Dear collective knowledge, as some may know, I happen to have kind of relation to some tarantula spiders, see my page (or don't if you happen to have araknofobia!) http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/wikla/Tarantula/
I would like to gather a collection of Tarantella dances to a web page. And especially such pieces that could be naturally played or accompanied by lute instruments - bar. and ren. guitars included. That means tabulated or continuo music - or songs - let us say before 19th century - there are lots of pieces and versions after 1800. But I would like to find mostly 18th, 17th and 16th century Tarantellas. Are there any from earlier years? Perhaps there are some readers, who do not know that Tarantella dancing was kind of medicine or remedy to persons, who were bitten by a spider. And as far as I know, in Italy it was a bite of Black Widow, just a tiny little spider compared to my tarantula spiders. ;-) And to my subject line: is there any consensus, whether Tarantella is a ground bass line, a melody, or a rhythm pattern? All the best, Arto To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
