Dear Sandy, For the full story on this you need to read Michael Morrow's article 'Ayre on the F sharp string' in the Lute Society Journal of 1960. The piece requires re-tuning the lute (5 courses) to give a tuning suitable for a drone accompaniment of a melody. Newsidler gives precise instructions for the tuning, but it seems that a printers error crept into them, resulting in the German tablature symbol for the second course, 5th fret, being mistaken for the symbol for the second course, 4th fret for the tuning of the top string. Apel assumed the tuning to be correct, which resulted in a him thinking that the top string was tuned a semi-tone lower than it should have been. This led to his belief that the piece was the first in musical history simultaneously written in two different keys. If I remember correctly the lutenist Konrad Ragosnig recorded this disastrously cacophonous version on his album of German lute music in the 1970's. When the tuning is corrected - (on a G lute this would be to [G] ddad'g' ) the tune becomes an attractive, but normal, drone accompanied lute piece. With characteristic good humour, the guitarist John Renbourn used to play both versions on the guitar one after the other.
Best wishes, Denys ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sandy Hackney" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 7:42 PM Subject: [LUTE] Der Juden Tanz - Neusiedler > > An organist friend of mine mentioned the above named piece in the context of early transcriptions, claiming that Willi Apel had made various statements about it that were later shown to be "incorrect" due to scordatura errors. > In HAM, the piece is #105b and Apel does say that it is "...one of the most remarkable specimens of 16th century music. Shrill dissonances, otherwise unheard of before 20th century music...an extremely realistic picture (of what one might ask?), not lacking a touch of satire." > > 1) I can't find the original tablature, and 2) I thought that most lute pieces used the "standard" tuning so is scordatura in play? But, Appel does say in his "Dictionary" under scordatura that the piece uses a tuning of A-e-e-b-e'-g#. > > Who of our resident experts, e.g., Stewart McCoy, might help me here? Many thanks. > Sandy > -- > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 268.8.3/360 - Release Date: 09/06/2006 > > -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 268.8.3/360 - Release Date: 09/06/2006
