Dear Franz, You have touched on a fundamental problem with renaissance music. So much of it was conceived in terms of polyphony, so singing soprano and alto lines down an octave rarely works well. The frottole collected by Bossinensis and published by Petrucci in 1509 and 1511, for example, are a dead loss when sung down an octave. It's OK to use instruments instead of singers, so a soprano accompanied by a lute and/or a few viols playing the lowest voices will work well.
Unfortunately, transposing the cantus down an octave is unsatisfactory, since it obscures the polyphony. That is presumably why Fuenllana did what he did. Rather than transpose the top line down an octave, he gave one of the lines to a singer to sing at the correct pitch, including some songs where the soloist sang the bass line. I think that is the way for a solo bass singer to proceed with polyphonic music. A hundred years later, songs were conceived more as solo songs, and I have in mind English lute songs from 1597 onwards. Although many of them were published so that they could be sung as part-songs with four voices, they are essentially solo songs. We know from Robert Dowland's _Musical Banquet_ (London, 1610), that the songs in that collection were to be sung down an octave by a man, not at the written pitch. Doing that generally works well with other English lute songs too, but that isn't going to help you find repertoire as a bass singer. There is much you can do if you find a friendly soprano, including singing duets such as Dowland's "Flow my teares" or the dialogue "Humor say", but that doesn't answer your question about solo songs for a bass singer. I hope there will be some more specific suggestions forthcoming from Lutenetters to add to Fuenllana's songs. Best wishes, Stewart. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Hector Sent: 24 January 2011 09:55 To: lute-cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [LUTE] Re: lute songs for bass voice? Dear Franz, There are many songs in the alto range that should fit you comfortably. The 'problem' is that you will be singing at a transposed range (down an octave) thus not matching the lute in the 'usual' way. I really don't mind that, although some people do care. You can also take songs in the soprano range and transpose them down a 4th or 5th and play them with a big lute in E or D (a classical guitar will do the trick for six course music). The 'singing' line for many of the vihuela songs is the tenor line, you could take those songs and transpose them down a 4th or 5th, play them with a big lute and voila! Quick vihuela examples: Milan: Con pavor recordó el moro Narvaez: Y la mi cinta dorada Valderrábano: Fuga a tres, primero grado (for solmisation, bass line) There is also Valderrábano's 'Segundo Libro de motetes y otras cosas para cantar y tañer contrabaxo y en otras partes tenor' [Second book of motets and other things to sing and play the bass and in other instances the tenor]. Hope this helps, Hector On Jan 24, 2011, at 8:45 AM, Franz Mechsner wrote: > Dear Lutenists, > > I would love to sing some of the beautiful Renaissance lute (or > vihuela) songs by myself (in private of course...), but cannot find any > for bass voice. Is it that songs were exclusively or mainly composed > for higher pitches of voice? If it was for an ideal of beauty - weren't > there male amateurs who liked to sing as well (as good as they could) > in these times? Could you point me to some suitable sources? > > Best regards > Franz > > > -- > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
