Thanks for such an imposing amount of information packed into so few words.
On Mar 19, 2015, at 3:20 AM, Hector Sequera <hectorl...@mac.com> wrote: > A few points about intabulations of sacred music in England. > > 1) Availability of English music was an issue since England started printing > music in the late 1560s (there are very few exceptions to this). And even > this was rather minimal (e.g. Thomas Whythourne’s Songs in three, fower and > five parts did not come but until 1571, Byrd’s first print came in 1575). > Meantime the Continent was going full swing with printers such as Attaignant, > Gardano, Scotto, etc churning books non stop (with errors, misattributions > and all). Furthermore, the fashion for printing vihuela music in Spain was > over by 1576; somebody may be able to share what happened after that. > > 2) The majority of the music intabulated is for 3 or 4 voices in a narrow > range (no more than two octaves plus a sixth). Conversely, William Byrd liked > what he called the Great Compass, an arrangement of clefs with G2 on top and > F4 at the bottom (unusual for the time), which allowed for a range of three > octaves and a bit. The narrower Continental range, also called ’normal clefs’ > or ‘low clefs’ etc, can be intabulated on a 6-course up to the 8th or 9th > fret (6th or 7th fret on a 7-course)… a very convenient part of the > instrument. > > 3) Another important consideration is that many continental composers used > the lute as their compositional tool (we have clear documentation on > Palestrina and Lasso, for instance). I happen to believe that Tallis did use > the lute but have not had the time to delve with this in any detail. > Conversely, it is very obvious that Byrd composed on the keyboard. > > 4) Despite all of this, we have about 500 surviving intabulations of music by > English and Continental composers in the collection of Edward Paston > (1550-1630); from Fayrfax and Josquin all the way to Victoria and Byrd. They > all lack the top part but are a good example of the Spanish tradition > transplanted to England for domestic use. > > Best wishes, > > Hector To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
