The "Paul's CD" I mentioned in response to Ed's message on the tasteggiata and spezzata is Paul O'Dette's CD of the original versions of the Respighi suites (Hyperion CDA66228). Of course a few pieces (8 in fact) are from Chilesotti's Codice Lauten-Buch (NB old fashioned spelling).
This reminds me that Paul is one of those who told me that the original manuscript is in a private library in northern Italy, information others confirmed when I was in Milan for the Francesco conference. I also learned that it had most likely been sold to an Italian musicologist after Chilesotti's demise. That information is also given in the notes to Paul's CD. We know the Codice Lauten-Buch is not lost or destroyed because the current owner hired an Italian lutenist to give a private recital in his home. He played directly from the original manuscript, which is so famous it would be easy to spot. The usual story is that it was destroyed when Chilesotti's house burned down. It was, however, the house next-door that went up in a spectacular midnight blaze. The old timers mixed up the houses when asked about Chilesotti years later. And indeed all of Chilesotti's working papers (which would also have been destroyed) come down to us and now have been deposited with the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, where they may be examined by appointment. The papers include the original handwritten transcriptions Chilesotti made for his edition of the Lauten-Buch. Matanya Ophee persists in perpetuating the story on this list and in his reprint that Tuffolo (Chilesotti's grand nephew) and Bussandri (his grandson) have declared that the original has not survived. I doubt they ever made such a claim. How would they know the fate of a rare and valuable book that was sold nearly a century ago, before either wasborn, and has been in private hands ever since? And I doubt either has any particular interest in lute music, or moves in the Italian lute community. It is a "Codice Lauten-Buch." By leaving out the largest word on the title page, Lauten-Buch, Ophee is suppressing the information that the book is German (actually Bavarian, where Italian tablature was in use). Unfortunately the reviewer in the current issue of _The_Lute_ was taken in by this, and mistakenly writes that it is a lost Italian manuscript.<sigh> In any event, until a facsimile appears, Dick Hoban's tablature edition for Lyre Press will serve most lutenists. It also has updated information (missing in Ophee's book, although he owns Dick's edition) giving the correct titles and composer attributions for many of the anonymous pieces. ajn To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
