3125401

8/14/2019 3125401

1/8

The Renaissance Guitar 1500-1650Author(s): James TylerSource: Early Music, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Oct., 1975), pp. 341-347Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3125401.

Accessed: 25/10/2013 20:23

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Oxford University Pressis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toEarly Music.

http://www.jstor.org

8/14/2019 3125401

2/8

h e renaissance g u i t r 1500 1650JAMES TYLER

Typicalour-courseuitarllustrated n thetitlepageofG.Morlaye's ePremierivre.. 1552.

Despite the revival of interest in the lute during thelast twenty years and the popularity of the classicalguitarfor the last forty, neither lutenists nor guitaristsseem aware yet of the treasure of music which stillsurvivesfor the earlyguitar. Equally unexplored is thebackgroundof the instrument itself. This is not neces-sarily the fault of the modern player, however, for itis almost impossible to acquire accurate informationfriomtoday's standard reference works; and althoughsome modern transcriptionsof earlyguitarmusic havebeen published, the editors concerned, withoutexplanation, have not only produced results that aremisleading, but have often entirelyrewrittenthe piecesthemselves Thanks to recent articles by musicologistssuch as SylviaMurphy,1this situation may be chang-ing, although of three recent books on the guitar inEnglish, only that of Harvey Turnbull2 is a seriouswork.In this article I shall try to help dispel some of theconfusion which surrounds the early guitar, and toindicate something of the wealth of its music. Thebest way to do so is to go directly to the originaltheoretical writings and the original music sources.This is not as wild and impossible as it may sound.Lutenists are obliged to as a matter of course. So whynot guitarists?A general description of the early guitarFirst,an important distinction must be made betweenthe guitar and the vihuela (da mano). The latter cangenerally be regarded as a guitar-shaped nstrumentwith eleven or twelve strings arranged in six courses,which was probably at least as large as a modernguitarand might sometimes have been even larger,asis indicated by the only vihuela known to have

survived."This instrument, in its original state, hadan enormously long string length of eighty centi-metres. The early guitar, on the other hand, tendedto be rather small; the two known 16th-centurysurvivals,4both have string lengths of just over fifty-fivecentimetres.The 16th-centuryguitar was a four-coursed instru-ment,"although five-coursed guitars existed, also wefind that itssmall size is indicated not only in pictorialsources, but also in the music written for it, some ofwhich requires great stretchesof the left hand fingers,extremelydifficultto achieveon a largerinstrument.

Very few construction details are known abouteither the vihuela or the earlyguitardue to the meagrenumber of instruments which survive. Common toboth, however, is a thin bar of wood for the bridge,similar to that of a lute, as is the use of moveable gutfrets tied around the neck. Again, like the lute, theearly guitar and vihuela never used stationary inlaidfrets. Even today, practical experience shows thatmoveable frets give the utmost advantage for finetuning and adjustment. Both instruments used plaingut strings for all the courses. Wound or overspunbasses were known only from the late 17th century,5so the sound of the early guitar must have been quitedifferent from that of today. On guitars and lutes,the thicker basses were matched with thinner octavestringsin order to avoid too dull a sound.The visual arts provide no clues as to the construc-tion of the back of either the guitar or vihuela, butthe one surviving vihuela has a flat back with extra-ordinarily shallow sides, proportionately about halfthe depth of a modern guitar. The Diaz guitar of1581,6 on the other hand, has a vaulted back con-struction, and also has quite shallow sides. This was

341

This content downloaded from 114.245.215.6 on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 20:23:24 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

8/14/2019 3125401

3/8

Late 5th-centuryntarsiana wall f theDucal alace,Mantua(Camerini'Isabella).to become quite common in the 17th century, moreso than the flat-backedstyle if we canjudge by surviv-ing instruments. Contemporary visual evidence, agood selection of which can be found reproduced inTurnbull's book, verifies the shallow ribs of bothinstruments, but, again, does not reveal their backs.We can, however, assume that both flat and vaultedconstruction existed simultaneously throughout thisperiod.Confusion in terminologyThe confusion in terminologyarises not only from thesheerprofusion of names for the guitar,but also fromthe number of instruments referred to as guitars butwhich were not. In the 16th century the Italian term'chitarra', the Spanish 'guitarra', and the French'guiterne' are the most common names one is likelyto come across. The Englishused the Frenchterm,butAnglicizedit to 'gittern'.' The Italian 'viola da mano'and the Spanish 'vihuela (da mano)' are often merelygeneric terms for a plucked instrument, but havegraduallycome to be used as names for the large sixcourse, guitar-shapedinstrument describedabove.Nor were these terms very clearly defined in the16thcentury. Fuenllanal gave music for afive as wellas six course 'vihuela'; the Santa Cruz manuscript9refers to the five course guitar as a 'biguela hordin-aria'; another Mexican manuscript'ofor five course

guitar designates it as 'vihuela'. And yet, judging bythe music which survives,the term 'vihuela' implied afairly large instrument, while the terms 'guitarra','guiterne', etc., implied a small one, generally havingonly four courses."TablatureIt is important to note that all guitar music up to the19thcenturywas written in tablature.Although manyguitarists today tend to regard it as an obscure,difficult, and arcane system (never having tried it),tablature is, in fact, a beautifully clear method ofnotation for plucked instruments-so simple andefficient that one can be playing from it within halfan hour.'2Tablature reading is absolutely essential for thestudyand performanceof early guitarmusic, enablingone to play a vast amount of material unavailable inmodern editions. In addition, it brings one consider-ably closer to the styleand feeling of the music as wellas to the composer, whose music is as it was written,untamperedwith,as in most modern transcriptions.Tunings and MusicThe guitar had a long historybefore the 16thcentury,especially in Italy and Spain. But it is only from the16thcenturyand later that accuratetuning details anda specificguitarrepertoireare available to us.Juan Bermudo, in his Declaracionde instrumentosmusicales... (1555), provides a wealth of information,not only about six and seven course vihuelas, butabout the guitar.'" He describes the guitar as beingsmaller than the vihuela (mas corto), and as usuallyhaving only four courses, the interval arrangementresembling the second through the fifth courses of avihuela. For specific tuning, he gives the following(Romannumeralsdesignatethe courses):'4Ex. 1'Temple uevos' 'Templcvicos'

7_- it_ - _- -A -t

IVr Il I IV III II IBermudo also wrote that, for purposes of puttingvocal music into tablature, one could 'imagine' theguitar, as well as the vihuela, at any other convenientpitch one might prefer. Hence, for a modern guitaristwishing to try out 16th-century music, it would bequite in order simply to keep the guitar in the usual e'tuning and play on only the top four strings. Solomusic is in tablature and for practice it does notmatter whatspecific pitch it is played in.

342

This content downloaded from 114.245.215.6 on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 20:23:24 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

8/14/2019 3125401

4/8

PADVANLrlow A s, ca-. I . Ia

cIl cI

.(FP b- 1F

ed 'ae--. I - . .. ti * &F F F F.fS*a " l*e " *I S4 * **.I "IJ

* I . . I . .I ni" Frenchguitar tablaturefrom G. Morlaye'sQuatriesmeivre .. 1552 f.19v.

The earliest surviving guitar music is for a fourcourse instrument, six pieces appearing in AlonsoMudarra's vihuela book, Tres LibrosDe Musica...(1546). They comprise one Fantasiain 'temple viejo',three more in 'temple nuovo', a Pavana,and a settingof 'O guardame las vacas' using the old Romanescaground. Although these are a modest offering, theyare of the same high qualityas Mudarra'sother piecesfor the six course vihuela.In Italy, Melchior Barberiis's lute book, OperaIntitolataContina.. LibroDecimo 1549), contains four'Fantasias' for guitar. Actually, they are light dancepieces; one of them was later reprinted in Paris as a'branle'. Barberiis called his instrument the 'Chitarada sette corde', referringto the seven stringsarrangedin four courses, the firstbeing single as on a lute.But it was in France that the four course guitarreceived the most attention. Startingin 1550with the

publications of Guillame Morlaye, Simon Gorlier,Gregoire Brayssing (actually an expatriate German),and Adrian Le Roy, we are provided with a delightfulrepertoireof excellent fantasias,dances, and chansonsfor solo guitar, or, possibly, as with the dances, forguitar as the lead instrument in a consort, and, withchansons, for voice with guitaraccompaniment.The guitar seems to have been favoured by KingHenri II himself, who probably became acquaintedwith it during his four yearsas a Spanishhostage. ButFrench court music was primarily influenced by Italyand many Italianmusicians were employed by Henri.Further, many of the guitar pieces in the first Frenchbooks originated in Italy; the dances, for example,and the exquisite guitar fantasias by Henri's court

lutenist, Alberto da Rippa.'~ Eventually though, thenative French music came to predominate, withintabulations of chansons by Sermisy, Certon, et al,and with numerous branles French country dances).This material laterspreadthroughout Europewith thehelp of the Flemish reprints of Phalkse, published in1570.Five course instruments were in use from at leastthe beginning of the 16th century. In Raimondi'sengraving of the poet Achillini, c.1510 (see the repro-duction in this article), the number of pegs indicatefive courses, the body appears large, and the instru-ment case on the ground indicates the vaulted backwhich can be found on many later guitars. Thisinstrumentmight be called an Italian 'viola da mano'.Remember that 'viola' or 'vihuela' is often a generic,not a specific, term. Bermudo (Cap. LXV)in discuss-ing a point mentions 'el Laud, o vihuela de Flandes'(the lute, or vihuela of Flanders).A Neapolitan print,c.1536, of Francesco da Milano's lute music reads:Intavolaturade Violaovera Lauto. ... .6 And Castiglione,in talking about gentlemanly pursuits in his famousbook, The Courtier 1528), mentions singing to the'viola', meaning, most likely, an instrument like theone in Raimondi's engraving and not, as is oftenthought today, a viol. Sir Thomas Hoby, in his 1561translation of Castiglione's book translates 'viola' as'lute'.The first music for a five course instrumentappeared in Fuenllana's book of 1554 in which heincluded pieces for a 'vihuela de cinco ordenes'. Thetablaturecalled for an instrumentwith a bottom fifthcourse tuned a fourth below the fourth course. No

343

This content downloaded from 114.245.215.6 on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 20:23:24 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

8/14/2019 3125401

5/8

indication is given as to pitch or octave stringing,buta likelyarrangementis the one byJuan Carlosy Amatdescribed below. This instrument could very well bethe same type as Raimondi's large 'viola da mano'.Intabulated for it are two sections of a mass byMorales, a villancicoby Vasquez, and six excellentfantasias. These are followed by intabulations andfantasiasfor the four course 'guitarra'.Bermudo frequently mentioned the 'guitarra decinco ordenes' (five course guitar) and said that onecould be made by adding to the four course guitara string a fourth above the present first course (LibroSegundo,Cap. XXXII). He also described new andimproved tunings such as: c,g,c',e',g'. (Libro egundo,Cap.LXVII. This pitch I assume from context.) Hefurther mentioned a 'guitarragrande' of six courses(Libroquarto, Cap. LX.) And he gave more unusualtunings for the four course guitar. No music survivesfor anyof these tuning arrangements.

The only other five course music from the 16thcentury is by Juan Carlos y Amat, GuitarraEspahiola,y Vandola.. (1586). Although this is now lost, weknow about it from several 17th-century reprints."'WithAmat, we are introduced to some importantnewideas, for Amatwas the firstto specifythe pitch:Ex. 2

V IV III II IThe instrument it applies to is called the 'GuitarraEspafiola', and, ignoring the octave stringing, tuningis, of course, the same as the top five strings of ourmodern guitar.Amatwasalso the first to devisea systemof notationfor strummed music, which, in Spanish, is called'rasgueado'.This style of playing is described as old-fashioned by Bermudo in 1555, but by the beginningof the 17th century it was the major and almostexclusivestylefor the immensely popular guitar.The idea of 'rasgueado' notation is to assign aseparate letter of the alphabet (or symbol) to eachchord to be found on the fingerboard. The chordsemploy all five courses. Under the letters, a series ofvertical lines are placed, either below or above onehorizontal line to indicate, respectively,a down or anup stroke of the right hand. More exact rhythm andmetre is sometimes supplied above the letters byordinary notes in the manner of other tablatures.Although the letters do not correspond to the actualnames of the chords aswe now know them, this system

foreshadows the chord symbol system that guitaristsstill use in popular music today.Amat's systemwas changed in certaindetailsby the17th-century Italians, who called it 'alfabeto'. Thestrummed'rasgado'playing can be quite rhythmicallyexcitingand deservesserious investigation.The 'chitarra spagnola' gained such great popu-larityfrom the early 17th centuryas to leave the lute,cittern,and the small guitar in a position of dwindlingimportance. However, the small guitar was not en-tirelysuperseded.Scipione Cerretoin his DellaPratticaMusica(1601) gave unusually precise instructions fortuning the small four course guitar. In staffnotationand verbaldescriptionhe gavethe following:Ex. 3

IV III I 1The fourth course is in unison and the tuning is re-entrant,as with a cittern,and similarto that indicatedin certain five course guitar sources which will bediscussed later. Despite this, Cerreto's tuning is likeBermudo's 'old tuning', but a tone higher. This tuningand its high pitch is corroborated in an anonymouscollection, published in 1645, entitled ConsertoVago,which contains trios for 'tiorba', 'liuto' and'chitarrino'.The normal Italian a' tuning of the luteand theorbo means that the chitarrino is pitched justas Cerreto described.

Michael Praetorius, a strong advocate of Italian-style music, in his famous SyntagmaMusicumvol. II,1619),providesa wealth of information. For instance:'The Quinterna r Chiternas an instrumentwith fourcourses which are tuned like the very earliest of lutes'(p. 53). 'This tuning is c,f,a,d' with double strings'(chapter24). 'It has, however,not a rounded back,butis completelyflat, quite like a bandora, and hardlytwoor three fingers in depth. ... Some have five courses,and in Italy, the charlatans and mountebanks(Ziarlatiniund Salt' in banco), who are like ourcomedians and clowns, strum them, singing theirvillanellas nd other foolish songs. Nevertheless,goodsingers can sing fine and lovely songs with it.'Praetoriusmade no mention of the details of string-ing, but gavethe following two tunings:Ex. 4

IV III I I IV III" II I344

This content downloaded from 114.245.215.6 on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 20:23:24 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

8/14/2019 3125401

6/8

The four course guitar also adopted the Spanishguitar's alfabeto system and was played in the rasgadostyle as well as in the 'punteado', or lute style. PietroMillioni's Corona Del Primo... Libro . . (1627) des-cribed a four course alfabeto for the chitarrino as wellas one for the Spanishguitar.The last publication for the small guitar seems tohave been John Playford's A Booke of New Lessonsforthe Cittern and Gittern (1652), which contains onlypunteado-style music.The re-entrant tuning for the small guitar which wasmentioned above, was sometimes adopted for theSpanish guitar as well. Luis de Bri;eiio in his Metodomuifacilissimo of 1626 specified the following in whichthe third course is the lowest note on the guitar:Ex. 5

V IV III II IMerscieni' gave this saine tuning in 1636, and, laterin the century, the well-known music of Gaspar Sanz2orequired it as well. Bripeiio gave only strummedmusic, so the above need not necessarily be adheredto, although Sanz's music was idiomatically writtenfor it. It is quite difficult to represent Sanz's sound andeffects in modern notation, but with a properly tunedguitar and the player reading from the originaltablature, we can at last hear what Sanz really intendedhis music to sound like. This is one important reasonwhy no early guitar music should be publishedwithout also reprinting the tablature beside it.It should be noted, however, that before 1650 mostof the tablatures required the type of tuning given byAmat, and it was rare to find the more unusual onedescribed above. See, however, Donald Gill's articleon BaroqueGuitarTunings in this issue.In 1629, Giovanni Paolo Foscarini published hisIntavolatura di chitarraspagnola libro secondo, one of aseries produced by him. Foscarini, known as'L'Academico Caliginoso detto il Furioso' (theobscure academic called Il Furioso), used not onlythe popular 'alfabeto' style, but also reintroduced thepunteado style for the guitar with pieces notated solelyfor one or the other and also a new mixed tablaturecombining both. This mixed tablature became moreand more common as the century progressed.Foscarini stands out as a very individual and quiteexceptional composer for the guitar. His music isoften daring and very original, and he rates, in myestimation, with Corbetta and later Roncalli. Yetalmost none of his music is available in a satisfactory

Five-coursevioladamnano',.1510.EngravingyMarcantonioRaimondi.edition, and, for that reason, only the ambitiousguitarist willing to study his original tablatures canbenefit fiom his work.Other important writers for the five course guitarbefore 1650 include Angiolo Michele Bartolotti, CarloCalvi, Antonio Carbonchi, Giovanni Battista Granata,and Stefano Pesori. The works of these and manyothers are listed in a useful bibliography by PeterDanner.2'Other members of the guitarfamilybefore 1650BANDURRIA A small plucked instrument derived fromthe guitar. Next to nothing is known about its physicalappearance in the 16th century, but we do know fromBermudo'sdiscourse(LibroQuarto, ap. XCVII and XCVIII)that it was a small treble instrument with threestrings(gut?),tuned in fifths. (He doesn't give pitches.) Sometimes onecould tune the three strings to a fourth and a fifth, or viceversa. According to Bermudo, players may have developedthe bandurria by shortening the guitar and reducing thenumber of strings. Some players used no frets, some usedsix or seven, but it was difficult to fret because of the shortstring length. He goes on to say that a fourth string could

345

This content downloaded from 114.245.215.6 on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 20:23:24 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

8/14/2019 3125401

7/8

be added and that he had seen five string bandurriasfromAmerica. Later, in the 17th and 18th centuries, thebandurria acquired six double courses and was mostlyplayed with a plectrum as the treble in an ensemble. Thisis how the bandurria is still played today.CHITARRIGLIA A small five course guitar tuned like theSpanish guitar but at a higher pitch for the first course (forexample g' or a'). A significant number of 17th-centurymusic books specify the use of this instrument, includingsome by Calvi, Granata, and Pesori. The guitar by Diaz,mentioned earlier,is probablya chitarriglia.CHITARRINO The 17th-centuryname for the small fourcourse guitar. Agostino Agazzari, in his Del Sonaresopra lbasso ... 1607,22 said '[like ornament instruments] are thosewhich, in a playful and contrapuntal fashion, make theharmony more agreeable and sonorous, namely, the lute,theorbo, harp, lirone, cittern, spinet, chitarrino,violin,pandora mandora]and the like'. The chitarrino part in thepreviously mentioned ConsertoVago fits this descriptionperfectly. In the sixth intermedio for the wedding inFlorence of Ferdinand I de' Medici and Christine ofLorraine, 1589, a 'chitaralla Spagnola' and 'chitarrini . . .alla Napolettana' are mentioned.23Nothing is known aboutthe physical differences between the two instruments.Millioni's alfabeto for chitarrino (which he also calledChitarra Italiana) is reprinted in J. Wolf's HandbuchderNotationskunde,II, p. 173.CHITARRABATTENTE A five course guitar, of varyingsize, which is designed for wire strings of brass and low-tempered steel. The strings were not always arranged inpairs; sometimes, as later examples show, they werearranged in threes. The instrumenthad a moveable bridge,held in place by the pressure of the strings stretching overit to the lower end of the body, and had a bend in the topstarting below the bridge which counteracted.the pressureof the strings. This feature is similar on the neapolitanmandolin. Unlike any of the other members of the guitarfamily, the chitarra battente had inlaid bone or metal fretsto accommodate the wire strings. Its back was usuallyvaulted, like many ordinary guitars of the time, but its sidestended to be ratherdeep. It was playedwith a quill plectrumiand was probably confined to alfabeto music. It would bea good idea if the term 'chitarrabattente' was used only forthe instruments described above instead of, as is now donein reference books, sales catalogues and the like, to use itfor anyguitar which happens to have a vaulted back. Theselatter guitarswith their flat table and glued-on bridge wereclearlydesigned for gut strings and not, like a true chitarrabattente, for wire strings. In general, classifyinginstrumentsby shape of back, shape of peg head, or even general bodyshape, is rapidly becoming an unacceptable method.Function and dependent, pertinent design features shouldbe the main considerations. No one, after all, would call a16th-century figure-eight shaped viol a guitar simply

because it had a guitar shape and frets. No specific musicfor the chitarrabattente has survived,but Pesori's I ConcertiArmonici.. c.1645 includes a few 'Scherzi di Penna', whichmay well be intended for this instrument.MANDOLA Possibly, in some cases, the smallest memberof the guitar family. The term is rarelymet with in the 16thcentury and should not necessarily be used for 'mandora',the very small treble lute of the period. The French termfor the mandora was 'mandore' and the Italian, 'pandora'or 'pandurina'. In the 1589 wedding intermedii forFerdinand I mentioned above,24a 'mandola' was used andfrom the context, it seems to be a treble instrument.Unfortunately, nothing further is known. A late source,Bonanni's Gabinetto Armonico... 1716, illustrated themandola as a tiny four course guitar the size of a modernukelele. In 1677, Ricci, in his guitar book ScuolaD'Intovolatura.., printed in treble clef staff notation, a'Balletto' for mandola. The term, of course, later came tomean a larger member of the mandolin family. (See also,Vandola.)VANDOLA Again, a term which cannot be defined withcertainty until we learn much more about original sourcematerial.Juan Carlos y Amat's vandola, mentioned in his1586 title page, could very well be the small five courseguitar which the Italians called 'chitarriglia'. On the otherhand, a very late source, Pablo Minguet y Yrol's ReglasyAdvertencias.. c.1752, implied that the vandola was an alto-sized five or six course mandolin (see mandola). The tangledmeanings of vandola, bandola, mandola and the like are,as yet, far from clear, and with over 150 years separatingthese two references,they could conceivably be two differentinstruments.A bibliography of music for the four courseguitarThis list includes music which is known to have existed butwhich is now lost; shown by the use of brackets. For detailedinformation on the earlier printed books and the locationof copies, see Howard M. Brown's InstrumentalMusic PrintedBefore 600, HarvardUniversityPress, 1965.PRINTED BOOKS1546 MUDARRA, Alonso, TresLibrosde Musica ...1549 BARBERIIS, Melchiore de, Opera Intitolata Contina ..

[1550] MORLAYE, Guillaume, Tabulaturedeguiterne ...1551 GORLIER, Simon, Le TroysiemeLivre... De Guiterne...1551 LE ROY, Adrian, Premier Livre de Tabulature deGuiterre .[1551] LE ROY, Adrian, Briefve et facile instruction pourapprendre la tabulature a bien accorder, conduire et

disposer a mainsur la guiterne1552 LE ROY, Adrian, TiersLivre ... De Guiterre .1552 MORLAYE, Guillaume, Le Premier Livre... DeGuiterne ..1552 MORLAYE, Guillaume, Quatriesme Livre... De

Guyterne&r . . De la Cistre ..346

This content downloaded from 114.245.215.6 on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 20:23:24 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

8/14/2019 3125401

8/8