The recent look into the baroque guitar posted here has been quite a surprise to me. So much of the tablature for the music is available online, in the original editions or in manuscript and so easy to read that the rather startling differences in style between the guitar and the contemporary lute and vihuela music I've been familiar with for decades is rather surprising. And that difference, with the strummed chords of the guitar are explicitly described and notated in the music, as are the florid and involved ornaments. The descriptions of those are, unfortunately, mostly in other languages, especially Italian, Spanish and French. You can find some of those described in English online and some of them have been translated and published in books. I haven't gotten to a library big enough to have any of those yet and haven't checked them out. This is a definite sideline from my regular work in music as a piano teacher so there might be a lot I haven't found. One thing I haven't looked at yet is this book by James Tyler.
One thing you will need to read the tablatures is a guitar with at least five strings that you're willing to restring to play the "reentrant tuning". In some cases the fourth and in all cases the fifth string are tuned an octave above the pitches of those on the modern guitar. Instructions for that are given in this paper already linked to.
Here are some things available online:
- A large collection of manuscripts in pdf format, most of them quite readable, most with instructions in Spanish or French, and Italian (which contains some of the most interesting music). Most of them contain the "Italian alphabet" a key to reading the letters indicating chords contained in the tablatures. This one by Francesco Corbetta has it in both French and Italian tablatures.
- The English translation of texts from Joan Carles Amat's "Brief Treatis" found at the bottom of this page, in word format, is useful for people who don't read any of those languages. It can be pretty confusing to try to figure out what the quite non-standardized language in the original texts and in translations of those mean. I'd advise not trying to understand more than one of those at a time and to try to find out what a modern scholar specializing in it has said about that. I imagine a lot of the people who read the treatises and method books had to try to figure that out, as well.
You can find a lot more through a simple search for the names of the composers listed in online articles, the names of their books and pieces along with "pdf" and "manuscript". It's the way I've found almost all of what I've found. You can look under "baroque guitar" along with "tablature" "alfabeto italiano," under 'Images' for more easily read examples of those, such as this one. New things are being put online all the time. A lot of what is available now wasn't there when I first looked about six years ago. You should also look at the 4-string renaissance guitar, music for which is preserved in manuscripts, some of those containing music for the vihuela by well known composers such as Mudarra. I will post links to those on request.
The most interesting part of this, for me, has been in seeing a large body of music, carefully notated, that is a bridge between a cultivated tradition and what was obviously a more popular tradition. A lot of the tradition that led to the dances of Bachs and Couperin's suites and ordres almost certainly is found in a more vernacular state in these tablatures. The strumming, an intrinsic part of the music as described and notated, along with the intricate ornamentation feels kind of liberating and suggestive, though it's certain that Bach and Couperin have to be played on their own terms. Couperin certainly heard and knew some of the guitar composers in those manuscripts, who worked in the same courts. Perhaps this is also something of a link between J.S. and Hans Bach from the 16th century, suspected of being his great-great-great grandfather, a "white bread baker" who is reported in contemporary accounts as taking enormous delight in his cittern, which he played while his grain was being ground in the mill. Maybe that's where the enormous family of Bachs began. You never know where you might find a clue as to how to play the music you teach.
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