In a message dated 8/17/2006 4:38:07 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Dear all, as an amateur lute player studying in Italy I tend to spend most of my time playing Italian lute music from the XVI century. Well, I guess this happens to everybody, anyway... ;-) I own a splendid 8-course lute made by Stephen Barber and Sandi Harris and suddenly started wondering why I *ever* bought an 8 course lute. In fact, I either stumble on "pure" 6-course lute tablatures or on a Baroque repertoire written evidently for a 10-course lute. I would be very, very, *very* grateful if you could post me some indication regarding 8-course lute music pieces to avoid selling my lute to finally get a 6-course... Thank you in advance, Luca -------------------------------- Luca: It is fine to play 6-course tablature repertoire on a 7 or 8 course lute. The earliest source of lute music from Italy is the manuscript in Pesaro from around 1480 to 1495 and it contains a piece or two requiring a 7th course (D)! And the famous Siena Lutebook with mostly 6 course repertoire was compiled during the second half of the 16th C. and contains some works requiring a 7th course. For 7 or 8 courses in Italian repertoire: in addition to Molinaro and the Raimondi manuscript, you can find nice pieces to play by Terzi (1593 and 1599), some works by Kapsberger from 1611 are playable, as well as Piccinini (1623 and 1640). Also Giulio Cesare Barbetta and Santini Garsi di Parma. All of the dance repertoire is nice, too, and you can always add extra basses in yourself: Negri and Caroso. There are also plenty of Italian-based composers to be found in Dowland's Varietie of Lute Lessons 1610 and in Besarde's Thesaurus Harmonicus, as well as the Lord Herbert of Cherbury Lutebook (not available as an edition). I recommend the Lyre Music Publications anthologies of "The Art of the Lute in Renaissance Italy" (three volumes covering Intabluations, Dances, and Fantasia) to have much of this repertoire bound in convenient editions that fit well on the music stand. Kenneth Be -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
