Well - I will send you a scan of p.55 - and p.43 which has 2 chord Es - off
the list. It's a matter of
personal taste I suppose but the cadence is in D minor and the music then
modulates to C major so to my ears a D major chord sounds out of place.
P.55 is a similar passage.
When music is engraved it is first scratched on the copper plates using a
steel point pen and then etched in with an implement called a burin. So it
is to all intents and purposes hand written - backwards of course. Hence
the minor variations in the shapes of the letters and figures.
The term "lettere tagliate" literally means "cut letter". It is so
called because a slash is put through the letter. Originally they were
used
to indicate chords in which one course was left unfretted creating a passing
dissonance - a kind of appoggiatura really. For example in chord D
tagliate the 2nd course is unfretted so that the chord is (top down) E B
A E A. In E tagliate the 1st course is unfretted so the chord is E D
A D A. In printed sources they put a "t" after the letter - because they
didn't have strike-through letters in their font of type.
Best
Monica
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ed Durbrow" <edurb...@sea.plala.or.jp>
To: "Monica Hall" <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk>; "vl" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 3:32 PM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Roncali chords
On Jun 16, 2011, at 10:44 PM, Monica Hall wrote:
I think this particular chord is meant to be E = D minor. A D major
chord
sounds odd to me. If you look on page 55 (if you can) you can see a
similarly shaped E.
I only have pages 25-32.
The shapes of the letters vary a bit because of the
way the music is engraved and printed. The same is true of the D at
the
beginning - the Ds vary a bit.
Dm makes great musical sense, especially given the preceding three
bars. I don't know how the engraving process works, I thought they were
hand scratched on brass or something, but if that curving line line was
a separate element and moved down and to the left it would make an 'e'.
Lettere tagliate have nothing whatsoever to do with leaving out the 5th
course when using a bourdon on that course and do not indicate the
method of
string the composer required. This is just a myth. Bartolotti is the
one
person who does use lettere tagliate and the reason for this is usually
because it is necesrary to leave out the 5th course and refinger the
chord
to accommodate passing notes although he is not entirely consistent.
Couldn't quite remember the word. So what does it mean?
Thank you very much Monica.
Ed Durbrow
Saitama, Japan
[1]http://www.musicianspage.com/musicians/9688/
[2]http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/
--
References
1. http://www.musicianspage.com/musicians/9688/
2. http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
