----- Original Message ----- From: "Martin Shepherd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Arthur Ness" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "Lute Net" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 3:37 AM Subject: Re: [LUTE] New piece of the month
| Dear Arthur, | | Thanks - I thought you might be interested! I had not realised it was | in Mertel as well, and now I look at it and it raises another | interesting question, because the Mertel text is practically identical | to Hirsch - where did they both (20 years apart and in different | countries) get this version? Hello Martin, <<ajn>>In working with early sources of lute music one must realize that literally tons of the stuff have been lost. And surely some if not much is lost without a trace. We know about Petrucci's book III (Gian Maria Allemani) because Ferdinando Columbus owned a copy (destroyed in the Lisbon Earthquake) and the surviving library catalogue describes the volume. Otherwise we would just know that there should be a book III someplace. But by whom? And when? And if the vols. were not numbered, we'd not even suspect that such a book ever existed. There are contracts with printers that indicate in the 16th century the usual press run for a book of lute music was about 1250-1500 copies. And when you look around for surviving copies, how many are there? Usually about a half dozen. More usually only a single copy survives. Or none as with Gian Maria and Segni. In other words a book of lute music has one chance in a thousand of reaching us today. And the chances are smaller with manuscripts that originally existed in one copy. THat would make the chance of a piece in a manuscript having one chance in a million of surviving to our age! And there is a fantasia in the Siena manuscript copied about 1595 that was first published in a corrupt version in Paris in 1529. No other copy/version is known. That's even a longer period. And it surely did not derive from a corrupt version. And there are no other sources for the piece which surely originated in Italy, perhaps from the pen of Francesco. |I suppose Mertel must have raided some | English sources (the very next piece in Mertel is a Fantasia by | Holborne, also in Hirsch but a tone lower) but it seems | unlikely that he | would have had access to Hirsch itself. <<ajn>>There were probably intermediary sources. The pieces in Mertal are unattributed, but are overwhelmingly by Continental composers Perrichon, Laurencini, Galilei, M. Newsidler, Francesco, Cato. The contents are reminiscent of Besard's _*Thesaurus*_ of 1603. And large numbers of pieces still remain unidentified. | | I would value your opinion on another pair of pieces: Recercar terzo | from da Crema's 1546 book, and Siena f.4 (no.52 in your Francesco edition). There are some curious discrepancies between | the two versions, though they are clearly both based on the same | "original" (by Segni?). <<ajn>>Which original do you mean? Segni just has a ricercar with the same openiojg theme. The version publ. in da Crema and attributed to "Francesco de milan" is in the HUP edition as Appendix 6. As such it does not appear in the surviving pieces by Segni, and so perhaps we should accept da Crema's attribution. The da Crema version has additional ornamentation, as do the other works. I think the original was composed as SATB or SAT part music, as da Crema indicates on the titlepage in regard to Segni, "intabulati & accomodati per sonar sopra il Lautto di M. Jo. Maria da Crema . . ." | Talking of Segni, is Slim's edition of Musica Nova still available? Apparently it's OOP. | I would like to acquire a copy, even if most of the Segni pieces adapted | for the lute are not in it, if my reading of Brown is correct. | <<ajn>>No. Slim and Brown were close friends and surely kept one another informed. Slim did a very good job in tracking down lute versions of Segni's ricercars. I only found two pieces Colin missed, and I'll tell you about them a few paragraphs below. Once again we are dealing with the chance survival of 16th century music. Of Segni's publication _*Musica Nova*_ (Venice 1540), only the bass part book survives. That's it. All gone. However a pirated(?) French edition appeared in Lyons with many of the same pieces (as can be determined from the bass part). So that is how Colin put together his edition of Musica Nova. But only a few of the Segni works were arranged for lute. The many lute arrangements that we do have probably came from a Segni publication that is entirely lost. Some time around 1550 Segni published an edition of some 50 "Recercari, intabulature da organi et da tocco". And an edition like that is probably the source from which people like da Crema made their lute arrangements. I wonder if that volume also included Francesco's works as well. Because Segni and Francesco were colleagues at the papal court. Colin missed a Francesco ricercar (No. 86) which appears in Music Nova (No. XI). Both sources date from about the same time, so to whom do we grant priority? Did Segni arrange a Francesco lute piece for organ? I discovered another fun Segni concordance in Domenico Bianchini's tablature book (Venice 1546). Two ricercars are by Segni. (Another one on "Faulte d'Argent" is in the style of Cavazzoni.) One of the Segni ricercars is in Musica nova but Colin missed it because the opening is embellished in Bianchini's lute arrangement. I was curious about that p[iece because so much of the music in Bianchini's book is rather primative. The work of an untrained amateur. So what were the finely wrought ricercars doing there? Segni was first organist at St. Mark's in Venice before going to Rome and joining Francesco. And Bianchini? He was a master mosaicist and member of a family of mocaicists who worked in St. Mark's! When Bianchini was working high up on the scaffold, Segni might very well be down below practicing the organ. I wonder if Bianchini sometimes played his lute arrangements down to Segni?<g> A kind of heavenly echo. The beginnings of cori spezzati? | Best wishes, | | Martin | | Arthur Ness wrote: | | >Dear Martin, | > | >That is an interesting pair of works that you published. The | >Hirsch version is the same as a fantasia (or fuga--the titles are | >not specific for each piece) in Elias Mertal, _Hortus Musicalis | >Novus_ (Strasbourg 1615), No. 79 (pp. 222-3). Probably the | >proper | >title is Fuga. I have a transcription (App. 4) like yours in | >parallel systems, and can send it if you are interested. I do | >think quite | >a few of Francesco's works were conceived as ensemble part music, | >including several pieces called "fuga." Not necessarily was it | >by Julio da Modena. | > | >Judging from the ornamentation, the Hirsch/Mertel version was | >second, and an attempt to make the piece canzona-like. | > | >Or I'll post the transcriptions to my site. Let me know. | > | >Best regards, Arthur. | >=====AJN (Boston, Mass.)===== | >* Free Download of the Week from Classical Music Library: | > | >For this week's free download from Classical Music Library go to | >my web page | >and click on Alexander Street Press link: | > | >http://mysite.verizon.net/arthurjness/ | > | >*Vaughan Williams'_ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis___* | >performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Christopher | >Seaman, conductor. More | >information about this piece is available on our music blog | ><http://alexanderstreet.typepad.com/music>. | > | >For some free scores, go to: | >http://mysite.verizon.net/vzepq31c/arthurjnesslutescores/ | >=================================== | > | >----- Original Message ----- | >From: "Martin Shepherd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | >To: "Lute Net" <[email protected]> | >Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 7:06 AM | >Subject: [LUTE] New piece of the month | > | > | >| Dear All, | >| | >| The new Piece of the Month for March is now available on | >| | >| www.luteshop.co.uk/month/pieceofthemonth.htm | >| | >| Downloads are available as Fromino, Tab, PDF and MP3. | >| | >| I hope your copy of Acrobat reader behaves better than mine - | >it seems | >| to be picking up the wrong file even though I've double/triple | >checked | >| that the links are correct. Please let me know if there are | >any other | >| problems. | >| | >| My web host has told me that, due to an upgrade, there may be | >some | >| disruption to service between 11pm this evening and 5am | >tommorrow - I | >| don't imagine this will be a problem for anyone in Europe but | >some of | >| you may be farther-flung. | >| | >| Best wishes, | >| | >| Martin | >| | >| | >| | >| To get on or off this list see list information at | >| http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html | >| | > | > | > | > | > | |
