Chris, Ralf, I was speaking of the "Pieces de Theorbe et de Luth, Mises en Partition Dessus et Basse", 1716 (facsimile Madrid, 1983). The guitar is not mentioned. One might take this to suggest that de Visée himself viewed the pieces as theorbo and lute music.
In his 1983 preface, Juan Marcos remarked that "many of these pieces had, years before, an edition of its guitar versions" (sic!). However, that it was "impossible to know for what instruments were they originaly conceived" (sic!). I for one cannot see good reasons why one should claim that what de Visee called music for the theorbo and the lute, in fact is guitar music (that must have been rewritten for the theorbo and the lute). As a matter of fact, pieces by de Visee that exist in versions for the theorbo, the lute, the guitar and / or in score (en partition), have in common that versions of a piece for lute, guitar and / or in score share the same key, whereas the respective theorbo version is a 4th lower. IMO it is safe to say about the 1716 score edition, that if pieces exists in versions for the theorbo as well as other versions, the theorbo version is original, nevertheless. Mathias > > The theorbo pieces of de Visée's publication en musique stand a 4th > > higher than the correspondent tablature versions. > Can the transposition of a 4th "en musique" be because > de Visee was using his guitar pieces as his reference > point? Most of the solo theorbo pieces that also exist > in guitar versions are pitched down a 4th from the > guitar. This makes sense since the guitar with > re-entrant 5th course will have the 4th course as its lowest > pitch, so as to be really "in d." > > Chris > > Christopher Wilke > Lutenist, Guitarist and Composer > www.christopherwilke.com > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
