Years ago I owned a volume with the complete instrumental music of Luys Milán, 16th century composer of music for vihuela, a guitar-shaped instrument roughly equivalent to the lute that was widely played in Spain. Not to be confused with the modern folk instrument played in Mexico. Alas, I lost it together with a lot of other music, years ago. All I have had of Milán for quite a while are the two fantasias found in the very useful Hispanae Citharae Ars Viva collection by Emilio Pujol. I find myself playing more and more those fantasias so I decided to replace my Milán holdings. There seems to be only one available option these days:
This is a good series--I have previously owned volumes devoted to Luis de Narváez--but it is expensive and the Milán instrumental works are divided into four volumes. Incidentally, the date is likely wrong: Milán's collection for vihuela seems to date from 1536. This makes it the first book published for vihuela and it was followed by six more, up until 1576, each by a different composer. The Die Tabulatur series is semi-scholarly in that it includes three different versions of each piece, aligned vertically. The top version is the original tabulature (very similar to modern tabulature). Underneath it is a transcription on two staves in the notional original key, supposedly for lute or keyboard. On the bottom is the transcription for guitar. I say "semi-scholarly" because a proper scholarly edition would contain a full apparatus of critical commentary and a reference bibliography.
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This is useful in a couple of ways. For one thing, you can always consult the tabulature to see how Milán would have fingered a particular passage. The problem with tablature for contrapuntal music is while it shows where each note begins, it does not show how long it lasts, so the voice-leading is anything but clear. Both transcriptions are interpretations of how the editor thought the voices should be sustained. On the guitar, at least, they are not always feasible and the tablature fingering often does not permit voices to be sustained the way the editor imagines. The big plus of the tablature is that it shows the exact pitch of each note. In the vocal notation of the time there was sometimes a certain ambiguity because there were certain conventions covering the application of accidentals. This practice was called musica ficta. Follow the link for a discussion in Wikipedia. Lute and vihuela tablature shows us how musica ficta was often applied. The only inconvenience with this layout is that there are a lot of page-turns and sometimes your eye might go to the wrong line!
Here is a performance on guitar of this fantasia by Mario Oriz:
Until the invention of the tuning fork in 1711, there was no standardized pitch, but it is usually claimed that the lute was tuned from G to g. The vihuela had the same tuning, though both instruments came in different sizes at different pitches. For this reason the guitarist in the clip has put a capo on the third fret which notionally re-creates the vihuela tuning. It does lighten the sound, which is a plus, and also makes some stretches easier.
As you can hear, this fantasia and others by Milán generally, follows a typical 16th century contrapuntal structure with sections that unfold a single motif in different voices concluding with a cadence. But there are also other, more chordal, sections. In a future post or two I am going to analyse a couple of fantasias in terms of their point of imitation structure, cadences and use of accidentals. How, for example, in this piece might we explain the frequent use of C# alongside the prevailing C natural?
One interesting thing about the efflorescence of vihuela music in 16th century Spain was that from the first book, by Milán, to the last one, by Daza, there is a movement from more abstract musical forms like the fantasia, tiento and pavana, to dances, variations and transcriptions of popular vocal music. Then the guitar took over and the vihuela disappeared.
The who? Yes, the vihuela, an important musical instrument historically, is not well known. I do have a "vihuela" tag, though as I have mentioned the instrument in several posts. The vihuela is largely a Spanish instrument though there is a Mexican vihuela, obviously descended from the days when Mexico was a Spanish colony, that plays a role in mariachi music. You should read the whole article on the vihuela in Wikipedia that I linked to, but here is an excerpt:
Plucked vihuelas, being essentially flat-backed lutes, evolved in the mid-15th century, in the Kingdom of Aragón, located in north-eastern Iberia (Spain). In Spain, Portugal, and Italy the vihuela was in common use by the late 15th through to the late 16th centuries. In the second half of the 15th century some vihuela players began using a bow, leading to the development of the viol.
Here are a couple of pictures of vihuelas. The first is of one of the three surviving vihuelas and the second of a modern reproduction:
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The vihuela looks rather like a guitar, but its double-courses are tuned the same as the lute, which was the primary harmonic instrument in the rest of Europe. I don't think I can cite any sources for this, but a fairly widespread view is that the lute was not played in Spain because it derives from the oud, an instrument of ancient origins, but primarily used in the music of the Islamic cultures from Persia through North Africa. It was undoubtedly brought to the Iberian peninsula when it was conquered by the Moors in the 8th century. Towards the end of the 9th century, the idea of a "reconquista" began to take root amongst the Christian kingdoms remaining in the northwest. This took a very long time and was not complete until 1492, just before the discovery of the New World by Columbus.
Getting back to the music, one can see, I think, the appeal to the Spanish of an instrument that was not associated with the culture of the Moors, but had a similar musical function. In a remarkable flourishing, starting in 1536, a group of Spanish composers, all of whom played the vihuela, published a series of books of music of considerable importance. The first one was by Luis de Milán titled El Maestro. Here is the frontispiece to that book showing Orpheus playing the vihuela:
This book was followed by many others. This was very early in the history of printed music and luckily, copies of several books by different composers have survived. Here is the list from Wikipedia:
These formed an important part of my own musical education as my own maestro in Spain, José Tomás, assigned me a lot of pieces from these books in the first few months of my time with him.
The importance of this repertoire is that it contains a lot of firsts: among the first instrumental music (though there are lot of pieces for voice and vihuela as well) to be printed, the first sets of variations, some of the first instrumental arrangements of vocal music, the very first tempo indications to be printed and so on. But more important than those historical features is the aesthetic quality of the music. All these composers were employed by high-ranking members of the nobility, Milán by the duke of Valencia, Narváez in the royal chapel of Charles V, Mudarra by members of the court of Charles V and the cathedral of Seville and so on. Apart from Valencia, residence of Milán, most of these composers were resident in Valladolid, an important center before the institution of Madrid as the royal capital.
Along with the spectacular vocal music by Tomás Luis de Victoria and others, this was the music of Imperial Spain at its most powerful which is itself interesting. When I visit Spain next month, I am going to spend time in both Valencia and Valladolid and hope to get a tiny sense of the vihuelistas from that. But I am also mulling over the idea of purchasing a vihuela and wondering why I didn't do so decades ago. I suppose it was because vihuela music fits on the guitar quite well, requiring just a small tuning change, but also because my commitment was to the classical guitar and the vihuela repertoire is just a small portion of that repertoire.
But I find myself more and more interested in the music, and the times, of the vihuelistas and playing that music on the original instrument (or a modern copy) is a worthwhile project.
Let's end with some clips of that music. Here is Pedro Alcacer in a 2007 performance of the first six fantasias by Milán for the Vihuela Society of Valencia:
Here is a long clip of music by Luys de Narváez played by the very fine Hopkinson Smith. Alas, no details on the tracks is available and the original recording cannot be found on Amazon.
Here is one of Narváez' most famous pieces, his variations on the romanesca "Guardame las vacas" (if you want to hear Hopkinson Smith's performance of "Guardame" in the previous clip, it starts around the 17:10 mark):
And his "Cancion del Emperador" so-called because it was the favorite of Charles V. It is actually a transcription for vihuela of the famous "Mille Regretz" by Josquin des Prez. The performer is not indicated, but it is quite a nice version.
For a very long time, a thousand years or so, most music was vocal music. All music that was written down was vocal music. We know that instruments were used because we can see them in paintings and carvings, but the only music written down was for the voice. This started to change in the later Middle Ages and Renaissance when we start to see music intended for a mixture of voices and instruments. Then we see instruments such as the lute taking over and playing all the parts. Here is an example:
I have put this piece up before in a different performance, but it is such a good example, that I want to use it again. This is "Mille Regretz" by Josquin that the Spanish vihuelista Luys Narvaez has taken and made into a piece for his instrument. All three voices are there and he has added some ornaments to extend long notes that would have died away. It is just a small step from transcribing music in several voices to composing original music for the lute or vihuela in several voices. Here is an example of a fantasia by Francesco da Milano from the same time:
Of course, as soon as the instrumental fantasia, based on vocal style, was born, it took on a life of its own and soon acquired features characteristic of instruments but very unlikely for voices. See how virtuosic the fantasia has become just a few decades later in the music of John Dowland:
The same evolution was going on in the keyboard as well with vocal type polyphony for the organ:
And for the harpsichord:
But performers and composers soon discovered that the keyboard could do things that no voice was capable of and developed special forms such as the toccata and partita:
Towards the end of the Baroque the idea of a keyboard sonata came into being. This was a piece, composed originally for the keyboard, with no reference to vocal style except for the idea of independent
parts, corresponding to the individual singers. The idea was to give free rein to all that fingers on a keyboard could accomplish. The composer who really devoted himself to this was Domenico Scarlatti, composer of over five hundred sonatas for solo harpsichord. Here are a couple of them:
That's a long way from vocal music! As the Classical period began, the idea of a solo keyboard sonata was transformed because their basic concept of instrumental form was the multi-movement work. This played out in the string quartet and the symphony, both usually in four movements: a quick opening movement in what became known as "sonata" form or "sonata-allegro" form, a slow movement, often in variation form, a minuet or scherzo dance movement, and a finale that was often in rondo form. Both Haydn and Mozart wrote piano sonatas of this kind. Here is one by Haydn:
This sonata, No 32 in B minor, dating from around 1775, is in three movements. The first is in two repeated halves in which the first half presents a simple theme, based on the notes of the tonic triad, and since this in a minor key, moves to the nearest related key: the relative major, D major. After the repeat, the second half takes the same theme (there could be more themes, of course) and, after destabilizing our sense of key, moves to E minor, then F# minor before returning to B minor for the end. Very simple, but effective. The second movement is a minuet in B major and trio in B minor. The last movement, a presto, is in much the same form as the first. The first half gives us a simple theme and modulates to D major. The second half takes that theme through a wider range of keys before returning to the tonic. Mozart takes a somewhat different approach:
In the first movement (from the Sonata in A minor, K. 310 written in 1778), also in minor, he gives us not one, but two contrasting themes. The first is a bit dramatic, descending in dotted notes, in A minor. At the end of this section, he modulates to the relative major (as did Haydn), in this case C major. But then, we have a new, contrasting theme in C major with a lyrical quality. The second half begins with the first theme, but now in C major and continues with some exotic harmonies (there is a nice Neapolitan sixth) and a lot of passage work using the dotted rhythm from the first theme. Then we return to A minor and the first theme as it was in the beginning. The second theme also appears, but in A minor, and more passage work (by that I mean typical keyboard arpeggios and scales) leads us to the ending in A minor.
All this makes a nice introduction to the piano sonatas of Beethoven, which I have already put up several posts on back in October. Here they are:
In terms of range and depth of musical expression, these sonatas of Beethoven are almost as far away from the much simpler sonatas of Haydn and Mozart as those, in turn, are from the lute fantasias of the 16th century!
Next time I will take up Beethoven and what makes him so important...
