Hi Denys, thanks for the info. I'll check Gombosi's text.
Best wishes.
2010/5/20 Denys Stephens <[1]denyssteph...@ukonline.co.uk>
Dear Bruno,
The best study of the Capirola Ms. is the Otto Gombosi edition
published
by SMA in 1955 - it's a work of truly outstanding scholarship and
essential
reading for those interested in the early Italian repertoire. The
Federico
Marincola translation of the instructions is extremely valuable too,
but
it's good to have Gombosi's version on hand when you read it as the
different
nuances of interpretation give a better understanding. I'm certainly
not a
linguist myself, but I understand that the major difficulty is that
there
was no unified Italian language at that time and the scribe Vitali
wrote in
the Venetian dialect - something that's a specialist subject in
itself.
One of the passages in Gombosi's book reads as follows:
"Upward strokes of the right hand are carefully marked by a dot
underneath
the corresponding numeral. Diagonal lines mark the holding of
certain frets
while other parts move on. Special signs indicate the beginning
(w)and end
(n)
of tenuto passages."
(Note: my use of 'w' and 'n' above is the closest approximation I
can get
here to the real signs as they are both semi-circular shapes.
Hopefully
you will recognise them in the manuscript. Vitali, the creator of
the
manuscript, was very careful to explain the necessity of holding
the appropriate fretted notes to achieve a sustained sound - it's
important
to bear in mind that polyphonic lute playing was still a new idea
then.)
The passage continues:
"A unique feature of this tablature is the use of symbols for
certain
ornaments
and the dividing of the middle course into separately played
strings. The
former
involves two signs: one for 'tremolo,' a trill-like alternation of
main note
and
its upper auxiliary, the other for 'tremolo on one tone' obviously
meaning
an
alternation of the first fret with the open string, and so on, a
mordant-like
effect. The first is symbolised by adding after the number of the
fret of
the
main tone that of the auxiliary tone written above it in red dots
e.g. 3;
the
second ornament is marked by putting two red dots above the number.
For the
divided mezzana course the corresponding line of the tablature is
split up
into two."
I hope this will be helpful as a start. I suspect that the Capirola
manuscript
still has its undiscovered secrets. The absence of a colour
facsimile is a
real
problem. I remember hearing Paul O'Dette say at a masterclass that
the
manuscript
includes markings in colours that don't even show up in the
monochrome
facsimile.
And all of the very early manuscripts have notational peculiarities
that may
never be fully understood.
Best wishes,
Denys
-----Original Message-----
From: [2]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu
[mailto:[3]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf
Of Bruno Correia
Sent: 19 May 2010 23:33
To: List LUTELIST
Subject: [LUTE] Capirola
Does anyone understand the meaning of all the signs marked in the
Capirola manuscript? I do have have it, but I don't have enough
Italian
to read it. The English version by Marincola is not suficient to
fully
understand all the signs...
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References
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