>>or do with 'Caccini's' fake version. > > What's the story behind this? Who is the actual composer?
This is how I remember it. In one of the very early operas around 1600, was it by Peri or Da Gagliano?, there's an instrumental line, nothing much, by Caccini. These operas often were products of collaboration. This line is picked up in the 20st century by Steven Mercurio, who writes an arrangement for string orchestra, full of unresolved 7ths, rather forgetting all of Alfonso's rules for early 17th century Italian continuo it seems, and then Cecilia Bartoli makes it into a hit. (I also recorded it with a singer, and together with two different recordings of Amarilli, these are the pieces that get most airplay.) I usually play it on guitar these days (f-minor on a lute in 415 translates very conveniently to e-minor on a guitar in 440), but for those of you that are interested, I have, for reasons of copyright (I think Mr. Mercurio arns well on this song) strictly for educational and research puposes, two presentable versions for lute and voice available: in g with a continuo line, in d with a very simple tab-arrangement I made for a friend years ago. Send me a mail if you're interested, and I'll send you a pdf. the continuo version is easy to transpose to whatever is comfortable for your singer, just ask David PS: This video sums it all up nicely http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjZ8fBGtMaI To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
