Dear Gary, The thread was originally about Byrd. I would very much like to know more about Byrd, and about the tablature sources of his music. For example, I have the impression that the lute solo settings make some concessions to the lute, i.e. the music is arranged to be idiomatic for the instrument, whereas the Paston settings are virtually literal intabulations minus the cantus.
Paston's intabulations are often so exact that they are unnecessarily awkward to play. He even shows unisons, so, for example, where two viols play f, he intabulates it as: ___ ___ ___ _a_ _f_ ___ Transferring music from four viols to one lute tends to iron out the polyphonic nature of Byrd's music. Instead of hearing four interweaving melodic strands as on viols, one tends to hear a succession of chords on the lute, with more a suggestion of polyphony than a clear realisation of it. Some years ago I intabulated eight consort songs by Byrd for Fretwork Editions. If Paston intabulations existed, for various reasons I chose not to use them, and instead made my own arrangements. Literal intabulations can be self-defeating. For example, if you have one viol playing this: __________ _a__c__d__ __________ __________ __________ __________ and another viol playing this: __________ _d__c__a__ __________ __________ __________ __________ you'll have a literal intabulation looking like this: __________ _d__c__d__ _f_____f__ __________ __________ __________ The two melodies fuse to become a succession of chords. I believe that it is often better to simplify such passages, and omit the notes of one viol for the sake of having at least one melodic line from the other viol clearly heard. Arthur (13th July) and Rainer (10th July) have provided us with sources and lists of music by Byrd arranged for the lute. Can anyone add to those lists? Do we have a list of all the lute pieces arranged by Byrd for keyboard? Notation may have its fascination, but I really would like to return to Byrd. Best wishes, Stewart McCoy. ----- Original Message ----- From: "gary digman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "lutelist" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2005 10:56 AM Subject: Re: Re: Byrd > Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on here? Something must > have gone down between Mr, Thames and Mr.Ness that I missed. The > Matanya/Roman battle was more entertaining because I understood what it was > about. > > The Best to All, > Gary Digman > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Michael Thames" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Lute net" <[email protected]> > Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2005 11:43 PM > Subject: Byrd > > > > I've never met Arthur Ness, as I'm not really a member of the "good old > boys club". I'm relatively new to the lute, 4 years or so. I did play it a > bit in the mid 70's. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
