Well - as Martyn pointed out - even with a lute in G there are situations
where you would have to play an F sharp up an octave even if the instrument
had extended basses.
There are quite a few later French sources which clearly indicate this.
You yourself have quoted Campion in your article -
"it is not necessary ....to be preoccupied by the jumping of the bass from
low to high register. It is sufficient that the note is there . Even on
the harpsichord etc........"
Why should it not be acceptable? Inverting the parts works in practice -
for most of us.
Monica
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lex Eisenhardt" <eisenha...@planet.nl>
To: "Monica Hall" <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk>
Cc: "Vihuelalist" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2011 3:33 PM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Caccini's instrument
----- Original Message -----
From: "Monica Hall" <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk>
To: "Lex Eisenhardt" <eisenha...@planet.nl>
Cc: "Vihuelalist" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2011 3:56 PM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Caccini's instrument
What other instrument do you suppose that he had in mind then? The only
instrument with a large enough compass to be able to reproduce the bass
line below the voice part in every set of circumstances would be a
keyboard instrument and possibly not all of these.
Striggio reported that Caccini could accompany from a bass on the lute or
keyboard. And there were (arch)lutes around in traditional G tuning. I
know that Caccini says that he prefers the chitarrone for accompaniment.
But did he always, and for everything? We have a certain situation in one
of his songs which would be hard to play on the theorbo in A without
raising the bass above the tenor voice. Does that prove conclusively that
Caccini accepted voice crossings of bass and tenor?
Lex
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