I didn't mean to accuse anyone of being theorbocentric
To begin with the dry statistics:
- there were hundreds--if not thousands--players of the guitar in Italy.
Probably many more than players of the theorbo.
- a large number of sources report of people singing to the guitar
- there are hundreds--if not thousands--printed songs with alfabeto and
basso continuo
- only a small minority of these songs are known to be based on dances or
ostinato patterns
- so probably most songs with alfabeto were newly composed
Now to some questions, thoughts, speculations etc.
- Should we assume that all these guitar enthusiasts were only
singing/accompanying alfabeto arrangements
of pre-existing continuo songs? Are you suggesting that all newly composed
songs with alfabeto are arranged to the guitar?
- Would the process always/normally have been like this:
First there is a poem, then the composer is inspired and creates/finds a
complete melody, next he makes the bass, in counterpoint, to which he adds
figures. And finally
comes a jobbing printer/guitarist to add alfabeto, most likely for
commercial reasons?
Another scenario would be that the composer finds good harmonies to
melodic fragments. The harmony implies a bass (or is implied by a
bass). There are different possible harmonizations/ bass lines, from which
the composer makes his choice. Step by step the whole melody and harmony are
shaped, altered, and
the bass or/and the melody will be adapted until the perfect shape of the
composition is found.
For an organist-guitarist (Milanuzzi) or a theorbist-guitarist (Corradi,
Falconieri) it would have been easy to make a guitar version and a
continuo bass at the same time, during the process. It's two sides of the
same music.
For your customers who would like to make
use of the guitar (because they don't have a costly theorbo or harpsichord
at home, for example), you publish
alfabeto songs, and (for marketing reasons) you add a continuo line.
Allow me to quote from Alex Dean's dissertation again:
p. 138. '[these songs have] simplified bass lines, . . omitting passing
tones, . . using the kind of practical, playable chord progressions found in
the alfabeto dance sources, . . Basso continuo lines in these pieces often
use one note per harmony in combination with recurring rhythmic patterns to
create strong harmonic periods that are easily adapted to strummed guitar
performance. In such pieces, there is little need to simplify the bass line
to make the alfabeto functional, since the compositional conception is
already so close to the guitar tradition.'
- The 'to the reader' from Marini's 1622 collection is generally understood
to be by the composer.
'You will find in some places in this work that the alfabeto does not
concord with the bass. The intent of the composer is to accompany the voice
in as many [ways] as possible, do not concern yourself with the obligation
to that [bass line], since the guitar cannot produce many beautiful
harmonies.' Then follow the V4-3 - I cadences, 'which can be found in many
places in the compositions in this book.'
Why should we believe that this text was written by a jobbing guitarist or a
comercially minded printer?
best wishes, Lex
Just because the bass lines are simple does not require that they were
necessarily composed on the guitar as I think you are now suggesting.
And what may seem to us to be simple 'folk' harmonies may have been
precisely the effect they were aiming at - even when not a guitar
player. Indeed, as I've already pointed out, we need to be careful
before assuming that 'simple' songs means untutored tunes.
Now to turn to solo villanelle and the like you mention: are you now
suggesting that the melodies of these were generally created by someone
hearing a chord sequence and then inventing a melody to fit it.
A more believable hypothesis is that the tunes
were invented and harmonies and even alfabeto added later as I've
already explained.
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