Dear Eugene, I came across the same. The music works on an archlute played as solo but also makes a perfect duo.
There are By the way some figures in the bass but very few (funnily the first piece which comes in mind is for solo lute). The works are very late so I would assume archlute transcriptions but they also work the other way with just a bit fantasy you can easily produce an accompaniment for the upper voice. Best wishes Thomas > Dalla Casa could be assumed to be in old tuning, too and this from > around 1762. No assumption required: the book is dedicated to "Suonate di Cellebre Auttori per l'Arcileuto Francese" and a "Scale per l'Arcileuto Franceso" is given late in the book. Dalla Casa dated it "1759." Of personal interest, this book includes several works for "mandolino e Basso del Arcileuto" in two-staff notation that looks much like the rest of the book. It also gives a "scale" for mandolino in standard 5-course tuning (b-e'-a'-d"-g"). If one assumes the top staff of the mandolino works is intended for mandolino and the bottom staff for basso continuo (there are no figures), the top staff would occasionally require a 6-course instrument. 6-course mandolini certainly were common by then. If he intended such an instrument, why does his tuning chart specify five courses? Did Dalla Casa intend these to be read as archlute transcriptions of originally accompanied mandolin works, or as accompanied mandolin works leaving accompanists to sort out the continuo? Any thoughts? Best, Eugene To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
