Dear Martyn, thanks for your patience
Your response seemed, to me, to say that you did indeed think that an alfabeto asequence was created to which tunes (and bass) were later added. If I now understand you, yopu do not think this was the case and agree with me that in these light airs the tune would have generally come first to which harmony was later added.
We seem to almost agree. I suppose that composition is more of a gradual process, with mutual influence of melody and harmony.
Rehgarding Il Verno - yes I am sure. A hemiola in just the upper part is by no means unkown in the Italian repertoire (vocal and instrumental) of the period. Look at Bounamente, Falconierio et al. It also works very well in practice. We should not always aim to smooth out these passing things as the 19th/20th century arrangers sometimes attempted
Indeed not. But with voice + alfabeto the hemiola would coincide, while with voice + alfabeto + bass I see more difficulty
best, Lex
To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
