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[VIHUELA] {EARLY_GUIT} 4c music.. is there any?

Peter Forrester
Sun, 13 Apr 2008 04:16:45 -0700

Please excuse me if I have missed something, having only been thinking about
citterns recently, but..

Rasguedo or, more properly? strummed music does seem to exist for the 4c
guitar from England.  See John M. Ward: Sprightly and Cheerful Musicke, Lute
Society Journal 1979-81.  The Osborn Commonplace-book, circa 1560, now in
Yale University, has nineteen short and simple pieces mostly consisting of
chords, with a gittern tuning.  At this date they are likely to be for the
little guitar, gut strung, rather than the wire-strung re-tuned treble
cittern of the 17thc.

There are very few pictures of the 4c guitar in England so that it is
perhaps worth listing them here:
1568  marquetry on the "Eglantine' table in Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire.
1568  portrait of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, printed in the 'Bishop's
Bible'.
c.1590  mural painting in Hengrave Hall, Suffolk.
1604  twice in Stephen Harrison, print of 'The Archs of Triumph'.
Any more?

Peter



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  • [VIHUELA] {EARLY_GUIT} 4c music.. is there any? Peter Forrester