Accessible Lute Music

16Jul21:Posted another 25 pieces from Uppsala HS 87 (c1570). The quality of the intabulations gets progressively more interesting as we go through the MS, with an increasing use of diminutions.

20Jun21: Posted the Arpinus lute ms (c.1600), ably encoded by Rainer Boldhaus. This is a book in German tab containing 80 mostly fairly simple pieces and appears to be directed at students. The pieces are mostly dances of one kind or another, with a few vocal intabulations. Many of the piece titles appear to be in (Renaissance) Polish or Czech.

19Jun21: Posted first 50 pieces from Uppsala HS 87 (c1570). These are vocal intabulations of chansons and madrigals, with a motet by Jean de la Fage thrown in. The document is quite free of errors, mostly because the scribe wrote in frequent corrections and emendations onto the manuscript. One idiosyncrasy of this MS is that the scribe often avoided dotting the rhythm flags and instead inserted a blank space under the following flag instead, making it appear as a rest. To make it more confusing, in looking at the vocal models, some of these are supposed to be actual rests. I have tried to follow the vocal model, where available, in making this judgment. The intabulations are good but not quite as skilled as Hove's, adhering fairly closly to their vocal model, with occasional diminutions and cadential ornaments. One of them is by Francesco da Milano, with an intabulation of the same piece (Martin menoit) by Clément Janequin. Many intabulations are of pieces by Vincenzo Ruffo, with other pieces by Arcadelt, Jacques Clément, etc.

06Jun21: Completed Joachim van den Hove Florida (1601). The remaining pieces are dances (courantes, allemandes, galliards, and pavanes with a spagnoletta thrown in) and a few popular melodies. Hove continues with his skillful diminutions of some Dowland and Bacheler favorites. Most of the pieces in this part of the book are fairly simple.

28May21: Back to Joachim van den Hove Florida (1601). Posted 8 passamezzos with accompanying galliards and three lute duets by Giovanni Gabrieli, Luca Marenzio, and Ippolito Baccusi. All good stuff.

26May21: Posted the complete Tabulatura Nova (1584) by Gregor Krengel, carefully encoded by . Each piece in this German tab book is given in one key, then transposed by Krengel down a second, a third, or a fourth. The transposed versions are almost identical to their counterparts. They are mainly intabulated madrigals and motets, mostly by Gregor Lange, Orlando di Lasso, and Jacob Regnart. At the end are a series of 7 paduanas, each accompanied by one or two lieder that Krengel thinks are a good fit for that paduana. There are a moderate number of errors in the pieces, but these are not difficult to correct. Also, the lieder toward the end have repeats which are notated in a difficult way and require some judgment calls. I hope I have made good ones but am very open to correction if I have screwed up. The pieces are of moderate difficulty, though the intabulations mainly consist of chord after chord with little passagework and thus might be a little tiring, especially for the left hand, and the sound comes out a bit "chunky".

13May21: Posted the remainder of the madrigal scores from Joachim van den Hove Florida (1601). There are 46 in all. Still very labor intensive, partly because there are a few errors in the original and partly because I don't know Italian that well, especially Renaissance Italian, and the word boundaries are not well delineated. I got some good help, in this respect, from , , , and .

25Apr21: Posted Milano and Fiorentino Intabolatura de Lauto, v.3 (1547), which contains many pieces (fantasias and vocal intabulations) by Francesco da Milano but also many by Perino Fiorentino. The Fiorentino pieces were ably encoded and edited by . These latter pieces are of a similar quality to the ones by Milano that we are more familiar with.

17Apr21: Posted first 25 pieces from Joachim van den Hove Florida (1601). The first 8 pieces are very nice fantasias; then 12 madrigals and one motet intabulated. Hove also provided the Basso and Canto parts as mensural staves. The lute part of each contains the material in the mensural staves, often with divisions and other ornaments. These pieces can also be played as lute songs, with or without a viol or bass voice. The vocal pieces have been very labor intensive. It has been a challenge matching up the various staffs and handling discrepancies among them, to a point where they sound good together. I have had to correct many errors in the originals, sometimes correcting the vocal parts by reference to the lute part, sometimes vice versa, and to make the musica ficta match among the different parts, but the result is quite beautiful, IMO. It has been especially interesting to see where the tablature part has illuminated the placement of musica ficta in the mensural parts.

29Mar21: Completed work on Delitiae Musicae. The second half of the book consists mainly of dances, starting with passamezzi antici and moderni with their galliards in several keys, followed by a variety of other dances, including 4 galliards attributed to Dowland but not included in Poulton's collection. These dances are mostly fairly easy pieces, but still of high quality.

21Mar21: Completed the first 50 pieces from Joachim van den Hove Delitiae Musicae. This is a rich collection of preludes, 4-, 5- and 6-part vocal intabulations: madrigals and motets, by Lasso, Marenzio, Nanino, and many others, and various dances, including a unique setting of a Holborne pavane. The intabulator has done a good job of not just slavishly following the originals, but has taken pains to make them playable without losing their beauty. 08Mar21: More corrections to the Craus lute ms (>1540), including a renumbering. Thanks for help from .

07Mar21: Made some corrections to the Craus lute ms (>1540) and added some missing pieces.

03Mar21: Finished the Craus lute ms (>1540). It consists of 53 pieces in German tab, most of which are fairly simple and unremarkable, consisting of vocal intabulations, dances, preludes, a ricercar, and what looks like one fantasia and one motet. Several of the last pieces, oddly, consist of a single line in octaves or, in two cases, just single lines. I am grateful to for identifying an untitled piece for me (#8. Pavana alla Venetiana).

21Feb21:Finished work on a MS from Basel University Library. This is a very colorful and artistically drawn MS that only contains 7 pieces: 5 preambles, one by Wolff Heckel, another by Matthäus Waissel, and three anonymous. It contains two settings by Wolff Heckel of the hymn "Nun bitten wir den heiligen Geist", in two different keys. The last setting is incomplete, indicating that the MS may have originally been longer.

20Feb21: I just found out that had previously encoded the Reymann book into fronimo format, so apparently this was somewhat of a duplication of effort. If you want to see Douglas Towne's version, it is available here. It's a lot of work, so I appreciate Douglas' effort, even though I was not able to benefit from it.

19Feb21: Made some corrections, put in some composer attributions, and completed right hand fingerings in Judenkünig's Ein schone künstliche Underweisung (1523). I am grateful to for a correction to "Trop plus secret" in that book.

18Feb21: Finished the Reymann book. The last part contains pavanes, galliards, and choreae with triple sections. These are a bit easier to play, but continue to be of very high quality.

13Feb21: Posted the 12 Passamezzi with variations from the Reymann book. Ordinarily, passamezzi can be dull and repetitive, but that does not apply at all to these. They are in 12 different keys, some quite remote. Each is a gem, yet strictly adhering to the 16-bar passamezzo pattern. Each one has 6 variations, 3 duple and 3 triple time, and a Reprisa, also in triple time. I consider this the apotheosis of the passamezzo.

04Feb21: Posted the preludes and fantasias from Mathias Reymann Noctes Musicae (1598). This is truly an exceptional source: virtually error-free. There is sometimes difficulty in distinguishing c's from e's, but it is usually fairly clear from the context. The material is of exceptional quality as well. All are original works by Reymann and all quite virtuosic and very beautiful. Reymann is shaping up to be one of my very favorite composers. Several are very inventive fantasias on popular Lutheran hymns.

26Jan21: Posted the MS Tänze, Lieder und Lautentraktat (c.1575), compiled by Ludwig Iselin. This is a challenging MS from an editing viewpoint, though less so than the Ulm lute book. The pieces were ably encoded by . It contains mostly German dances, with a few vocal intabulations thrown in. Most of the 41 pieces are extremely easy.

21Jan21: Posted the Ulm lute book (1556). This is a poorly written source, rife with errors. It has no bar lines, and rhythm flags are somewhat random and sometimes absent. My edition is therefore, at times, more of a reconstruction than I like it to be. Pieces are uniformly easy, however.

15Jan21: Completed work on Matthäus Waissel's 1591 Tabulatura Allerley küstlicher Preambulen. These consisted of 16 more galliards, 8 padoanas, 4 pavane-galliard combinations, and 8 branles. Some of the branles are recognizable from LeRoy (1551).

11Jan21: Posted 36 Polish dances, 8 passamezzi and 8 galliards from Matthäus Waissel's 1591 Tabulatura Allerley küstlicher Preambulen. The Polish dances and galliards are mostly quite easy; the passamezzi and accompanying saltarelli are lengthy and more difficult.

05Jan21: Posted the 8 preambles and 40 German dances from Matthäus Waissel's 1591 Tabulatura Allerley küstlicher Preambulen. These are mostly relatively easy pieces, apparently composed by Waissel himself. Also in this book are numerous Polish dances, passamessi, galliards, padoanas, pavanes, and branles.

01Jan21: Posted the Iselin lute book. This consists mostly of very easy pieces, mostly dances + a couple of hymns. The pieces were encoded by .

There is also a list of earlier additions to the website, with commentaries on them.

Accessible Lute Music

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