19 Lute Fantasias by Dalza, Lopez, Mudarra, Da Milano, Le Roy, Morlaye, De Rippe, Fuenllana, Ferrabosco the Elder, Dlugoraj, Kargel, and Kapsberger – transcribed for guitar by John W Duarte
Ut Orpheus: 48 pages
Nearly all of these works were written for the 6 course Renaissance Lute , tuned in the same relationship as the guitar, except for the 3rd string where our G , has to be dropped a semitone to an F#. Of course the pitch of the lute was usually higher, so if necessary players can put a capo onto a higher fret to make up for that difference. The 4 pieces by Fuenllana and Morlaye were written for the 4 – course guitar, tuned the same as our top four strings.
So what you get here is a considerable amount of this style of piece, all of which do have a particular format in common in spite of all the country differences. Fugal melodies are often the main source of the musical material and range from the almost completely chordal Tastar De Corde by Joan Ambrosio Dalza from 1508 to the complex, usually three – voice Fantasia by Francesco Canova Da Milano.
So you need to be quite a decent player to get the best out of these fine works and they are (with the exceptions of the pieces written for the 4 – course guitar), great practice if you are not used to the 3rd string being dropped a semi – tone to F#, because after you have mastered that , you may want to think about getting a lute and playing them on the original instrumentation, which many decades ago, is exactly what I did! This is another fine book by John Duarte
Chris Dumigan
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