What you seem to be unaware of is that the music is intabulated in a very
different way from lute music with the emphasis on the 5th course being
used as a treble string rather than a bass string - and not just in
campanellas.
Which can of course be realized with an octave strung course.
> Why should the lower string of an octave pair on the baroque guitar be
placed on the treble side? This is the other way round from the lute,
and seems counter-intuitive.
In fact most of the evidence for this practice comes from the middle of
the 18th century. As I pointed out in a previous discussion, this may be
because in the 17th century the guitar probably more often had a
re-entrant tuning of some sort and it was therefore not necessary to
mention the reverse stringing.
What kind of evidence are we looking for? Visee and Corbetta (and most
likely many players who played their music) probably had reverse stringing
on the fourth course. Nevertheless it is mentioned nowhere in their books.
Unfortunately there will still be times when
the bourdon will sound in campanellas, which is presumably why Sanz and
others gave up bourdons altogether.
Unfortunately there are a lot of other places too which is probably why
the bordones were dropped altogether when more elaborate music began to be
played on the instrument.
This brings us back to Bartolotti, who was the first to publish a book of
elaborate music with (real) campanelas. It is highly unlikely that he
dropped his bourdons. That would have ruined his music. With him I vote for
reverse stringing of the fourth and fifth courses.
Lex
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