A few points about intabulations of sacred music in England. 1) Availability of English music was an issue since England started printing music in the late 1560s (there are very few exceptions to this). And even this was rather minimal (e.g. Thomas Whythourneâs Songs in three, fower and five parts did not come but until 1571, Byrdâs first print came in 1575). Meantime the Continent was going full swing with printers such as Attaignant, Gardano, Scotto, etc churning books non stop (with errors, misattributions and all). Furthermore, the fashion for printing vihuela music in Spain was over by 1576; somebody may be able to share what happened after that.
2) The majority of the music intabulated is for 3 or 4 voices in a narrow range (no more than two octaves plus a sixth). Conversely, William Byrd liked what he called the Great Compass, an arrangement of clefs with G2 on top and F4 at the bottom (unusual for the time), which allowed for a range of three octaves and a bit. The narrower Continental range, also called ânormal clefsâ or âlow clefsâ etc, can be intabulated on a 6-course up to the 8th or 9th fret (6th or 7th fret on a 7-course)⦠a very convenient part of the instrument. 3) Another important consideration is that many continental composers used the lute as their compositional tool (we have clear documentation on Palestrina and Lasso, for instance). I happen to believe that Tallis did use the lute but have not had the time to delve with this in any detail. Conversely, it is very obvious that Byrd composed on the keyboard. 4) Despite all of this, we have about 500 surviving intabulations of music by English and Continental composers in the collection of Edward Paston (1550-1630); from Fayrfax and Josquin all the way to Victoria and Byrd. They all lack the top part but are a good example of the Spanish tradition transplanted to England for domestic use. Best wishes, Hector > On 19 Mar 2015, at 04:33, Edward C. Yong <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hello folks! > > Iâve been going through intabulations of sacred polyphony for lute, and > after an admittedly brief search, I noticed something curious. > > The Continentals, particularly the Spanish, seem very interested in > intabulations of sacred polyphony, but I havenât found any examples of > English/British either doing the intabulations or being intabulated. > > Iâve been looking at the Fuenllana, Narvaez etc, and I find Josquin, > Morales, Gombert, but no Tallis or Byrd. Was English/British music entirely > unpopular on the Continent? > > Curious, > > Edward C. Yong > [email protected] > > > > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html --
