Dear Diann, There is a fair amount of organisation in the five extant lute books of Edward Paston. For example, Lbl Add. 29246 begins with two-part pieces, then three-part, then four-part, etc.
As far as key is concerned, Lbl Add. 29247 has a lot of pieces in sharp keys, whereas at least some pieces in Lbl Add. 31992 are in flat keys. I think it's worth checking out. I studied the Paston Lute Books for a thesis in the 1980s. One third of it was published in _Early Music_, another third in _The Lute_, and the rest was never published. In the unpublished part I wrote a bit about how pieces in Paston's lute books sometimes seemed to have been grouped according to key, although there were lots of exceptions. I speculated on why anyone should want to do this. It makes sense for 17th-century music, where you may have lots of different tunings, either involving the strings over the fingerboard, and/or involving only the diapasons. However, Paston was writing for a common or garden 6-course renaissance lute in standard vieil ton tuning. One hypothesis I put forward tentatively was that, although Paston wouldn't re-tune the strings of his lute for pieces in different keys, he might want to re-tune his frets. If so, it would make sense to have all the pieces together where a particular fretting arrangement was required. You mentioned the Cherbury Lute Book. No doubt you know about Curtis Price's article about this manuscript, published a long time ago in the Lute Society _Journal_. If not, I can look up the reference for you. The classic manuscript where pieces are arranged according to key is the one compiled by Vincenzo Galilei, where suites of pieces are arranged in every conceivable key (in an equally tempered context) similar to Bach's 48. Galilei's manuscript is published in facsimile by SPES. I think Gorzanis did something similar in a printed book. Again, I could look up the reference, if you can't find it. I think he gives pieces in each mode one after the other in _Fronimo_ (the book, not the computer software). That's worth looking at too. You might also consider looking at Hans Newsidler's printed collections of music, (not to mention Hans Gerle and Hans Judenkunig). They inadvertedly arranged pieces according to key, not because of the key as such, or the fretting, or anything fancy like that. Their books were printed in German tablature with students in mind. Students would not only have to learn how to play the lute; they would also need to learn how to read the music. It would be confusing for a beginner to be faced with all the characters of German tablature at once, so these three Hans all introduce the different characters gradually. That means that the first few pieces will tend to be in the same key, and the next few pieces in another, more or less. That's all that springs to mind. It's gone ten o'clock. If I don't go to the pub now, I'll be too late for a pint. All the best, Stewart McCoy. ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2004 8:56 PM Subject: MS grouped by key? > > Hello fellow Lute Netters, > I've been working a bit with how the contents of lute manuscripts were > organized in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and I was > wondering if anyone might know of lute manuscripts besides the Siena Lute > Book and Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Lute Book in which pieces are clearly > grouped by key or mode? I'd also be interested in knowing if there are any > prints of lute music besides Besard's Thesaurus Harmonicus (1603) that > follow this type of organization. > Thanks very much for your help. > > Sincerely, > Diann Flanagan To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
