Dear All, While examining the Scolar Press facsimile of Campion's "My sweetest Lesbia" to be able to reply to Peter Nightingales' query, my mind turned to note values. It is perfectly clear from this song, or indeed any other song from this period, that the tablature rhythm sign
|\ | | means one minim (or half-note). I find it immensely frustrating that so many people either misunderstand or choose to ignore that relationship. It was fashionable some years ago to halve note values when transcribing lute tablature into staff notation. Diana Poulton and Basil Lam do so in _The Collected Lute Music of John Dowland_ (London: Faber Music Limited, 1974). In their edition that minim sign is transcribed as a crotchet. I have the second edition (1978), which includes a few extra pieces which came to light after the first edition had been published. In this newer edition the editors no longer adhere to their policy of halving note values. Nos 93-6 have the correct transcription, nos 97-8 have halved note values, nos 99-100 are correct, and nos 101-3 have halved note values. It is a vertitable dog's dinner, at least as far as the rhythmic values are concerned. Pascale Boquet, in her _Approche du Luth Renaissance_ (n.p.: n.p., 1987) goes one stage worse. She confusingly regards that same minim sign as a quaver (quarter note). Alain Veylit with Stringwalker and Francesco Tribioli with Fronimo both get the relationship wrong in their computer software. I think both their programmes are excellent in their different ways, and have proved immensely useful, yet both make the mistake of automatically halving note values. Stringwalker can create instant transcriptions of tablature, but with the option of halved or quartered note values, not the correct value. Fronimo can reproduce lute songs, but the singer's notes have half the value of the notes for the lute. One is left with the dilemma: do I give the wrong note values to the singer or to the lute? It is confusing performing lute songs prepared with Fronimo, since the lutenist reads his tablature with one set of note values, while glancing up to the singer's part, which has a totally different set of note values. -o-O-o- To show how fashions have changed over the years, here are a few books where the value of tablature rhythm signs has been halved. Note the date of publication: Thomas Morley, _The First Book of Consort Lessons_, ed. Sydney Beck (New York: C. F. Peters Corporation for The New York Public Library, 1959) _Jacobean Consort Music_, ed. Thurston Dart and William Coates, Musica Britannica 9 (London: Stainer and Bell Ltd for the Royal Musical Association, 2nd edn 1962) Anthony Holborne, _The Complete Works of Anthony Holborne_, ed. Masakata Kanazawa, Harvard Publications in Music 1 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967) Contrast this with more recent editions, where the tablature rhythm signs have been transcribed with their correct value. Again note the date of publication: Alfonso Ferrabosco the Elder, _Opera Omnia_, Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 96, vol. 9 (Neuhausen-Stuttgart: H�nssler-Verlag for the American Institute of Musicology, 1988) _Collected English Lutenist Partsongs: 1_, ed. David Greer, Musica Britannica 53 (London: Stainer and Bell for the Musica Britannica Trust established by the Royal Musical Association, 1987) Francis Cutting, _Collected Lute Music_, ed. Jan W. J. Burgers (L�beck: Tree Edition, 2002) -o-O-o- Older editions tend to have triple time treated differently from duple time. This results in a somewhat anomalous transcription in _Chansons au Luth_ ed. Lionel de la Laurencie (Paris: Heugel, 1976), p. 164. At the top of the page the music is in triple time, and the tablature rhythm signs are transcribed with halved note values. Half way down the page there is a change of meter to C with a slash, and thereafter the rhythm signs are given their correct value. It's all rather confusing really. I leave the final word to Thomas Robinson. On page B2v of _The Schoole of Musicke (London, 1603) he writes: |\ | | A Minim. Best wishes, Stewart McCoy.
