____d_c__
____f____________|_____a____
__________c______|_______c__
__________a______|_b________
__e______________|__________
That seems reasonable enough, yet those two notes at the first
course are the only notes on that course in the whole piece. There
are no notes higher than c1. Earlier in the piece Wilson has one
other note at the same pitch (h2), but significantly not at the
first course:
____________________
_a_c_d_f__h_f_____|_
__________h___y_h_|_
__________________|_
__________________|_
__________g_______|_
a 2 3
Why did he not write this instead
_______a__c_a_______
_a_c_d____c___d_c_|_
__________________|_
__________________|_
__________b_______|_
__________________|_
a 2 3
which is similar to the previous extract?
People use words differently, so it is as well to clarify what we
mean. When I wrote that "Wilson seems to avoid using the first
course", I meant that he seems to go out of his way not to use it,
not that he "never uses it". A few statistics might help. There are
two pieces on folio 2v before the pieces are numbered, which I'll
call A and B; to those not numbered later on I'll also give a
letter. Here is the number of times in each piece that Wilson uses a
note at the first course:
A: 3;
B: none;
1: 5;
2: 1;
3: 1;
4: none;
5: 1;
6: none;
7: none;
8: none;
9: 2;
10: 2;
11: 3;
12: 1;
13: 1;
14: 1;
15: 8;
16: 7;
17: 2;
18: none;
19: none;
C: none;
20: none;
21: none;
D: none;
E: 2;
F: 1;
G: 2;
H: none;
I: none;
J: none.
That really is most extraordinary: just 43 notes at the first course
in 31 pieces. It's not as if the overall tessitura is always low.
There are plenty of high notes on the second course, at least up to
the 9th fret.
The question we need to ask is why did Wilson use the first course
so infrequently? Was he writing for a lute, or for a theorbo with
the first course tuned down an octave?
Your example from No. 9 supports the view that Wilson was writing
for the lute, because otherwise the melody would suddenly shift from
one octave to another. Yet it seems to be the exception to prove the
rule. Most of those 43 notes are extra notes to fill out a chord,
and do not form part of a melody. This example is from No. 1:
______________c_______________
______a__c__|_d___c__a__c_a___
___e__c__e__|_f___e__c__e_c_e_
___e________|_______________e_
____________|_________________
____________|_________________
6 6
Here the note c1 merely reinforces the chord at the beginning of the
bar; it is not part of the melodic parts moving in parallel thirds.
It would sound fine at lute pitch or down an octave.
At first sight the three notes at the first course in Piece A would
re-inforce your argument:
_________________c__a_c__________
_c______a______|_c______d__c_d_|_
_e______a______|________a______|_
_e__c_e_a____a_|_______________|_
___________e___|_b______c__b_c_|_
_______________|_______________|_
* *
yet if you transcribed it into staff notation at lute pitch, you
would see an ugly overlapping of parts (which I indicate with two
asterisks underneath the tablature). If, on the other hand, Wilson
was writing for a theorbo with the first course down an octave, the
part-writing would come out quite differently, and there would be no
overlap. This is how the theorbo notes would look in terms of the
lute:
_________________________________
_c______a______|_c______d__c_d_|_
_e______a______|_a____a_a______|_
_e__c_e_a____a_|____c__________|_
___________e___|_b______c__b_c_|_
_______________|_______________|_
Most of those 43 notes could be at either octave.
Looking further on in the manuscript I found another example which
would support the case for a lute. [Not a lutecase :-) ] In No. 5 we
have:
_______a____________
_d________d__b__a___
_b_____d__c_________
_a___________c__c___
_c_____d__c__a______
____d___________d___
As with your example in No. 9, the part-writing would not make
sense, unless a1 was heard at lute pitch. The evidence seems to
contradict itself, which is why I wrote in my previous e-mail:
"Whether or not the solos are for lute or theorbo is a matter of
conjecture. Wilson seems to avoid using the first course, which
seems to suggest there was some kind of problem with it, e.g. it
might have been tuned down an octave."
On 17th January 2000 you wrote:
"Some of them [=Wilson's solos] are pretty clearly in theorbo
tuning. Some of them just as
clearly, to me, require the first course at lute pitch."
You may well be right, but it seems strange to have a collection of
pieces for two different instruments all jumbled up in a single
manuscript without any indication as to which pieces are for which
instrument. More plausible, surely, is that the pieces are all for
the same instrument.
There is, however, another possibility, which Andrea Damiani
mentioned in connection with Melij. (See Federico Marincola's
_LuteBot Quarterly_ vol. 7, "An hypothesis on the tuning of the
Italian theorbo".) Damiani postulates that Melij's first course may
have consisted of a double course tuned at lute pitch and an octave
lower, which would explain the apparent anomalies in his tablature.
It is just possible that Wilson's theorbo had a similar tuning,
which would explain away some of the quirks of his writing too. It
may be that Wilson found the sound of an octave course intrusive
amongst the higher courses, and so used it as infrequently as
possible. That's what I had in mind with the phrase "some kind of
problem with it". I'm afraid I have no evidence about the stringing
of theorboes in England at Wilson's time, so I can only offer it
tentatively as a possibility.
By the way, it was you who told me about Damiani's article, in the
second of your two messages to this List dated 17th January 2000.
Many thanks for that.
Best wishes,
Stewart McCoy.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Howard Posner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Lute Net" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 5:49 AM
Subject: Re: John Wilson
> Stewart McCoy at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > Wilson seems to avoid using the first course, which
> > seems to suggest there was some kind of problem with it, e.g. it
> > might have been tuned down an octave.
>
> Of course (no pun intended, but what the hell), Wilson does not
"avoid" the
> first course in the sense of "never uses it." He uses it very
little, which
> is typical of the tablature accompaniments of the day, a few of
which are
> find in Nigel North's continuo book. I'm speculating, but the
reason may
> have been that if the tablature had nothing essential on the first
course,
> it would be useful to a larger potential audience because it would
work
> equally well in lute stringing or theorbo stringing. Why the
writers would
> have cared about increasing salability in music not intended for
publication
> is another question.
>
> Wilson occasionally uses the first course as if it's at lute
pitch. See,
> e.g. No. 9 (the pieces are numbered but not titled), third line,
second full
> bar, a really nice line that makes no sense if the first course is
down.
>
> Howard
>
>
>
