Those numbers below chords are curious. My first inclination was to consider them indications on how to break the chords (like the shorthand used in earlier Italian sources), but breaking a two note "chord" in the middle of system 5 in "3" does seem curious. The numbers, as far as I can see, are _only_ on that page and not used in other pieces. They also appear in the two sections where the music is notated in from 2 to 5 notes aligned vertically for each "chord". Given that this is a Prelude, and likely played with an element of freedom, and thinking they may be intended to remind the manuscript owner of some performance difference in those chords, leads me to think they may possibly signal either breaking, relative note length, or repeating the chords that many times.
I am a big fan of Bartolotti and recently purchased the SFL edition by Moscardo. Because there was so little information in the edition about the source, I tried to seek out some more information about the first group of pieces from A-Wn 17706. Peter Steur's content list only lists piece 99 as being by Angelo Michiele (=SFL edition pp.6-7). Steur gives 88v as the folio number, but my (somewhat poor) photocopy seems to give the numbers 89 and 178 (?) in the corner. I cannot see any other indication of Bartolotti's authorship from the pages I have. http://mss.slweiss.de/index.php?id=2&type=ms&ms=A- Wn17706&lang=eng&showmss=1&stP The Sources Munuscrites en Tablature at http://www.bnu.fr/Smt/perb.htm lists only an Allemande and a Gigue by Bartolotti in A-Wn 17706. That second piece may well be the "Gigue de Angelin de Rome", which I assume is in the Baroque lute section of the manuscript. (Didn't someone -- possibly Monica Hall -- recently suggest that there was a Jewish lutenist in Rome with the name Angelo/Angelin?) Does anyone know on what grounds Moscardo feels that these 10 pieces are by Bartolotti? By the way, I believe there are two prominent mistakes in Moscardo's edition of the Allemanda on pages 6-7. Pickup measure has a "d" on the third course -- I believe this is a misreading of the "C" mensural sign, and that the piece begins with the two notes on the second string. In Moscardo's last system on page 6, last measure, the fifth event should be only "c" on string 2 with the open tenth course, then shift the "a_b" etc, one eighth note to the right. Moscardos measure only has 11 eighth notes instead of the original's 12. I have not looked for errors in the other pieces. -- R _______ Thank you for this. On the subject of Bartolotti's theorbo works, has anyone yet come up with an interpretation of the small numbers under the tablature stave in the Prelude starting at f. 90v of Wien NB MS 17.706. Altho' this piece isn't attributed to B., a later Allemande in a very similar style is. I asked this question a few years ago (in fact 14 Dec 2005) but there seemed no convincing view of what they meant. I've pasted my original query below and would be grateful for any insights. -------------------------------------------------------------------- ' What I think are even more problematical, are the numbers (ie a '2' or a '3') appearing under some chords at the bottom of page 90 (179) in the theorbo pieces at the back of Wien MS17.706. At first glance one might say these are simply shorthand for bass course tablature, but the MS uses the usual strokes (ie a /a //a ///a 4 5 6 7) to indicate these; is it the number of times the chord is repeated? - but in the context of the particular chord progressions where it appears this makes little sense; is it how the chord is to be broken? but the relevant chords have varying numbers of notes (ranging from three to 5) and he also uses the established ://: sign for arpeggiation; is it some LH fingering? - but in the context this again makes no sense.' Martyn -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
