Totally fascinating!
The pieces are Tento 4 (Sociedad de la Vihuela facsimile page 155) and
Fantasia 27 (page 119). Not often played even today.
The transcriptions are much more faithful than they appear at first
sight, allowing for the expansion of the texture for the piano.
There's a large cut in the latter part of the Tento but otherwise it's
all there.
Saint-Saens dedicated his transcription to Count Guillermo Morphy.
Morphy's book on the Spanish lutenists was not published until 1902,
while the Saint-Saens has a library date stamp of 1898. In the
preface to the Morphy book, Gevaerts (responsible for the 'bizarre
tablature' quote in Rainer's earlier extract) explains that Morphy died
in 1897 after spending the previous 30 years on his research, and that
his widow arranged for the book to be published posthumously. So maybe
Saint-Saens intended the publication as a tribute to a recently
departed friend.
Fantasia 27 is included in the selection in Morphy's book, listed as
Fantasia 11.
Like Arthur, I would love to know how much else like this is out there.
Any leads?
Peter
On Mon, 7 Jan 2019 at 09:34, Rainer <[1]rads.bera_g...@t-online.de>
wrote:
2 fantaisies écrites pour le luth (viruela) / par D. Luis Milan de
Valence, compositeur espagnol du XVIe siècle ; transcrites pour le
piano par C. Saint-Saëns
[2]https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1174900p
Rainer
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References
1. mailto:rads.bera_g...@t-online.de
2. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1174900p
3. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
