Thomas, David, Stephan, Thanks for the positive responses. It would be hard to ask a tenor to sing out of his range these days esp for any extended duration but to sing "lighter" is perhaps possible. (Of course, later when Monteverdi & co. offered a single line w/ a bc accompaniment and lutes grew more bass strings many problems were solved.)
Btw, if any tenor/luters would like to try the D'amour me plains that's included in this issue of the LSA, I would appreciate any observations. David, I bought the Verdelot book you mention on a whim 20 years ago and now it's an all time favorite. Excellently edited and layed out for luters and singer-friendly. The lute tunings are reminiscent of Bossenensis and I assume it was usual to have a few examples that would satisfy x singers and y lutes. (Phalese and Heckel also included something for most permutations of lute duets, too) That's why I was curious it was a curious omission that no music appeared to be for tenor and lute in the Attagnant Tres Breve and Phalese Hortus Musarum. cheers, Sean At 05:05 PM 1/17/04, you wrote: >On Saturday, January 17, 2004, at 05:34 PM, lutesmith wrote: >>...perhaps they transposed the whole song down by using a larger >>lute? > >That would definitely be one solution. Singing to a bass lute is going to >move the range of any song a fourth lower than it would be if the lute >part were played on a lute in G. A difference of a fourth lower would put >most anything into a nice low vocal range. > >The London Pro Musica edition of song settings of Verdelot madrigals >contains lute parts for D, E, G and A lutes. A number of those settings >are in baritone range. There seems to be some disagreement as to why the >various lutes were used: apparently it was not just to raise or lower the >tessitura of the song. But nevertheless, this collection does contain >some songs accessible to a low vocal range. > >David Rastall --
