That is a very good point.
Indeed that is what compelled me to print the scan on paper to bind as a
book.
The second part of the duets is printed upside down - also very
player-friendly.
On 04.05.19 18:06, Denys Stephens wrote:
Dear Alain,
Thanks! Thanks also for the link to the Ballard print - it really is very
elegant. Single impression tablature had come a long way from Attaingnant's
first ground breaking prints. One more point about Phalese crossed my mind,
which is that in prints such as 'Hortus Musarum' he pirates pieces from Italian
prints and converts them from the six line Italian tablature to his own five
line system, which I think makes it clear that he is deliberately choosing the
five line format despite being aware that the Italian prints use six. In
Hortus Musarum the efficient use of space together with its portrait format
means that longer pieces can be accommodated on one opening of the print. So
for example a fantasia by Marco Dall'Aquila that requires two page turns in
Casteliono fits on one and a half pages and still leaves room for another short
fantasia. From a swift thumb through of my copy, it looks like there are no
pieces in Hortus Musarum that require a page turn. Very player fri!
en!
dly! This seems to be an intentional improvement by Phalese on his earlier
lute prints where he used the landscape format commonly found in Italian lute
prints - this does result in longer pieces requiring page turns.
Thanks again & best wishes,
Denys
-----Original Message-----
From: Alain Veylit <al...@musickshandmade.com>
Sent: 04 May 2019 01:19
To: Denys Stephens <denyssteph...@sky.com>; lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
Subject: Re: [LUTE] Re: French tab prints - why 5 lines?
Great explanation, Denys :)
Paper was the most expensive part of publishing for a long time, and I saw
somewhere that German tab was appreciated for saving vertical space on the page.
I am transcribing pieces from Dowland's First booke of Ayres, and I find it
amazing what those printers managed to do with the tools they had.
Though, esthetically speaking, Ballard has my preference:
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52506298g/f15.image . It's a work of art
as much as the music, and it probably did come cheap...
By the way, Phalese was Dutch, not French. French books were generally more
luxurious than in England or Holland, and French music publishers switched to
engraving fairly early in the 17th century.
Alain
On 5/3/19 1:40 PM, Denys Stephens wrote:
I was intrigued by this question. Phalese is one of the most prolific users of
a five line stave for lute tablature, and looking at his prints suggest several
reasons why he did it. In single impression printing of tablature the tab lines
are integral with the letters, and it's surprising in the music in the Phalese
prints how relatively infrequently notes occur on the sixth course (in
comparison to the higher courses). So leaving out the lowest line saves some
typesetting. But it also allows the staves to be placed closer together without
looking overwhelmingly cramped. That saves paper and fits more music onto each
page. So I would say that it was the most cost effective and efficient way to
print the kind of repertoire he was dealing with.
Best wishes,
Denys
-----Original Message-----
From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu <lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu> On Behalf
Of Dan Winheld
Sent: 03 May 2019 03:24
To: Tristan von Neumann <tristanvonneum...@gmx.de>;
lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
Subject: [LUTE] Re: French tab prints - why 5 lines?
Inertia.
On 5/2/2019 7:00 PM, Tristan von Neumann wrote:
Here's a question:
Why do French prints have 5 lines for the 6 course instrument?
Early manuscripts like Pesaro (but not all of them, like BSB Mus. Ms.
2987) already employ six lines.
While 5 lines in Ms. can be explained by the use of the same 5-point
pen used for the lines of staff notation, I wonder why this is also
occuring in prints?
In type-set prints, you need to make different types for staff and
tab notation, so why keep 5 lines?
:)
T*
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