Music for Viola Bastarda
Music for Viola Bastarda

Author: Jason Paras

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 1986-04-22

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9780253388247

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The term "viola bastarda" refers to both an instrument and a style of playing that is one of the crowning achievements of musical mannerism. The Italian repertory for the solo viola da gamba in the 16th and early 17th centuries was largely music played "alla bastarda," an art of performance in which a polyphonic composition is transformed into a single melodic line derived from the original parts and spanning their ranges. Jason Paras has traced the development of the "viola bastarda" and has assembled and transcribed 46 peices in this genre. The music in his collection is a rich and fascinating repertory that is rarely heard today. This anthology is an invitation to present-day players to recreate the improvisation practice of the 16th and 17th centuries in ways not fully disclosed by ornamentation manuals of that time.

The Viola Da Gamba
The Viola Da Gamba

Author: Bettina Hoffmann

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-11-11

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780367443757

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The viola da gamba was a central instrument in European music from the late fifteenth century well into the late eighteenth. Bettina Hoffmann offers an introduction to the instrument-its construction, technique and history-for the non-specialist with a wealth of original archival scholarship that experts will relish.

The Early History of the Viol
The Early History of the Viol

Author: Ian Woodfield

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1988-04-21

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 9780521357432

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This book traces the development of the viol from its late medieval Spanish origins to the sixteenth century, when it became the most widely played bowed instrument in western Europe. Ian Woodfield examines the two most important ancestors of the instrument, the Moorish rahab and the vihuela de mano. From these two instruments emerged an early form of viol, the Valencian vihuela de arco, which spread rapidly across the Mediterranean during the papacy of Rodrigo Borgia. The viol was enthusiastically accepted by the d'Este and Gonzaga families and other Italian arbiters before migrating across the Alps and into the rest of Europe. The author discusses all aspects of the viol during its Renaissance hey-day: the growing perfection of viol design at the hands of Italian craftsmen; the gradual evolution of tuning systems; the development of advanced playing techniques and the wide range of music, both solo and consort. The final chapter examines the growth of a viol playing tradition in sixteenth-century England, in particular in the London choir-schools. Dr Woodfield brings iconographic evidence and an interesting approach to this study which will be of interest to musicologists, iconographers, organologists and viol players.

Guarini's 'Il pastor fido' and the Madrigal
Guarini's 'Il pastor fido' and the Madrigal

Author: Seth Coluzzi

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-01-19

Total Pages: 459

ISBN-13: 1315463040

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Battista Guarini’s pastoral tragicomedy Il pastor fido (1589) began its life as a play, but soon was transformed through numerous musical settings by prominent composers of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Through the many lives of this work, this book explores what happens when a lover’s lament is transplanted from the theatrical stage to the courtly chamber, from speech to song, and from a single speaking character to an ensemble of singers, shedding new light on early modern literary and musical culture. From the play’s beginnings in manuscripts, private readings, and aborted stage productions in the 1580s and 1590s, through the gradual decline of Pastor fido madrigals in the 1640s, this book examines how this widely read yet controversial text became the center of a lasting and prolific music tradition. Using a new integrative system of musical-textual analysis based on sixteenth-century theory, Seth Coluzzi demonstrates how composers responded not only to the sentiments, imagery, and form of the play’s speeches, but also to subtler details of Guarini’s verse. Viewing the musical history of Guarini’s work as an integral part of the play’s roles in the domains of theater, literature, and criticism, this book brings a new perspective to the late Italian madrigal, the play, and early modern patronage and readership across a diverse geographical and temporal frame.