Subject: RE: [VIHUELA] Re: Fuenllana 5c vihuela
Ah, yes! But Fuenllana was published in 1554. That's the latest date the 5c
music could have been written.
Espinel is much later than that, and Amat even later (probably 1586).
My original message doen't seem to have reached the list.
Amat's book was first printed in 1596. No question about that! All
surviving 17th century copies include the Imprimatur and/or letter of
dedication dated to that year. All but one include both. [If you have
referred to the printed edition of Groves, well, the entry for Amat is
nonsense and has been rewritten (by me) in the on-line version. Amat was
certainly not born in the 1560s].]
It is Doisi de Velasco - in 1640 - who says that the guitar had only 4
courses and that Espinel, whom he met in Madrid, added the 5th course.
Just to confuse the issue he adds and we call it the first, and for this
reason they rightly call it in Italy Guitarra espanola.
As a matter of interest, it was quite common in Italy to number the courses
of the guitar in reverse order i.e. the lowest sounding course is referred
to as the first. Corbetta refers to the courses in reverse order in the
Italian introduction to La guitarre royale (1671).
Sanz repeats the information about Espinel adding the 5th course.
What is unclear is the relationship between the 4-course guitar and the
vihuela, whether there was any appreciable difference between the two, apart
from size and number of courses.
It may have been more to do with the different roles, and kind of music the
two instruments played.
Monica
Monica
By
then, the vihuela must have been fading away (last book: Daça, 1576), and
some bewailed its demise in the wake of the guitar's popularity.
A famous example is in Sebastián de Covarrubias Oroszco, Tesoro de la lengua
castellana, o española . . . . (Madrid, 1611). Despite the late date of
publication, the author must have been working on this gigantic
dictionary/encyclopedia for decades before. In his entry on Vihuela, he
writes (translation partly mine):
Este instrumento ha sido hasta nuestros tiempos muy estimado, y ha habido
excelentísimos músicos; pero después que se inventaron las guitarras, son
muy pocos los que se dan al estudio de la vihuela. Ha sido una gran pérdida,
porque en ella se ponía todo género de música puntada, y ahora la guitarra
no es más que un cencerro, tan fácil de tañer, especialmente en lo rasgado,
que no hay mozo de caballos que no sea músico de guitarra.
(Up to our time, this instrument [the vihuela] has been highly esteemed, and
it has had most excellent musicians. However, since guitars were invented,
very few have devoted themselves to studying the vihuela. [This] has been a
great loss, for on it all types of plucked [i.e., polyphonic] music was
played. But now the guitar is no more than a cowbell, so easy to play,
especially when strummed, that there is nary a stable boy who is not a
guitar player.)
Mike
Michael Fink
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
_
-Original Message-
From: Rob MacKillop [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2008 10:29 AM
To: Monica Hall
Cc: Vihuelalist
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Fuenllana 5c vihuela
Vicente Espinel is supposed to have added the 5th course to the 4-course
guitar in the late 16th century.
Oh dear...the thot plickens!
Rob
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