> > Whilst on the subject I would like to mention that Doizi de Velasco does > say > > that when chords are played rasgado, the wrong inversions are acceptable. > > What he says is "And although whichever method of stringing is used, some > > chords will still have a fourth in the bass, these can be made good when > > they are played rasgado - "esto se puede suplir, quando se tanen de > rasgado" > > "Suplir" means to "supply something which is missing", "make good > something > > which is deffective", > > It can be made good indeed. By leaving out the interval of a fourth between > the 4th and 5th courses. Lettere tagliate that was called. Or written by > Doizi as a D major chord with an x on the fifth course. Indeed to be played > rasgado.
Sorry but that is not what Doizi says - it is playing them rasgado, rather than playing them punteado that makes them good. They can't be made good when played punteado - for obvious reasons. Your interpretation implies that they can't be made good if played otherwise -which doesn't make sense. As far as the tables of chords at the end are concerned he suggests that it is better to re-voice all the standard chords so that they match the inversion implied by the bass note, whether they are 6/3 or 6/4, but he doesn't rule out the possibility of using them unalterd. He does also say in the text that there were differences of opinion as to whether the interval of a 4th was a dissonance. The primary purpose of Doizi's treatise (which you seem to have overlooked) is to explain the proper accompaniment of dissonance. The problem with the standard chords of alfabeto is not that a few are 6-4s but that they cannot accommodate dissonance. If there is a 4-3 suspension in the voice part it is not good enough to accompany it with a major common chord. The primary purpose of the tables of chords is to show all the different dissonances which can be formed on each bass note. If you examine the additional symbols for altered chords in Foscarini you will see that nearly all of them are designed to allow the dissonant fourth to be introduced at a cadence. A fair number of those in Corbetta's 1639 book serve the same purpose. Bartolotti probably had the idea of using letter tagliate for that reason - he associas them primarily with the introduction of 4-3 or 7-6 suspensions. Incidentally on the subject of lettere tagliate I checked Corbetta's 1643 for examples where he has written out the equivalent of Bartolotti's G tagliate. There are total of 58. 30 of these are 4-3 suspensions and 21 have other fingering implications. Only 7 have no obvious fingering implications..but no one is ever entirely consistent. There are a few instances of his writing the equivalent of Bartolotti's P tagliate to allow the introduction of passing notes. Monica To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
